If you’re a fan of steampunk fantasy, Alan K. Baker’s “The Martian Ambassador” is a real treat. If you don’t know what steampunk fantasy is..eh..it’s kind of like what would have happened if the Victorians had developed technology similar to ours but not quite. Spaceships powered by steam, that kind of thing.

Set in a Victorian time where Mars has made peaceful contact with the British Empire, and human technology is advancing in surprising directions (computers powered by Irish fairies anyone?), Her Majesty’s special investigator Thomas Blackwood and amateur sleuth Lady Sophia Harrington set out to prevent war between the two great powers when Mars’s ambassador is murdered, and a mysterious killer roams the streets of London.

A bit like a Victorian version of The Avengers, it’s great fun, with more than a tip of the cap at HG Wells’s “War of the Worlds”. I really enjoyed the audiobook version.