eSPEC EXCERPTS – MISTY MASSEY – GREASE MONKEYS

On February 24, 2023February 18, 2023 By eSpec BooksIn eSPEC EXCERPTS, KickstarterLeave a comment

We are at it again! Kicking off the year with a brand-new campaign: Full Steam Ahead!

Yes, we are funding more books. Yes, we would love if you would check them out, maybe show your support. But don’t think you have to do it blind. Here is a taste of Grease Monkeys: The Heart and Soul of Dieselpunk, an anthology that takes a look at the mechanics that keep the tech running and even mod it out beyond its original capabilities, striving for efficiency and peak performance or just keeping things going.

The other two books funding through the campaign are Grimm Machinations – the sequel to Gaslight & Grimm, bringing you even more steampunk faerie tales; and A Cast of Crows, a Poe-inspired steampunk collection created in conjunction with the Tell-Tale Steampunk Festival, but more on those later.

Over the course of the campaign, we will be sharing these excerpts so you can get to know our authors’s style.

My Mechanical Girl
Misty Massey

Billie glided onto the stage to the applause of the audience, positioned herself under the lights on her mark, and struck a pose. Her music swelled. “It’s the loveliest of days when I’m near you,” she sang, “Robins chase the clouds out of the sky…”

Billie’s the headliner at La Fantaisie. Me, I’m her mechanic. I polish her steel face until she glows warm under the electric lights, lubricate her joints, and spend the dough to dress her in glam. I didn’t create the valve system that lets her sing in a voice like warm molasses spilling down the back of a velvet chair nor the hydraulics that allow her to spin and dance, but I know how they work, and I can build off what the old inventor did. My grimy fingers carry permanent stains from years in a factory. My nails are bit back to the quick and I cut my own hair. At any time, there might be a streak of ash or oil on my face where I scratched an itch without bothering to wipe my hands first. The powerful gentlemen who frequent the Fant expect to see people like me fixing their cars, not standing in the club watching them drink brandy. It’s okay, though. I stay out of sight, watching from the wings while my girl entertains the room. It’s best that way, considering how I make the lion’s share of my money.

La Fantaisie has always been popular with the higher-ups in the military, thanks to it being so close to the capitol building. Colonels and congressmen spend their evenings drinking expensive liquor and talking important talk while my Billie sings. I’ve installed nearly a dozen songs into her voice system, all the ones I like best. In between sets, she roams around the room on a magnetic track I built into the floor, stopping at every table to say something flirty. She knows eight different phrases, and I’m working on three new ones.

She’s a toy. Metal arms and legs. A complicated hydraulic on the inside to keep her moving. A series of delicate valves connected to a circuit board that serve as her voice box. She’s a mechanical girl. But I love her like she’s real.

George Dupree, owner of the Fant, used to hire human women to sing in his nightclub, pretty ones with white-blonde curls who sang and danced and sometimes slid the necks of their dresses down to show off their bare shoulders. Between that Hitler guy and his Nazi thugs in the newsrags and women being found burnt to crisps in alleys, the military brass ordered their bigwigs to stay away from ordinary singers and dancers. Might have been for fear of them spilling secrets over pillow talk, or maybe the burnt-up women were the results of some experiment gone wrong and the generals wanted to put distance between their scientists and the victims. Who can guess? George was left without dames for his customers to ogle, and business dropped off. He was on the verge of closing down until he met my Billie.

Billie finished singing, took a bow, and the music for her next song began. “It’s always summer when you smile at me…” she sang. Suddenly her chin jerked, and she stuttered, like a record player needle skipping. The music continued on, but instead of singing, her jaw fell open with a click, and words poured out, words I didn’t understand. “Eian saprue prace sius ceva iot…”

The audience stared at my girl, as confused as I was. This gibberish was not one of the phrases she could say. After a few seconds, someone at a table said, “Is that German?” Silence fell again, until another said, “Sounds like a numbers station.” Like a dam breaking, the whole room burst into chatter, and some of the officers rose to their feet.

I ran out onto the stage, grabbed Billie’s arm, and drew her with me into the wings. “Sorry, folks,” I called out. “Show’s over for tonight.” George met us backstage, his face redder than his cummerbund.

“Why the ever-loving hell did you teach her German?” he hissed. “You’re going to get me shut down!”

