The Hierarchy of Angels by William Whitley, released in May 2026, is a debut novel that drops readers straight into a richly imagined alternate-history world that feels like a lost Jules Verne epic, with strong shades of Philip Reeve’s Mortal Engines thrown in for good measure. It is a steampunk adventure, but a particularly grounded and educated one about Victorian engineering, espionage, and the dawn of aerial warfare. It’s a book that feels less written than excavated from an archive of the 1880s, and one that announces itself as the first instalment of what promises to be a fine series.
The story opens with a forbidding prologue in Lower Manhattan on a November afternoon in 1887, as an entire iron-framed building shudders and collapses into the street while two shadowy figures look on. The story proper largely follows Declan McGowan, a former U.S. Navy officer turned civilian engineer working at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. His story starts when the Navy’s newest steel cruiser, USS Atlanta, is mysteriously disabled in Block Island Sound by a colossal airborne vessel.
After it is determined to be done by an unknown weapon, Declan is drafted into a covert Pinkerton-led task force charged with locating the source of the mystery ship. The first encounter with the enormous airship Imperator, rising silently out of a fog bank with no flag is a thrilling moment. On the subsequent transatlantic voyage to England aboard the RMS Adriatic, he becomes entangled with Hippolyta Macpherson, the brilliant daughter of his old engineering professor, who has secrets and ambitions of her own.
More than anything else, what makes this novel stand out is the sheer authenticity of its world. The author is apparently the owner of Pandemonium Press and has a deep background in traditional letterpress printing, and that craftsmanship runs through every page. Newspaper extracts, official reports, scientific illustrations and period documents are woven seamlessly into the story, giving the alternate timeline a lived-in quality that many books in the genre struggle to achieve. At times it feels less like reading a novel about the 1880s and more like reading an artefact from a Victorian world that almost was.
One thing I appreciated early on is the pacing. The chapters move methodically rather than explosively, focusing on a slowly widening sense of unease. There are boards of inquiry, confidential briefings, action scenes, and conversations in officers’ wardrooms. Some readers may find this pace deliberate, but it pays off handsomely. By the time the scope of the conspiracy begins to reveal itself, you are already invested in the world and the characters and want to see what will happen to Declan and Hippolyta.
The strongest aspect of the novel is probably the relationship between Declan and Hippolyta. Initially, Declan makes the very Victorian mistake of assuming that the professor’s daughter will be politely uninterested in engineering. When she pretends innocently to ask him about steam efficiency and he obligingly launches into a lecture on compound engines, she corrects his outdated assumptions. Their relationship develops slowly through shared danger and mutual respect rather than instant attraction, and Hippolyta is never reduced to a damsel waiting to be rescued.
At this, a look of amusement briefly flashed across Hippolyta’s face.
Declan continued, “I’m sure you don’t care much for talk of design ratios and power transmission…”
“Oh, quite the contrary, Mr. McGowan. I find naval architecture to be of considerable interest. This ship is quaint and sturdy enough, but I must say that we chose it for safety and comfort rather than efficiency.”
The villain, Graf Franz Eduard von Hohen und Mächtig, is one of the most memorable I have encountered in steampunk fiction, and not just because of his comically long name. He is the scarred and monocled figure from the prologue, now fully revealed as the Kommandant of Imperator, a minor Austrian aristocrat aligned with the Habsburgs, and the architect of a clandestine manufacturing centre built on a former Italian penal colony. He is exactly the kind of antagonist who is convinced he is the hero of the story, and one of the most chilling moments comes later when he reveals his plan (also the reason for the title),
“I am, as you would say, on the side of the Angels. You know of the heavenly host — Angels and Archangels…? Powers, Thrones, and Dominations…? Cherubim and Seraphim? The hierarchy that carries out the will of the almighty? I have taken it as my most sacred duty to assist them in finally bringing peace to this world.”
The supporting cast is equally enjoyable. Pinkerton detectives John Braddock and Bertie Gordon provide a fine balance of cynicism and camaraderie; Braddock drily insists on calling his partner “Lord Bertie” at every opportunity; and the running banter between them gives the book a welcome current of dry humour. Professor Macpherson is a warm and convincing mentor figure whose disappearance from the Adriatic sets much of the plot in motion.
The unusual names, such as Hippolyta, Telemachus, Penelope, are not accidental: there are clear Odyssean epic vibes running beneath the surface. Ambrosius Rutherford, the cheerful Elswick engineer who first roars onto the page behind the wheel of a steam velocipede (an old bike) named Rebecca, quickly emerges as more co-lead than supporting cast.
The worldbuilding deserves a final word of praise, the creative use of newspaper extracts and official reports in particular. They show you the political reactions of Britain, Germany, France and the United States; they show the public’s gradual awareness that something extraordinary is happening in the skies above Europe; and they ground the larger geopolitical stakes in a way that pure exposition could only in info dumps. The pictures also helped bring the book to a new level and didn’t feel gimmicky.
The historical figures who seemingly flit through the margins, like Admiral Luce, the references to real weaponry history like Hotchkiss and Maxim guns, help give the book a documentary and historically educational texture. To me the Hierarchy of Angels feels closer to Patrick O’Brian or William Gibson and Bruce Sterling’s The Difference Engine than to most contemporary steampunk.
The novel is admittedly a bit dense. Fairly lengthy technical discussions of weapons and antiquated technology may slow things down for readers expecting nonstop action from the very first page. Likewise, the deliberately Victorian prose, with formal dialogue, long conversations, period detail, occasional dialect with dropped consonants, is wonderfully immersive but demands patience. That said, there is no shortage of action and warfare to keep the reader turning pages.
This is a book that rewards readers willing to lean into its tone rather than fight against it. It is also a fairly long novel, and the large cast takes a little while to keep straight. None of these are real complaints so much as honest signals about what the book is and is not. I would also say the cover and title are not bad but slightly misleading, as I was expecting more of a theology book.
Overall, The Hierarchy of Angels is a confident and impressively crafted debut. It is intelligent, atmospheric, beautifully realised, and ambitious. The combination of Victorian engineering, gigantic airships, conspiracies, Habsburg ambition and a clear love of nineteenth-century history/technology makes it a strong combination of the best of alternative history and literary fiction, while still feeling entirely original.
As this is only the first book in a planned series, there is clearly much more of this world left to explore, and after becoming invested in Declan, Hippolyta, and the wider worldbuilding, I am looking forward to seeing where the story goes next. The novel ends satisfyingly while clearly setting up the next one.
Final verdict: For fans of Jules Verne, William Gibson and Bruce Sterling’s The Difference Engine, The Hierarchy of Angels by W.J. Whitley is a richly detailed, intelligent, and immersive Victorian thriller. The kind of book one settles into beside a crackling fire on a long winter evening, and finishes feeling as though one has properly travelled.
You can get your copy of The Hierarchy of Angels or read for free on Kindle Unlimited here!
