Fiction Science Fiction Steampunk

Cardanica

Name: Cardanica
Rating: 3.86 (84 reviews)
Author: Dario Tonani

Dario Tonani

3.86 84 Ratings

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Synopsis

«Un delizioso incubo steampunk che trasuda olio da ogni fessura»
Graham Edwards

«Ho letto Cardanica e adesso non voglio più prendere nemmeno un ascensore» Roberto Grassilli

«Dai tempi di ‘I Have no mouth and I must scream’ di Harlan Ellison non leggevo una migliore descrizione dell’uomo alla mercé delle sue creazioni sadiche e vendicative»
Paul Di Filippo

Tradotto anche in inglese (e molto apprezzato negli Stati Uniti), “Cardanica” è il primo episodio del ciclo di Mondonove (seguono “Robredo” e “Chatarra”).

Un racconto steampunk su un mondo velenoso solcato da camion grandi come bastimenti. La “Robredo” è un camion gigantesco, il fiore all’occhiello della tecnologia ingegneristica locale. Costruita di metallo e legno, é alimentata da un “mix alchemico” di vapore e batteri…

Una storia con elementi di horror e fantascienza. Un incubo alla Kubrick.

L’AUTORE

Dario Tonani è un apprezzato scrittore di fantascienza, in grado di coinvolgere anche e soprattutto i lettori non di genere. Ha vinto premi Tolkien (1989) Lovecraft (1994, 1999), Italia (1989,1992, 2000)

Books similar to Cardanica

Works of Jules Verne : Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea; A Journey to the Center of the Earth; From the Earth to the Moon; Round the Moon; Around the World in Eighty Days

★ 4.26

Jules Verne

This superb volume of classic science fiction and adventure represents the best of Jules Verne, the master of imaginative literature who has been called "The Father of Science Fiction."

The stories in this volume are complete and unabridged-- the original novels as they were first published -- illustrated by hundreds of rare, exciting and atmospheric 19th century French engravings.

The books of Jules Verne created characters and formulated ideas which have stimulated and entertained countless readers since they first appeared. They have been the subject of films, radio dramatizations and have even been presented on ice Read the originals now and one of the world's greatest ever story tellers will give you hours of pleasure and enjoyment.

Stories included are: "Around the World in 80 Days, The Clipper of the Clouds, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, From the Earth to the Moon" and "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea."

Clockwork Lives

★ 4.18

Kevin J. Anderson

In Clockwork Angels, Anderson and Rush band musician Pearl create a world of airships and alchemy, clockwork carnivals, pirates, and lost cities. A rigid Watchmaker controls every aspect of life; his nemesis, the ruthless and violent Anarchist wants to destroy it all.

Anderson and Peart have returned to their colourful creation to explore the places and the characters that still have a hold on their imagination. Marinda Peake is a woman with a quiet, perfect life in a small village; she long ago gave up on her dreams and ambitions to take care of her ailing father, an alchemist and an inventor. When he dies, he gives Marinda a mysterious inheritance: a blank book that she must fill with other people’s stories — and ultimately her own.

Clockwork Lives is a steampunk Canterbury Tales, and much more, as Marinda strives to change her life from a mere “sentence or two” to a true epic.

Magnificent Devices: The Claire Quartet, #1-4

★ 4.26

Shelley Adina

This four-book set contains the “Claire Quartet”—Lady of Devices, Her Own Devices, Magnificent Devices, and Brilliant Devices, an edition of over 250,000 words.

London, 1889. Victoria is Queen. Charles Darwin’s son is Prime Minister. And steam is the power that runs the world.

At 17, Claire Trevelyan, daughter of Viscount St. Ives, was expected to do nothing more than pour an elegant cup of tea, sew a fine seam, and catch a rich husband. Unfortunately, Claire’s talents lie not in the ballroom, but in the chemistry lab, where things have a regrettable habit of blowing up. When her father gambles the estate on the combustion engine and loses, Claire finds herself down and out on the mean streets of London. But being a young woman of resources and intellect, she turns fortune on its head …

A South Bank gang—Snouts, Tigg, Jake, 10-year-old twin girls called the Mopsies, Weepin’ Willie, and Rosie the chicken—soon becomes Claire’s flock. But concealing her secret life becomes increasingly difficult, particularly when a powerful lord proposes and she and her friends are forced to flee on an airship to the Americas. Will she achieve her goal of a university degree? Will her loyalty to her friends be her undoing when it jeopardizes the plans of powerful men who desire money more than honor? And just how many funerals will her unfortunate mother be forced to arrange?

Free-Wrench

★ 4.12

Joseph R. Lallo

The islands of Caldera are a shining jewel in a rather bleak world. A terrible calamity in the past had blanketed much of the world with a toxic "fug." Those who survived were forced to take to the mountains and the skies in wondrous airships. Life has since been a struggle, with only the most ruthless and crafty able to survive. To spare themselves the same fate, the Calderans erected a battery of guns to fend off the airships of the mainland. They isolated themselves from the madness of the world, choosing instead to focus on the pursuits of art and creativity. Few believe the technologically advanced but socially barbarous outsiders have anything to offer. Amanita Graus, though, is hoping that they do.