It hadn’t sounded like German to me. But George wasn’t wrong. These days, the whole country seemed to be on a witch hunt, and Germany was the devil. It was time to hit the road before the bigwigs out front found their way backstage. “This ain’t my doing. It’s likely radio interference,” I said, turning my girl toward the street door. Her full-length coat hung on a hook next to it, so I slipped it over her shoulders and buttoned it at the neck, sliding the hood up to shadow her face. She’d stopped talking at last, thank goodness. The noise out on the main floor rose, and I heard snatches of unpleasant comments. Things like “spy network” and “treason” and “federal custody.” “I’ll recalibrate her vocal valves. Something’s just gone out of whack.”

“Send me a message tomorrow,” he said, pushing his shoulders back and straightening his tuxedo jacket. “It’s apology time, and I don’t want her anywhere near here if she’s spouting more of that kraut nonsense.”

Thudding footsteps echoed from the direction of the stage. Time to make tracks. Billie has wheels set in the soles of her feet, so she rolls instead of walking. Tonight I was glad of it.

Misty Massey is the author of the Mad Kestrel series of rollicking fantasy adventures on the high seas. She is an editor for several small presses, and an instructor for the Speculative Fiction Academy. When she’s not writing or editing, Misty appears on the Authors & Dragons podcast sister show, Calamity Janes, as the cheerful, sundrenched cleric, Malibu. She’s a sucker for ginger snaps, African coffee, and anything sparkly. You can keep up with Misty at mistymassey.com and on Facebook and Twitter.

Learn more about Misty Massey here:

Website * GoodReads * Amazon Author Page

Follow Misty Massey on social media:

Facebook * Twitter

eSPEC EXCERPTS – CHRISTINE NORRIS – GRIMM MACHINATIONS

On February 18, 2023February 4, 2023 By eSpec BooksIn eSPEC EXCERPTS, KickstarterLeave a comment

We are at it again! Kicking off the year with a brand-new campaign: Full Steam Ahead!

Yes, we are funding more books. Yes, we would love if you would check them out, maybe show your support. But don’t think you have to do it blind. Here is a taste of Grimm Machinations – the sequel to Gaslight & Grimm, bringing you even more steampunk faerie tales.

The other two books funding through the campaign are A Cast of Crows, a Poe-inspired steampunk collection created in conjunction with the Tell-Tale Steampunk Festival; and Grease Monkeys: The Heart and Soul of Dieselpunk, an anthology that takes a look at the mechanics that keep the tech running, but more on those later.

Over the course of the campaign, we will be sharing these excerpts so you can get to know our authors’ style.

The Six Clockwork Swans
Christine Norris

Based on The Six Swans

Kadie’s footsteps were all but silenced by the thick Persian carpet as she crept across the library. The tall windows that lined the one wall showed a clear night sky full of stars and a full moon that made turning on the gas lamps unnecessary. Thick shadows lay in corners where the moonlight didn’t reach. The last of the church bells’ midnight chimes still hung in the air, its resounding gongs giving Kadie the perfect cover for her journey down the stairs, across the marble hall, and through the library door.

The household had been in bed for hours, except for the night maids, who were in the kitchen gossiping over their tea. As mistress of the house, it was her right to be in the library whenever she pleased, so sneaking shouldn’t be necessary, but she knew she was being watched. And being so close to breaking the curse, she couldn’t take a single chance.

The library seemed to hold its breath as she passed the shelves of books. The framed portraits of generations of her husband’s family stared down from above, their dour expressions silently judging her. She had been told all of their names but didn’t recall a single one at this moment. There were only six names that mattered to her.

Her foot caught on something, and suddenly she was falling. She flung her arms forward to stop herself and slammed her palms into the edge of her husband’s enormous heavy desk, her knee into the side. Tears pooled in the corners of her eyes, and she gritted her teeth to hold back her cry of pain and shock. After a few seemingly eternal moments, the pain passed, and Kadie was able to gather herself enough to stand. She looked down and saw the architect of her stumble—a wrinkle in the rug. She silently cursed it and resumed her trip to the farthest corner of the library.

