The plot follows the teenager Aubrey, one of a few individuals who can use magic in this semi-familiar world. So don't look for a steampunk novel but rather a fantasy that incorporates some steampunk elements weakly. The world is a sort of Victorian setting with the advanced technology based on cogs and gears you would expect in a steampunk but it's a weaker form. It is not exactly steampunk in the fullest sense of the word. I say semi because I do not want to provide a completely wrong idea of this novel and ruin any expectations you may hold. It is set in a world at once similar to and very different from our own world, a world which I would loosely describe as a sort of semi steam-punk world. This is book one in a YA series which is very well written (by an Australian I might as well mention). So I have come back - not from the grave of course - to write this review so those rare few who read my reviews will know to read it if it at all intrigues them. Well no one except perhaps my mum as I did lend her the first book to read I believe. Here's one of those books that I discover on the occasion that is a little bit of a gem and yet no one I know has read it. My reviews tend toward the three word style of the trenchant critic, N. I’ve also twice won the Best and Fairest Award at West Brunswick Amateur Football Club. Nine of my books have been CBC Notable Books, I’ve been longlisted for a Golden Inky and I’ve been shortlisted for the WAYBRA Award.

My short stories have twice been featured in Gardner Dozois’ ‘Highly Recommended’ lists in The Year’s Best Science Fiction and The Year’s Best Fantasy. I’ve been shortlisted eleven times for the Aurealis Award for Speculative Fiction, and have also been nominated for a Ditmar award. My writing moves from literary fiction to genre Science Fiction to slapstick humour, depending on my mood. I've published over thirty-five novels and more than sixty of my short stories have appeared in Australia and overseas in publications such as Overland and the New South Wales School Magazine. I’ve taught English, Literature, Drama, Legal Studies and Computer Studies. I’ve worked as a drainer’s labourer, a truck driver, a bathroom accessories salesperson, an Internet consultant, a Multimedia Developer, a Publisher, in a scrap metal yard and as a secondary school teacher. I lived in Geelong until I went to university in Melbourne after secondary school.

I spent my childhood in country Victoria and Melbourne before moving to Geelong at the age of 10. Check out my Fantasy podcast, 'The World Below the War in the Heavens' wherever you get your podcasts!

Blaze of glory michael pryor