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.