She tossed a nervous glance over her shoulder to make sure she was still alone. No one had heard her unfortunate crash into the desk, it seemed. She stood on tiptoe and reached as high as she could, the tips of her fingers grasping the edge of one of the books on the top shelf. With a snick softer than a whisper, the bookcase swung open. Kadie grabbed the oil lamp she kept on a shelf just inside the door and lit it with the matches she kept in the pocket of her skirt. A few yards down the stone-lined passage, she pushed on one, worn smooth, and the hidden door swung silently shut. The little oil lamp only put out a small circle of light, but she walked with quick and sure steps, her footfalls echoing along the narrow passage. She could have had no light at all, and she would know the way, so often had she traveled this corridor.

She had discovered the secret passage completely by accident, just a year after Daniel found her in the tiny cottage in the woods and brought her to his home. His was a magnificent manor house at the center of the city over which he reigned as Duke. A far different place than her home in so many ways.

The library had been her refuge from almost the moment she had arrived, and one rainy afternoon while she was looking for something to read and hiding from her mother-in-law, she reached for the book that opened the door. The passage had been dark and full of cobwebs, obviously unused for many years. But with a little sweeping and the hidden lamp, it had become almost welcoming.

The other end of the passage opened into a comfortably sized room with windows near the ceiling that allowed the moonlight to pour inside like silver. Kadie had never been able to figure out where this room was within the house, either from the inside or looking at the house from the outside. It was as if it existed just for her.

She inhaled deeply, letting the scent of machine oil and dust fill her nose before she placed the lamp on a small table beside the door and, in a few minutes, the rest of the lamps were lit, and she was ready to get to work.

The flickering yellow light bounced off the glass doors of the cabinet where she kept the collection of tools she had gathered in the last six years. She never took them from the room; if she were ever caught with even the smallest screwdriver, it could mean her death. In this realm, technology like clockworks and machinery were heresy.

Her workbench stood against the back wall. Beside a small pile of spare gears and cogs, five small music box movements sat in a neat row, gleaming in the light. The first was the largest, and each decreased slightly in size. In front of each sat a small card with a name written in her own elegant script—Albert, Broderick, Charles, Dorian, Edgar. The sixth movement lay in pieces on the bench in front of a small stool with a cracked leather seat. Its label waited off to the side. Flynn. Kadie gazed at the names, picturing each of her brothers in turn. Their faces had begun to blur in her memory. If all went well, she would see them again today.

Kadie sat and took a deep, cleansing breath before lifting the small screwdriver in her callused fingers and tightening the screw that held the cog in place. Almost done, and yet still so far to go. It hadn’t been easy to keep her work a secret; these stolen moments in the workshop had been harder to come by, especially with her mother-in-law keeping an ever more watchful eye.

This would have been so much easier if she had been home, or even still at the cottage. Her father’s realm was a hive of mechanical things. Clock shops, mechanical vehicles on the streets, airships in the skies above. Her father loved anything mechanical. Her room in the palace had been filled with clockwork toys, many he had made himself and given to her on birthdays and holidays.

That had been before he had married again.

Her stepmother hated her and her siblings. Kadie had no idea why, nor why she had been spared from her curse. When her brothers had disappeared, she had grabbed what she could carry and ran. From the capital city and into the forest, she ran so far she had no idea where she was. She followed the forest road until she discovered an abandoned cottage. Inside, she found a corner and cried herself to sleep.

That was where her brothers had come to her. At sunset, six clockworks swans landed in the yard outside her door. One by one, they transformed into her human brothers.

Once Upon a Time, Christine Norris thought she wanted to be an archaeologist but hates sand and bugs, so instead, she became a writer. She is the author of several speculative fiction works for children and adults, including The Library of Athena series, A Curse of Ash and Iron, and contributions to Gaslight & Grimm and Grimm Machinations. She is kept busy on a daily basis by her day job as a school librarian in New Jersey. She may or may not have a secret library in her basement, and she absolutely believes in fairies.

Learn more about Christine Norris here:

Website * GoodReads * Amazon Author Page

Follow Christine Norris on social media:

Facebook * Twitter * Instagram

eSPEC EXCERPTS – JESSICA LUCCI – A CAST OF CROWS

On February 16, 2023February 16, 2023 By eSpec BooksIn eSPEC EXCERPTS, KickstarterLeave a comment

We are at it again! Kicking off the year with a brand-new campaign: Full Steam Ahead!

Yes, we are funding more books. Yes, we would love if you would check them out, maybe show your support. But don’t think you have to do it blind. Here is a taste of A Cast of Crows, a Poe-inspired steampunk collection created in conjunction with the Tell-Tale Steampunk Festival.

