Half human and full on mad.

In Railroad City, Missouri, some years before the events in this story, an explosion had taken place and a number of the inhabitants had beenchanged by the mysterious blue glowing megatrite, giving them super powers, some obvious and others less so. Although they had actually saved the day from invaders in the past, they were now unwelcome in their society and hunted down and killed. one such abnormal is the first person narrator of this book but she has a survival plan, working for the hunters, destroying her own. She is Madam Aston and she lives on by being useful to the authorities.
Another survivor from the beginnings of the changes is Professor Flag Epsom, who lost an arm and a leg in the explosion but gained chromoscopic vision, a way to see time moving backwards. He is also useful. These two protagonists are put together in a very uneasy alliance to solve a murder.

A clever mix of Steampunk and paranormals, these tales from the Rails stories are always good fun, thoughtfully written with a strong sense of atmosphere. And this book is certainly no exception as it also includes a mystery to be solved. Unfortunately, the chosen narrator, Amy Pastor, was the wrong choice for this story; although she made a good attempt and her voicings of the characters were mostly distinctive, they were unconvincing and her Scottish accent for Epsom was something very bizarre which could never have seen the shores of the United Kingdom. This was all rather distracting, especially combined with the rather deadpan text reading which occured despite her reasonable intonation. At first it was fine, but after a short while this reader found it very hard to concentrate on the story, focusing instead on the peculiarities of the reading.

I do recommend this story but better to read the book in print form rather than listening to the audio version. I have to thank the rights holder of The Unsubstantiated Chamber for gifting me a complimentary copy, at my request, via Audiobook Boom.

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