The more I read about Rudolph the more I saw him as a Steampunk hero. After all! Rudolph  did not see  himself as an effete romantic, much less a suicide. And PS: Mayerling was a military hit. Please read Taaffe’s Metal Box and the Crime of the Fin De Siecle! Nope! Rudolph saw himself as a modern man! A scientist. A lover of technology. A man of the Twentieth Century. He could not wait to sweep the dust of the Fin De Siecle away to reveal the Shining Ocean Of Light! Electricity!

 

Rudolph was a Victorian geek. A nerd. An over educated and technology obsessed Student Prince who lamented that one of his greatest tragedies was not being allowed to go to university.

Rudolph  was drafted by his father Francis Joseph to go into the military. Because of his lousy riding he was shoved into a Third Estate infantry regiment populated by sons of industrialists, manufacturers, teachers, professors, middle class bureaucrats, Freemasons, Protestants, and Jews. Rudolph felt right at home!

Rudolph loved any technology. He loved electricity and boasted that Tesla was a Son Of The Empire. Which he was! Rudolph hated horses and antiquated pomp and circumstances. He  loved machines. He wanted to establish a bicycle corps but was laughed off by Francis Joseph and Albrecht.

The first bikes were appearing. Ditto motorcycles. Ditto steam powdered automobiles which was rapidly reaching 100 miles an hour. Rudolph loved trains especially  and helped Baron Hirsch finish his transcontinental Orient Express Railroad Corridor. How could Agatha Christie write ‘Murder On The Orient Express’ without rolling stock that rolled on the best railroad tracks in Europe?  Who do you think built them? Hirsch! With the help of Rudolph!

 

So I decided to make Rudolph a Steampunk hero. Young. A geek. A nerd. Over educated. Less than sophisticated. Red Haired. Nervy. Unwanted by his parents and frustrated by the moldering empire that looked backward because it was  afraid to look ahead.  Technology obsessed. Whose childhood friend was Tesla!

 

In Book One Rudolph builds his own steam power automobile. Then Rudolph takes a ride with Wales in a balloon before solving the dangerous mystery where anarchists have plant bombs in Brighton’s biggest hotel with its amazing hydro-powered lift.

In future books Rudolph will try to stop a tragic pogrom in Prague with the help of the infamous Turk Automaton and a Robot called Golem.

Then Rudolph will meet Jules Verne in his flying airship ‘The Twentieth Century’. Jules Verne has come to help the tech students of Prague University to build a mechanical  elephant. But as the wonderful mechanic elephant is unveiled it is attacked by a sinister airship sent by Willy of the Withered Hand. The crisis climaxes with an attack by a Robotic Tank which attacks Prague!  Not even Rudolph’s small army can fight this towering robotic war machine! Only Golem can save the day for not only the Jews of Prague but all of the citizens of Prague!

 

Later Rudolph will fly the airship Siegfried  to snatch mad Ludwig’s Wotan Death Ray Gun from under the nose of Bismarck where it is hidden at Neuschwanstein Castle. Neuschwanstein  is hosting a fiendish convention of Merchants of Death. Each merchant having anchored their airship on the towering launching pads of Neuschwanstein Castle. The Merchants of Death are bidding on the ultimate weapon of war! The Wotan Death Ray! But where has poor dead Ludwig hidden it? Maybe Bismarck should not have murdered Ludwig before finding out where the mad king hid the ultimate Death Ray!

Naturally Bismarck’s gigantic airship The Dragon races after The Siegfried! Cue the thunderous theme of the Ride of the Valkyries by Wagner! Can Rudolph and his daring crew escape!

Later adventures will feature meetings with no less than Tesla! You will find out why Tesla finally abandoned the moldering Austro Hungarian Empire forever!

