i'm rather pleased with Larklight: Or the Revenge of the White Spiders! or to Saturn's Rings and Back! which is philip reeve's new novel for younger children. it's not as well-conceptualised as the hungry city chronicles, but it is more entertaining and less heavy on the moralism. the protagonists (two victorian children, arthur and myrtle) live in a house which is in lunar orbit and which has its own gravitational generators (set to BSG (british standard gravity): the conquest of space has taken place in the 1700s, and the british empire extends to the planets. there are british outposts throughout the solar system, industrialists setting up manufactories on mars, interplanetary pirates robbing aether-ships of martian-grown crystal, members of the royal xenological institute dissecting aliens, people disinherited for marrying natives (of red and green hues,) anti-colonial renegades and master criminals with world domination plans, blue alien girl lizards with alchemical bent and aspirations to becoming fine london young ladies (with knightsbridge dressmakers) and british young ladies busy with acquiring accomplishments like playing the piano (the tune goes, ting ting tong ting tong ting oh bother!) and generally a great deal of strange physics and deadly peril and piratic love on the high aether.