The Extraordinaires: The Extinction Gambit

Opens with Kingsley Ward about to gives his first performance as an escape artist ( like Houdini) on stage in 1908. Pryor had me completely fooled at the beginning with Kingsley's fight to control his "wolf side" as I was thinking it was another werewolf trying to live among us story....which it isn't! Spoiler alert: Think Tarazan and the fact that Kingsley is befrrended by Rudyard Kipling, the author of The Jungle Book, and you are on the right track. After a disastrous first performance where he is rescued by the theatre's juggler and albino Evadne Stephens. Kinglsley discovers that his guardian, Dr Ward has been abducted, and that he is in the middle of a war in the seedier side of London called the Demimonde, between some hideous show more child-like Immortals (who steal people to keep themselves Immortal) and have creepy Death-looking servants to do their bidding, and the last of the Neanderthals who have been forced by current man to retreat underground. This is a book with lots of nifty gadgets ; Evadne is a very accomplished inventor of robots and weapons and the Neanderthals are trying to perfect a time machine that will allow them to go back and wipe out the Homo Sapiens before they take over the world. Both the Immortals and the Neanderthals power revolves around a mysterious substance called Phlogiston which powers everything and is worth a fortune ( an "essence of life" substance that comes in test -tube like glowing vials. Its an exciting story that veers off from Kingsley and Evadne at times to dwell with the eldest of the Neanderthals Damona and her point of view, and also the underworld gangster Soames who is betraying everyone to get rich quick. There is also a side step in time from 1908 to 1666 and the Great Fire of London. The first in a series, the book ends in resolution, so you are not left hanging for the next one. Will appeal to people who like a darker, more scientific Harry Potter. show less