The year is 1880, and Jack Baker is a student at Harvard University for Engineers. In this America, industry depends on "Creation" rather than machines, and engineers are train repairmen, not inventors like Jack. Even his Creationist friend Clare thinks Jack's genius is going to waste. There is one man who knows how to put Jack to use, however: novelist and spy Ellis Graveworthy, who wants Jack to build him a flying ship. Graveworthy has been ordered to cross the heavily-guarded coast of Australia, the "Dead Isle" which has no Creation. Rumors abound that Australia is building a war fleet, and it's Graveworthy's job to stop it. Clare, exiled from Australia as a child, is determined to return to her homeland with Graveworthy and Jack, but their journey is not easy. Along the way the three of them will encounter the pirate Purva de la Fitte, con the wealthiest robber barons in Australia, and possibly touch off a long-awaited revolution.