This isn't an easy to review to write. Not because I didn't like it - quite the opposite really - but because to review the book I have to describe it, and WHITECHAPEL GODS is so bizarre and imaginative, I'm not sure how to describe it. I'm not even sure what genre to put it in. This book is one of the most imaginative, inventive genre-bending thing I've seen in years, filled with so many new ideas that its hard to take it all in. Here's my best take: a Lovecraftian gothic steampunk horror psycho thriller. On drugs. Very, very good drugs.

Let me try and be a bit more specific. WHITECHAPEL GODS is set in the Whitechapel district of London at some time in the mid to late 1900s. The borough has been walled off for decades in response the appearance of two alien intelligences that appeared there. One is a masculine intelligence of gears and logic, the other a feminine force of creative engineering and inspiration: Grandfather Clock and Mama Engine. The natural order has been utterly wrecked, and in Whitechapel steel girders grow like trees, men have their hearts replaced with coal furnaces, and a plague runs through the populace that gradually turns the victims into clockwork men. Into this nightmarish world, agents loyal to the Crown strive to overthrow Grandfater Clock, Mama Engine and their servants. And that's just a sampling of the setting. I haven't even mentioned the mechanical rats, brain-sculpting mad scientists or the drug trips. Nor have I even gotten to the plot, which involves murdering prostitutes, scorned godlings, vengeful (ex)lovers, secret weapons, plans for secret weapons, spies and animation of the dead.

I think I could write more words trying to describe the book than are actually in the book, which leads me to my one and only complaint with this book: it's too cool to be over that fast. This book practically begs for sequels, prequels or the ubiquitous trilogy treatment. The plot starts into motion without much of the way of a preamble, and the reader is left to piece together the setting and the backstory through hints and suggestion. It's a great way to tell the story, and is terribly effective, but by the time you get your head around what's going on, the book is moving on to the next mind-warping concept. I want more, and can't wait to read whatever Mr. Peters writes next. I also want whatever drugs he's on, because...wow.

Book Summary

In Victorian London, the Whitechapel section is a mechanized, steam-driven hell, cut off and ruled by two mysterious, mechanical gods-Mama Engine and Grandfather Clock. Some years have passed since the Great Uprising, when humans rose up to fight against the machines, but a few brave veterans of the Uprising have formed their own Resistance-and are gathering for another attack. For now they have a secret weapon that may finally free them-or kill them all...