The other two books funding through the campaign are Grimm Machinations – the sequel to Gaslight & Grimm, bringing you even more steampunk faerie tales; and Grease Monkeys: The Heart and Soul of Dieselpunk, an anthology that takes a look at the mechanics that keep the tech running, but more on those later.

Over the course of the campaign, we will be sharing these excerpts so you can get to know our authors’ style.

Annabel Lee
Jessica Lucci

The ball was off to a superb start, with a classical orchestra playing lilting songs on a calm sea. At the captain’s table were the usual dukes and duchesses, other would-be royalty, lords and ladies, and one very outspoken red-headed woman of a certain age. Madame Jane d’Avery by name, a round, robust socialite who had earned her place at the table through her vast riches gained in her widowhood. A savvy art collector, she had made herself another small fortune in the art trade. She traveled not only for pleasure but to transport her treasures from port to port for exorbitant sale.

Madame d’Avery wore such a large bustle that she had to sit sideways on her chair. Her face was flushed with laughter in quite an unladylike way, in Captain Edgarton’s opinion. “Gadzooks,” he whispered to Annabel. “She is telling bawdy jokes.”

The table roared with laughter as Madame d’Avery chugged another glass of red wine.

“What hangs at a man’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it’s often poked before?”

The titillated group called out all the wrong answers. “Do tell us,” urged Annabel. Captain Edgarton groaned.

Madame d’Avery took a large breath, creating a suspenseful pause. Her large bosom threatened to pop out of her rounded bodice. “A key!”

The table erupted in laughter. Edgarton wished there was something stronger than wine in his glass. He nudged Annabel Lee and spoke just barely above a whisper. “Don’t laugh. It will only egg her on.”

Madame d’Avery had sharp ears and observant eyes. She saw the elbow of the captain meet the thin, silked arm of his fiancée. She heard the words uttered from his mouth.

“We all deserve a good laugh,” she said into the air, addressing no one in particular. But she saw the crimson flush of anger start at the base of the captain’s throat above his cravat. She knew she had been understood.

After the dinner, the grand ballroom filled with excited dancers, couples and pairs who had met onboard the HMS Annabel Lee. The automaton servants even seemed to step more gaily as they attended to their duties.

Masterminded by the greatest engineers, the servants were created to be mechanical soldiers. Yet, in this time of great peace, there was no need for articles of war or fighting metal men. So they were redesigned as workers aboard ships such as the Annabel Lee, from automatons feeding coal to the steam engines to the serving staff, rolling on well-oiled wheels with brakes that stopped the progress of the shiny creatures in rough waters. All the details of daily life on board were regulated by clockwork, creating a smooth transition for busy socialites to easy ocean faire.

Annabel excused herself from the hustling swishes of cloth and clogs. She made her way furtively to the deck in search of the cool night air. As she exited the ballroom, she was side-swiped by a large object at her hip.

“Oh! Do pardon me,” exclaimed Madame d’Avery. She adjusted her bustle with an easy flounce, causing her entire backside to bounce.

“No need for pardon,” Annabel said. “We all suffer for our fashions.”

Madame d’Avery eyed Annabel’s wasp-like figure. “Some suffer more than others.”

“I will say the captain appreciates my efforts, but it does make laughing difficult.”

“Then I must ask your pardon again, for I did see you laughing, if only the best you could under the circumstances.”

“Under the circumstances, yes,” Annabel agreed.

Madame d’Avery hooked her arm with the younger woman’s. “Since we both seem headed in the same direction, we might as well hobble together.”

Annabel smiled. “Indeed.”

The two women stepped out onto a balcony. The dark ocean loomed beneath them, with small cresting waves blinking in the reflection of the starry night.

“Do you not have someone to accompany you?” Annabel asked.

“I have been a widow long enough to be able to navigate the sea solo. Of course, at times, I must remove my glove to pronounce a solid slap across the mug of some more forward of the masculine kind, but as I get older, those occasions have become fewer.”

“You are still a looker.”

Madame d’Avery guffawed in a deep throaty laugh that Annabel was growing to love. “As long as you and I think so, that’s all that matters.”

After taking in some air, the chill coaxed the two women back into the ballroom. They pranced arm in arm to the punch bowl.

