Dark Sleeper by Jeffrey E. Barlough

Dark Sleeper is a delightful, debonair and decidedly Dickensian departure from dime-a-dozen fantasy. Jeffrey E. Barlough, who published the book in 2000, attempts and mostly succeeds in writing an entire fantasy novel in the style and form of Charles Dickens, with a dash of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle thrown in.

Let me be clear. This is not a steampunk novel, set in the nineteenth century while incorporating twentieth-century technology, winking at the sensibilities and conventions of the time. Barlough has created a genuine alternate world, and tells a nineteenth-century story that includes demons, magic, immortals, mastodons and saber-tooth cats.

The setting of Dark Sleeper is Salthead, a bustling harbor city in a land that is sparsely populated and quite cold. Some centuries ago, the “sundering” occurred: an ev... Read More