Nita's mother has lost her livelihood and perhaps soon her life to a terrible disease. Already the black sheep of the family for embracing engineering rather than art, Nita resolves to leave the safety of her home and do whatever it takes to find a cure. For a price, the bizarre crew of an airship called The Wind Breaker are willing to grant her a meeting with their mysterious benefactors, and thus a chance to procure the one thing with a chance to save her mother.
Free-Wrench follows Nita’s adventures in a steampunk world of airships and lunatics. Helping her in her journey are an eccentric crew of smugglers; the gruff Cap’n Mack, the simple but enthusiastic Lil and Coop, the arrogant marksman Gunner, the surly surgeon Butch, and the irritable mascot Wink. To survive and find what she seeks she’ll need to earn their trust, follow their rules, and meet face to face with the people who pull the strings of their society.

Laevium

★ 4.23

Ruxandra Tarca

Building Her Majesty’s new airship for the Engineers World Gathering is no small matter. Especially when a groundbreaking discovery is at stake, and dark secrets are lurking in the shadows.

In a Neo-Victorian London of mechanical horses and aerial gondotrams, airship engineer Jasper Kendall Asher has a bright future ahead as the youngest member of the Engineers Order and a secret agent in Her Majesty’s service. But a terrible accident brutally changes the course of his career, sending him instead to a dull life as a mechanic among the poor of St. Giles.

Three years later, unusual circumstances give him the opportunity to return into service as the main engineer for the Queen’s new airship—and a chance to uncover the truth behind the unfortunate event that changed his life.

Along with an outlandish woman navigator, a reckless female agent, and his taciturn brother, Jasper resumes his work. From his workbench, to London’s airharbour, to remote Scottish villages, he follows the trail of a scientific discovery that promises to reveal much darker plots than he initially imagined in his search for answers.

Romulus Buckle & the Engines of War

★ 4.07

Richard Ellis Preston Jr.

The frozen wasteland of Snow World―known as Southern California before an alien invasion decimated civilization―is home to warring steampunk clans. Crankshafts, Imperials, Tinskins, Brineboilers, and many more all battle one another for precious supplies, against ravenous mutant beasts for basic survival, and with the mysterious Founders for their very freedom. Through this ruined world soars the Pneumatic Zeppelin , captained by the daring Romulus Buckle. In the wake of a nearly suicidal assault on the Founders’ prison city to rescue key military leaders, both the steam-powered airship and its crew are bruised and battered. Yet there’s little time for rest or Founders raids threaten to shatter the fragile alliance Buckle has risked everything to forge among the clans. Even as he musters what seems a futile defense in the face of inevitable war, Buckle learns that the most mysterious clan of all is holding his long-lost sister in a secret base―and that she holds the ultimate key to victory over the Founders. But rescuing her means abandoning his allies and praying they survive long enough for there to be an alliance to return to.

Waking

★ 4.06

Emily Thompson

Twist has never left London, until today. Now he's traveling on an airship--with a crew that insists they're not pirates--on his way to find the clockwork princess because he's the only one who can fix her.

In true Neo-Victorian style, Clockwork Twist is set in a lush and vibrant world where things are as you might expect in 1878. That is, of course, if fantastic creatures like djinn, faeries, kitsunes and vampires were commonplace. An increasing number of people are being born with supernatural senses, called Sights. While airship tourism is sweeping the globe, air-piracy is also on the rise.

Twist is among the Sighted, but his Sight is unusual. While others might be able to see and hear over great distances, find anything they can imagine anywhere in the world, or even recognize every type of flower by scent alone, Twist's Sight shows him only damage. Whenever he touches a broken clock or machine, he can instantly understand the damage and can fix it easily. If he touches a person, even for a moment, his mind fills with a terrible vision of whatever trauma or pain once broke them. Naturally, he's chosen a solitary existence and shuns all human contact.

Unfortunately, thanks to his seclusion, Twist is also unfamiliar with everything beyond his own clock shop, hidden away on a quiet and ever-drizzly London street. When a treasure hunter arrives at his door with proof that they have found the fabled clockwork princess--Twist's favorite old fairy tale--it's up to Twist alone to bring her back to life.

The continuing series of Clockwork Twist begins with book one: Waking. Join Twist as he embarks on his first adventure, and find out first hand if he can actually survive it.

Skykeep

★ 4.25

Joseph R. Lallo

It has taken some adjustment, but Nita Graus has made quite a home for herself among the crew of the Wind Breaker. Under her skillful care it has become one of the only airships to stay aloft without the continuous repair and oversight of the vile and manipulative fug folk. Word of her adventures with Captain Mack, Gunner, Lil, Cooper, and Wink has made the whole crew into living legends among the residents of the mountain towns of Rim, but in doing so it has also made finding safe harbor virtually impossible. Agents of the fug folk and those working on their behalf hide in every cloud and skulk in every shadow.

Only one town, a place called Lock, is willing to welcome the Wind Breaker into port. Most of the townspeople have already been shunned by the Fug Folk, and as such have little to lose in aiding and abetting the crew. Captain Mack, mindful of his advancing age and the risks he's had to request of his crew time and time again, has begun to plan for his retirement. Plans are swiftly derailed when the fug folk hatch a plan of their own, splitting the crew and locking Nita away in the floating prison known as Skykeep.

Skykeep is the second book in the Free-Wrench saga and continues to chronicle the adventures of Nita and her new crew as they continue to clash with the twisted figures who control the destiny of a continent.

Cardanica

Books similar to Cardanica

Works of Jules Verne : Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea; A Journey to the Center of the Earth; From the Earth to the Moon; Round the Moon; Around the World in Eighty Days

Clockwork Lives

Magnificent Devices: The Claire Quartet, #1-4

Free-Wrench

Laevium

Romulus Buckle & the Engines of War

Waking

Skykeep

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