Captain Edgarton watched disapprovingly from across the room. He excused himself from his conversation and shifted his way across to Annabel. He tugged her elbow, causing her to spill her punch upon the elaborate tablecloth. He grabbed the crystal goblet from her and slammed it down onto the table so that more of the red liquid jumped up and out. He steered her away, his teeth gritted, and his lips pulled back in a false smile. He spoke between the gaps in his mouth.

“What are you doing consorting with that American trash?”

“But you are American, too.”

“But I am not THAT kind of American. I know my place in the world, and it’s time you learned yours.” His grip tightened. She shook her arm to remove his hold, but he only tightened his grip. “Don’t embarrass me,” he growled.

Just then, a brush of wings touched Annabel’s cheek. The crow flew between the couple’s heads before resting on top of the captain’s.

“Annabel Lee” cawed the crow and dropped a silver dessert fork. Annabel caught it before it fell to the floor.

Captain Edgarton yelled out an oath unbecoming of a gentleman. He thrashed at his head, missing the black bird as it took wing and swooped down at him. The orchestra stopped playing, and the crowd strayed from dancing to encircle the feisty scene. Gasps of shock gave way when one throaty voice laughed. Soon the entire ballroom was in hysterics.

“Here, let me help.” Annabel reached for the crow, holding the silver fork out like a perch. The captain swatted her away and stabbed himself with the tiny fork in the process.

“You she-dog! You stabbed me!”

The crow flew away, out past the balcony, and into the night.

“I did not mean to,” Annabel wailed.

Edgarton heard all the laughter and raised his arms in false joviality. “This ball is for more than just the birds!” His voice rang broadly through the crowd. “Please, continue your festivities!” He grabbed Annabel’s waist and whispered seethingly. “As for you, you are taking a break.”

He led her back to her quarters and threw her to the floor.

Jessica Lucci is a poet and steampunk fantasy author who writes about modern issues while maintaining historic integrity. She makes her home in Waltham, MA, USA, with her time-traveling budgie, Lamarr.

Her poetry has appeared in The Edible Anthology of Poetry Greatest Hits, edited by Peter Payack, and also in Lucidity Poetry Journal. Her steampunk novel Subton Switch was a finalist in the 2019 Lesfic Bard Book Awards for science fiction. Other works include Waltham Watch, Gustover Glitch, Salem Switch, Steampunk Leap Year, Steampunk New Year, and Steampunk Pride.

Learn more about Jessica Lucci here:

Website * Blog * GoodReads * Amazon Author Page

Follow Jessica Lucci on social media:

Facebook * Twitter * Pinterest * Instagram

eSPEC EXCERPTS – JOHN L. FRENCH – GREASE MONKEYS

On February 14, 2023February 4, 2023 By eSpec BooksIn eSPEC EXCERPTS, KickstarterLeave a comment

We are at it again! Kicking off the year with a brand-new campaign: Full Steam Ahead!

Over the course of the campaign, we will be sharing these excerpts so you can get to know our authors’s style.

No Man’s Land
John L. French

He’s in the trenches, one of thousands, maybe tens of thousands. He looks to his left, an endless row of men. To his right, there is another endless row. All are like him, soldiers with tin pots on their heads and rifles in their hands. The dead are piled behind, and in front. They have long since run out of sandbags and now their comrades protect them one last time. Across the killing field, a trumpet blows. Drums beat. Men march slowly and steadily toward them.

The order is given. As one, they take aim through the gaps in their dead. On command, they open fire. The front row of the enemy goes down. The second row returns fire, guided by the muzzle flashes in the night. Men on either side of him fall. Some moan in pain, others lie silently and await their deaths.

Those still standing continue to fire. Those approaching shoot back. Men on both sides go down.

He takes a quick break, looks left then right. He thinks he can see the ends of each row. He turns back to the gap in the dead, sees the enemy still advancing. They march and shoot, march and shoot. With each volley, more of his comrades fall.

They should be on top of us by now, he thinks but somehow, they are not. He fires into their midst, over and over and over. He has fired his rifle maybe more than a hundred times. He does not remember reloading.

The number of men on either side of him is lesser and lesser. The number of the enemy is seemingly endless. Until they are not.

He stops firing and looks through the gap. No man’s land is filled with the enemy. None are standing. A ragged cheer runs through the trench, as if they had won a great victory. Well, they survived another night, which is victory enough.

