Adam Christopher’s debut novel Empire State starts off as if it were going to be another steampunkish noir superhero novel. But that is all jettisoned after the first chapter and we find ourselves in an alternate reality where the rules (and people) are similar, but just different enough to catch our attention. The book quickly becomes a noirish detective novel which is not unlike the movie Dark City only with an alternate universe twist. I like the merging of genres that Christopher did, even if I wasn’t always thrilled with the result. Let’s see what happened to find out why.

“How can it be the year Nineteen Fifty? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Hmm.” the Captain looked Rad up and down. “How old are you?”
“Forty-four”
“And what year was it, oh, twenty-one years ago?”
Rad Snorted. “Now I know you’re crazy. This is only the year Nineteen.”
Carson smiled tightly. It was  and expression devoid of all emotion. Rad suddenly felt cold, and felt his heart race as adrenaline pumped through his body.
“Oh, no…no no no no no…”
“How then,” said the Captain, slowly, “are you forty-four years old?”

This exchange cuts to the core of the book. But let’s head back to the beginning. Rex runs a small, but highly profitable, bootlegging operation in 1920s New York. But McCabe, the big kahuna in other parts of the city, is starting to edge in on his territory. After narrowly escaping from McCabe, Rex finds himself in with a group of people watching an epic battle between the Science Pirate and the Skyguard. The two of them used to be the superhero team protecting New York City, but they had some sort of falling out that led to them waging war against each other without concern for who else gets hurt. After Science Pirate knocks Skyguard into the ground, the helmet is taken off and Science Pirate is revealed to be a woman. Rex wanders away, trying to follow her and finds the woman (changed into a different outfit) in an alley and he attacks her.

Then we move to Rod, a down on his luck private detective who has a woman come into his office to hire him for a case. Rod is a feeling out of sorts since he was rescued the previous night by the Skyguard, but the Skyguard has been recently executed after spending 19 years in jail. Katherine Kopek wants Rod to find her missing partner, Sam (Shelton)Saturn. The police aren’t too interested in the goings on of lesbian couples, so she needs to have a private detective look around. Rod starts getting deeper into an investigation that leads him to his good friend, star reporter Kane Fortuna, a mysteriously knowledgeable Captain Carson, a presumably evil genius named Nimrod and a mysterious preacher named the Pastor of Lost Souls. As Rod gets deeper into the mystery, the Skyguard warns him on one side while others are pushing him to another side. The mystery deepens as the true nature of Empire State is revealed and the war efforts are revealed to be not what anyone expected.

Overall, the book has an interesting story with great characters, but the writing makes it a bit confusing in places. There are a few times when it got confusing trying to figure out who was on which side. The ending is a giant sprawling mess where no one is quite sure what will happen and the reader is left guessing who wants to destroy the world and who wants to save it. I enjoyed the book and will look forward to additional stories from Adam Christopher. Recommended.