Of Swords and Parasols

Taya is an Icarus, a courier who travels via a harness with metal wings. She aspires to move up in the ranks and become a politician, but currently performs services for the city of Ondinium. When she saves the lives of an Exalted (aristocrat), Viera, and her son, she becomes involved in the lives of Viera’s cousins, Alister and Cristof. Alister and Cristof both want to change the city and its caste system, but in different (eventually spoilery) ways. Alister, charming and popular, is a politician in the city, and is working on a program to insert into the Great Machine that runs their lives that he hopes will better them. Cristof, meanwhile, has denied his caste status and repairs clocks in the lowest levels of the city, but has many secrets.

The book is billed as fantasy, but its fantasy only in the sense that it’s a reimagined world. There’s no magic to speak of, unless you include the existence of a substance that lets people defy gravity and fly on metal wings. The society is partly based on Roman society (Ondinium is a thinly veiled reference to Londinium, the Roman name for London) but includes elements from other cultures as well. The names follow no real pattern, but fit together well. The technology makes the book largely fit into the steampunk genre, but there are also elements of modern technology mixed in.

And, really, it almost reads like a response to the (legitimate) criticisms of the steampunk genre.

( cut for length )
Mystery, lots of adventure, lots of action. Interesting, developed characters, both major characters and minor characters, and an engaging but non-intrusive romance. And a three-tiered city where people fly on metal wings.