The work week begins. I quickly slip into my business suit and head back into the office to save a few innocent people. But while I try to fool myself into being excited about the grind, deep down, I’m not, so I’m going to escape dreary reality by reading some great books.

And this week I’m going to be trying to lose myself in a couple of novels, beginning with this steampunk adventure from the great people over at Tor!

Gideon Smith and the Mask of the Ripper by David Barnett

Genre: Steampunk

Series: Gideon Smith #3

Publisher: Tor (October 13, 2015)

Length: 384 pages

“In an alternate nineteenth century where a technologically advanced Britain holds sway over most of the known world and the American Revolution never happened, young Gideon Smith is firmly established as the Hero of the Empire.

Back in London, Gideon and his colleagues: journalist Aloysius Bent, airship pilot Rowena Fanshawe, and Maria, the mechanical girl to whom Gideon has lost his heart, are dragged into a case that is confounding the Metropolitan Police. For the city is on the edge of mass rioting due to the continuing reign of terror by the serial killer known only as Jack the Ripper, who is rampaging though London’s less salubrious quarters.

While chasing the madman, a villain from their past strips Gideon Smith of his memory and is cast adrift in the seedy underbelly of London, where life is tough and death lurks in every shadowy alley.

With mob rule threatening to engulf London, the Empire has never needed its hero more…but where is Gideon Smith?

Gideon Smith and the Mask of the Ripper is the latest in David Barnett’s riproaring steampunk adventures about a Britain that never was…but should have been.”

Purchase the book at Amazon.

Next up is an series that I’ve always wanted to read from beginning to end but never been able to. Now, though, we have the complete series.

The Complete Morgaine by C.J. Cherryh

Genre: Fantasy

Series: This is the complete series in one volume.

Publisher: DAW (September 1, 2015)

Length: 817 pages

“Together for the first time in one volume—all four novels in the dark science fiction epic, the Morgaine Cycle.

The gates were relics of a lost era, a linked network of portals that the ruthless Qual empire used to span Time and Space. The Science Buereau has come to believe that sometime, somewhere in the unreachable past, someone has done the unthinkable and warped the very fabric of the universe using these gates. Now, it is up to Morgaine, a mysterious woman aided by a single warrior honor-bound to serve her, to travel from world to world sealing the ancient gates whose very existence threatens the integrity of all worlds…”

Purchase the book at Amazon.