In 1816, Gregory Conan Watts's chronicle of the adventures begun in "Dawn of Steam: First Light" continues - as does the Year Without a Summer. The crew of the airship "Dame Fortuna" travel to four continents and are embroiled in combat on three of them: conflict with New Spain in Britain's American colonies, an ambush in Machu Picchu, and entanglement in the Maori Potato Wars in New Zealand. As they progress through darkened skies, Gregory gradually discovers that nothing at all was as he thought it was. All his assumptions are cast into doubt: what their orders are, which tales of foreign...

1817 sees the first signs of recovery from the Year Without a Summer - and the beginning of the end of the journey of the airship "Dame Fortuna." The crew first accept a unique offer from the Shogun of Japan, traveling with the Dutch contingent from the island of Dejima into the isolationist nation. From there, their travels will take them through the English colonies in Australia and India, into darkest Africa, and eventually home to England. Along the way, confrontations loom, and both personal secrets and national conspiracies are uncovered. By the time a future queen is born, nothing less...