People like S.M. Peters

Whitechapel Gods is a 2008 Canadian Clockpunk/retro-futuristic novel written by S. M. Peters. It was first published on February 5, 2008 through Roc Books.

Whitechapel Gods is the debut novel of Canadian school teacher Shawn Peters who was living in Kamloops, British Columbia, at the time of writing. The premise for the novel was inspired by a computer glitch that Peters encountered that was interfering with his work. The glitch led him to consider whether the machine was working for him or if he was working for the computer. Peters wrote the novel in less than a year and sold it to a publishing agent while attending an international writers conference.

The book is set in Victorian London where its inhabitants are shut off from the outside world by two mysterious and mechanical deities, Mama Engine and Grandfather Clock. The humans had tried and failed to rise up against the Boiler Men that oppress them, an attempt that cost several lives. In the meantime a strange disease has begun to progress across the remaining people, slowly turning them into machines.