 

Another adventure will feature the  robbery of a prototype ray gun that causes death by spontaneous combustion! Wicked Willy has stolen the ray gun  right out of    the ultramodern bastion  of Steampunk high technology: ‘Prince Albert’s Keeping’ —alias Balmoral Castle! Queen Victoria is furious! and Wales is even more furious! But Willy has diplomatic immunity. So how can Rudolph and his trusty sidekick Mizzi Caspar— alias MC— trick Willy into daring to use the ray gun on someone at Balmoral Castle?

And guess who helped Lady Lovelace finally build the first Babbage Computer! Prince Albert of course! With the help of the greatest genius of the Victorian Age: Brunel! And guess where it is located! In ‘Prince Albert’s Keeping’! And guess who haunts the towering mechanical brain? Albert! Albert has never left the building! No wonder Victoria loves Balmoral so much!

During Rudolph’s amazing adventures you will also meet Mizzi Caspar — alias MC — the inventor of electric  special effects for magicians who naturally require cutting edge scientific technology for their amazing feats of magic. MC is no ‘handbag’ of a Victorian girl! She can hold her own and is even a featherweight in boxing courtesy of classes under the infamous Marquis de Queensberry!

Other exciting adventure will feature the first automobile race in the Imperial Second Reich — as British spies break into the Eugenics Club founded by Willy to steal the top secret ‘September Project’ which reveals Willy’s plans for World War One!

 

Another adventure will feature Rudolph and his ever loving as well as ever  resourceful MC as they use electric special effects to foil the Imperial Second Reich’s attempt to retrieve the theft of their state of the art War Airship  by Rudolph and British Agent John Watson MD! A war ship which has just bombed the state of the art submarine complex Willy is planning to use to launch his world war!

This is the not the first time these two men have met! Rudolph and John Watson of Diogenes House London (MI 5 to you folks )  has previously met in Croatia where they joined forces to take down a Maxim Machine Gun Gang offering their services to the highest bidder  as ‘king maker’ courtesy of their state of the art machine gun! And That is just the start! The hotel besieged by the Maxim Machine Gun Gang is hosting spies who are trying to stop or highjack or steal the half a million bribe which Rudolph is delivering to an agent for the Ottoman Empire to allow the Transcontinental Orient Express Railroad Corridor to finally be completed in Istanbul!

And before this they crossed paths during the infamous London Scalper murders! All while Mycroft Holmes of Diogenes House orders Watson to hunt down a mysterious cabal hidden inside Foreign Office which is plotting a plot to assassinate Charles Gordon!

Another  adventure include a mysterious murder on the first running of the Orient Express Junket which Baron Hirsch and Rudolph is hosting to advertise the completion of his revolutionary railroad corridor. Anarchsts! Fenians! A Boston heiress! A British title! A infamous bomb maker! A notorious Egyptian master criminal! And a curst mummy!

 

An another adventure documents Rudolph’s investigation into the mysterious murders of Green Park during Queen Victoria’s Jubilee. Murders which occur during a mysterious blight of killer fogs caused by industrial pollution which threatens the life of every Londoner! The mystery  climaxes with the discovery of the real occupants dwelling inside the mysterious bastion of Wellus House International: Morlocks!

If you mix up Tesla and an Ouija Board you get a haunted machine of mad technology which is about to blow up and take Prague with it! Cue Rudolph to the rescue!

Rudolph takes Brad Stoker in his state of the art steam powered automobile to visit the famous caves so the creator of Dracula can soak up some atmosphere. They get more than they bargain for! Fortunately Rudolph’s steam powered automobile can do 70 for 70!

A different sort of high technology is going to get Rudolph killed. The revolution in modern gun technology! Read all about it in The Gun Crisis!

Discover how MC creates the ultimate stage special effect of electric high technology to trick Willy while spies rob his top secret bastion! Then discover how MC makes a female spy vanish while flying through the sky on board an airship! No wonder MC is the love of Rudolph’s life! MC is as smart as she is daring! And when she is welding the dreaded Wotan Death Ray then watch out Willy!