In the search for truth, Marcel meets Sylvaine, an Engineer who discovers that her Knack allows her to repair machines and build bombs with her mind. Amongst this dense and complex world, Marcel’s investigation keeps the story centered, as he discovers the secrets of the documents while navigating industry and magic. Other darker powers include a drug derivative that can turn people into drones, subject to the commands of a single man. Magic joins this industrial world, where cities once floated above the earth, where “Engineers” have the “Knack” to refashion metal and other dense materials with their minds, and a mysterious red substance pumped out of the earth, called sangleum, serves as the city’s lifeblood and its source of wealth. As a dieselpunk novel, The Sightless City embraces a more 20 th Century feel of industrialization than Victorian steampunk.ĭarkness saturates the world with unimaginable cruelties of forced labor camps and grim images of factories pumping out clouds of dark smoke – and people too terrified to ask what goes on within those walls. Especially troubling is his friendship with Lazarus Roache, a fellow hero and now the richest, most powerful man in town. His investigation robs him of all certainty, forcing him to question what he once thought he knew about his world, his role in the revolution. Marcel relentlessly investigates the true nature of the documents and the death of their owner. However, the schematics to a strange device throw his temporary calm into disarray. Now he’s settled down to work as a private detective. Marcel Talwar lost his leg to that conflict but became a national hero for saving Huile. The city of Huile burns with trouble in Noah Lemelson’s dieselpunk novel The Sightless City.įour years ago, the United Confederacy of the Citizens Resurgence defeated the Principate in a devastating war.

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The sightless city by noah lemelson