High Crimes and Miscreants

By D. L. Mackenzie

Phineas Magnetron is an eccentric Nineteenth Century inventor and former Union soldier who sustained a war injury which has unaccountably bestowed upon him a strange gift he doesn't completely understand. No stranger to peril and derring-do, Phineas is asked to join the Hogalum Society, an inscrutable secret organization of crime fighting adventurers, by none other than Society founder Dr. Yngve Hogalum.

Traveling the globe in their Luftigel electric airship, Phineas Magnetron and his Hogalum brothers encounter mistrustful policemen, mentally ill criminals, wood-craving aliens, a witch doctor, a mad oracle, and a cross-dressing female matador, among many others. However, this "steam dream team" always manages to triumph over impossible odds and improbable obstacles as they preserve order in a disorderly world with all the Steam Age weird science they can muster.

The Magnetron Chronicles is a serialized steampunk tale re-envisioning the future of generations past with all the breathless melodrama and tumult of that Victorian-era pulp fiction staple, the "penny dreadful." The narrative harks back to the grandiose style of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, but gently satirized with a sprinkling of purposeful anachronisms, double entendres, tongue-in-cheek inventions, and droll Twainian humor. Adapted from "The Secret Journals of Phineas J. Magnetron," a web serial characterized by short chapters with cliffhanger endings, the story builds chapter by chapter, volume by volume, as quirky new characters join the fray and perplexing new mysteries and situations arise.

The Magnetron Chronicles is a planned 12-volume series of novelette-length volumes. In this fourth volume, "High Crimes and Miscreants," Phineas Magnetron and the Hogalum Society find themselves the victims of a breathtakingly treacherous plot hatched by the perfidious League of Miscreants. Framed, captured, jailed, and betrayed by one of their own, Magnetron and his compatriots must regain their freedom despite overwhelming evidence against them. In the process, they solve a host of burning mysteries, and set the stage for a pivotal confrontation with a criminal mastermind.

• Language: English
• Publisher: D. L. Mackenzie
• Release date: Sep 3, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476299372

D. L. Mackenzie

D. L. Mackenzie pounds on a computer somewhere in the desiccated cultural wilderness of Phoenix, Arizona. When he's not writing or more gainfully employed elsewhere, he enjoys hiking the valley's surrounding mountains, traveling, listening to obscure music, and performing unremarkable household chores with his hyperactive wife. He has a love/hate relationship with American politics and is known to bore and annoy anyone within earshot with his radically sensible political ideas. He has written scads of scandalously intemperate opinion pieces and a short story or two, but remains smitten with classic fiction by such authors as Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe, Jules Verne, and H. G. Wells. His new (2012) series "The Magnetron Chronicles" brings eccentric inventor Phineas J. Magnetron out of mothballs for new tongue-in-cheek neo-Victorian adventures in the heady Age of Steam.

Book preview

The Magnetron Chronicles, Volume 4:

HIGH CRIMES AND MISCREANTS

By D. L. Mackenzie

SMASHWORDS EDITION

PUBLISHED BY:

D. L. Mackenzie on Smashwords

Escape from Xanadu

Copyright © 2002-2012 by D. L. Mackenzie

Smashwords Edition License Notes:

This electronic book is licensed for your individual enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away. If you would like to share this book, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction. All fictional characters portrayed are completely fictional and any similarity to real people living or dead is unintended and purely coincidental. Events portrayed may include real historical figures, but since the events themselves are fictional, any statements or actions by those historical figures may also be understood to be fictional.

* * * * *

All contents copyright © 2002-2012 by D. L. Mackenzie. All rights reserved.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1 ~ Magnetron Gyres and Gimbles

Chapter 2 ~ Magnetron and the Mad Oracle

Chapter 3 ~ Magnetron Absconds

Chapter 4 ~ Magnetron Reads between the Lines

Chapter 5 ~ Magnetron the Great Unwashed

Chapter 6 ~ Magnetron Betrayed

Chapter 7 ~ Magnetron Stays Hungry

Chapter 8 ~ Magnetron Tempts Atropos

Chapter 9 ~ Magnetron on Ice

Chapter 10 ~ Magnetron's Solicitor

Chapter 11 ~ Magnetron's Day in Court

Chapter 12 ~ Magnetron Solemnly Swears

Chapter 13 ~ Magnetron Bears Witness

Chapter 14 ~ Magnetron's Hopeless Case

Chapter 15 ~ Magnetron Comes Unglued

Chapter 16 ~ Magnetron's Commutation

Chapter 17 ~ Magnetron's Recusal

Chapter 18 ~ Magnetron Connects the Dots

Chapter 19 ~ Magnetron Breaks His Fast

Chapter 20 ~ Magnetron Dithers Endlessly

Epilogue ~ Magnetron Gains Notoriety

Afterword

About The Magnetron Chronicles

About the Author

Acknowledgments

Prologue

In the previous volume of The Magnetron Chronicles, Phineas Magnetron and the Hogalum Society have stumbled upon the greatest mystery of all time, a dome-shaped alien installation designed to spy upon the human race. Having inadvertently disabled the dome, they are left with one remaining artifact: a jeweled medallion of rare power. They must now consult with Caernarvon, the Mad Oracle of Grfcfglwcd Glyn, in the hope of learning more about the strange device and its alien origins.

In this fourth volume of Magnetron's journals, the Hogalum Society is betrayed by one of their own, falling victim to an inconceivably treacherous plot to defame their names and deny their liberty. As they attempt to extricate themselves from the trap, other burning mysteries are finally solved, and the stage is set for a pivotal confrontation with a criminal mastermind. And now, the thrilling continuation of the only known historical account of the brave, uncompromising, and unconventional heroes of the Hogalum Society: The Magnetron Chronicles.

Chapter 1 ~ Magnetron Gyres and Gimbles

A thought suddenly occurred to me, fantastical and foolish, yes, but so forceful as to defy rational thought and lodge in my brain, fixed and immovable.

We set down in Grfcfglwcd Glyn in the late afternoon, and a more inauspicious locale I cannot recall. As I readied myself for travelling on foot, my mind wandered. As homesick as I was, my mind bustled with a hundred and one unrelated topics, each disconcertingly outside my sphere of control.

Our time in Zhen Atu had shaken me, upending my entire conception of existence, from the nature and genesis of humanity to the laws of physics. All I could grasp with any pretense of certainty was that the human race was being observed by an alien race with the power to stop time itself. This knowledge in turn raised an unending stream of seemingly unanswerable questions. Valkusian believed these questions could be answered by a mystic seer named Caernarvon, such belief occasioning our journey to Wales. For my part, I was dubious.

A thought suddenly occurred to me, fantastical and foolish, yes, but so forceful as to defy rational thought and lodge in my brain, fixed and immovable. I would ask Caernarvon some questions of my own: Who had killed Dr. Hogalum? What mischief was my old nemesis Eldridge Compost up to? Was Mangaliku, the witch doctor, capable of controlling me remotely with the same black magic he had used against my butler Anders?

As we made our way down the gangplank to the sodden Welsh soil, my spirits lifted, even as I continued to grapple with black presentiments and gray imponderables. I recalled with intense clarity my profound shame at