I sat down with Tim Standish to talk about his debut novel, The Sterling Directive.
It’s alternate history, but not the cosy costume drama kind. Tim’s version of late Victorian London is shaped by one change that cascades through everything else: Charles Babbage’s mechanical computer doesn’t die on the drawing board. In Tim’s timeline it becomes real, gets adopted, and by 1896 you’ve got something that feels oddly familiar. Not modern, and not sleek, but very recognisable in its effects: searchable records, networked communication, and the beginnings of a data-driven state.
Tim describes it as roughly analogous to the 1980s in our world. Governments and big organisations have the serious computing power. Ordinary people are only just starting to dabble a bit, and access is uneven and sparse. Pair engines with telegraph networks and you get the early rumblings (mumblings, perhaps) of an “internet”, only built out of gears, valves, command lines, and a lot of clicking.
The story follows Captain Charles Maddox, wrongly convicted of murder and exiled to Canada. He returns to Britain anyway, hoping to see his father and clear his name, knowing full well the penalty if he’s caught. But, he doesn’t even get a chance to settle in before he’s grabbed by the Bureau of Engine Security, a militarised state security outfit tasked with protecting the British Empire’s control of data and engine technology.
Maddox ends up in a maximum-security prison, and then gets pulled out by another shadowy organisation: the Map Room. They offer him the classic choice that isn’t really a choice. Work for them as an agent, or go back to the cell. He becomes Agent Sterling, and his first mission points back towards the long shadow of the Jack the Ripper murders. Tim’s approach here is really sensible: it’s not a reheated “solve the Ripper” plot. It’s a conspiracy story about who benefits from secrecy, and what gets hidden when institutions are protecting themselves.
Where the book really shines is in the practical worldbuilding. Tim isn’t doing Victorians but with magic tech that fixes everything. He’s building rules and limits, then letting the consequences show. We talked about tappers (his world’s hackers), record systems that can be manipulated, and what identity looks like when measurement and indexing become part of policing. Get yer Bertie!
Some of the details are proper fun too. His kinetic screens are based on old railway flip boards rather than anything like a modern monitor. I found that fascinating and while we talked my mind went off looking at the possibilities of the information that could display on low res displays
We got into “spring heels”. These are leg-mounted contraptions powered by chemical engines, with a nod to the Spring-Heeled Jack urban legend. It’s one of the more steampunky elements, but it still feels like something a Victorian workshop would attempt if you gave it the right materials and enough incentive. Maybe a nice dinner and some absinthe. Seriously though, I thought it was quite innovative.
We also wandered into politics and social change and explored how connectivity pulls fringe movements together faster, how power reacts when information moves, and why Tim thinks tech doesn’t make society fairer, it just reshuffles who can exploit the system. He even gives General Gordon a different fate, imagining a rescue by airship and a later career as an unsettling political wildcard.
Tim also makes a solid craft point near the end of the conversation: you don’t always need to be clever about worldbuilding on the page. Sometimes you can just be helpful. Anchor the reader with a date. Give them a prologue if they genuinely need it. Then let the world do its work.
If you like alternate history with real knock-on effects, or you’re a writer who enjoys worldbuilding as systems rather than wallpaper, this one is worth your time. As a retired governance geek I really enjoyed this one.