Steamboy

Steamboy

Ray Steam is a kid in Victorian Manchester who spends his days tinkering in factories and swiping spare parts for his own gadgets, just like the famous inventors in his family before him. Then a package arrives from his grandfather, who's been working in America. Inside is a metal ball with a valve on it, and it hums with something Ray can't explain. Before he can even figure out what he's holding, men from the O'Hara Foundation kick in his door and demand he hand it over. So much for a quiet afternoon. He grabs the thing and runs, dodging pursuers through the streets on his way to Robert Stephenson, an old colleague of his grandfather. That ball, the Steamball, carries a power people would happily start a war over. His father Edward wants to harness it and push technology as far as it will go. His grandfather Lloyd thinks half of what gets invented is just a weapon waiting to be pointed at someone. And the British Empire, with the Great Exhibition around the corner, isn't about to let a kid from Manchester decide the future of steam on his own. Ray only knows he doesn't want his grandfather's work turned into a gun. But he's young, and the men circling him are not. When the people you love stand on opposite sides of the same machine, whose version of the future do you build?