Then the cheers turn to cries of horror. He looks out on the field. Through the fog of night and the mist of blood, he sees the bodies of the enemy rise. The endless number that has fallen stands up. After a minute, their lines reform and they resume their march.

He again starts firing, knowing what he does is pointless. You can’t kill what is already dead. Having fallen once, they will never go down.

Again, he looks to either side. There is no one left, no one but him. Still, he fires and fires and fires, and the dead come closer and closer and closer.

***

In the early morning just before sunrise, Victor wakes up screaming. His cries disturb the sleep of some of the patients on the ward. Others find them a relief, for his shouts have woken them from their own nightmares. The sisters go from bed to bed, doing what they can to ease their pain and calm their terror. There are too few to quickly attend to them all but still they try, and their very presence is a comfort.

In the distance comes the thunder of long-range guns. Even as Victor consoles himself with the thought, It was just a nightmare and for now, it’s over, the thunder reminds him that for the men on the line, the nightmare continues.

JOHN L. FRENCH is a retired crime scene supervisor with forty years’ experience. He has seen more than his share of murders, shootings, and serious assaults. As a break from the realities of his job, he started writing science fiction, pulp, horror, fantasy, and, of course, crime fiction.

John’s first story “Past Sins” was published in Hardboiled Magazine and was cited as one of the best Hardboiled stories of 1993. More crime fiction followed, appearing in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, the Fading Shadows magazines and in collections by Barnes and Noble. Association with writers like James Chambers and the late, great C.J. Henderson led him to try horror fiction and to a still growing fascination with zombies and other undead things. His first horror story “The Right Solution” appeared in Marietta Publishing’s Lin Carter’s Anton Zarnak. Other horror stories followed in anthologies such as The Dead Walk and Dark Furies, both published by Die Monster Die books. It was in Dark Furies that his character Bianca Jones made her literary debut in “21 Doors,” a story based on an old Baltimore legend and a creepy game his daughter used to play with her friends.

John’s first book was The Devil of Harbor City, a novel done in the old pulp style. Past Sins and Here There Be Monsters followed. John was also consulting editor for Chelsea House’s Criminal Investigation series. His other books include The Assassins’ Ball (written with Patrick Thomas), Souls on Fire, The Nightmare Strikes, Monsters Among Us, The Last Redhead, the Magic of Simon Tombs, and The Santa Heist (written with Patrick Thomas). John is the editor of To Hell in a Fast Car, Mermaids 13, C. J. Henderson’s Challenge of the Unknown, Camelot 13 (with Patrick Thomas), and (with Greg Schauer) With Great Power …

John’s Amazon Author Page * John’s Facebook Page

eSPEC EXCERPTS – JEFF YOUNG – GRIMM MACHINATIONS

On February 12, 2023January 29, 2023 By eSpec BooksIn eSPEC EXCERPTS, KickstarterLeave a comment

We are at it again! Kicking off the year with a brand-new campaign: Full Steam Ahead!

Over the course of the campaign, we will be sharing these excerpts so you can get to know our authors’ style.

The Spinning Cathedral and the Beautiful Bird
Jeff Young

Based on The Wonderful Bird

Whiskers twitching in response to the motion of their lips, the clockwork mask the Fox wore concealed the owner’s face as they lay on the edge of the rooftop. From here, they could see to the left the new cathedral rising above the houses of the merchants. A glance to right revealed the row of artificers’ studios, where a single curl of smoke and flashes of light were visible from a high window. Dropping back to the center brought the palace into view, where the snapping of flags in the early morning breeze reminded the Fox of taskmasters goading on their charges. Perhaps it was time to begin the work they had agreed to.

It had all begun with three questions:

“Now, this is strictly between you and I because I have heard that you are most capable in resolving difficulties. As you know, I Horatiu, being one of the chief artificers to the queen, I must occasionally prove my expertise against other challengers by creating a work so unique that it stands as a testament to my abilities. My Spinning Cathedral, which turns ever so slowly throughout the hours of the day so that the sunlight pours through the stained glass of the windows, is a marvel and works like a charm. However, there are those that maintain that it is going too far and defeats the purpose of a cathedral because it is too gaudy. You are a wise seer, as I see by your most wonderfully constructed mask, and I ask you, what can I do to sway their opinions?”

“Now, this is strictly between you and I because I have heard that you are most capable in resolving difficulties. As you know, I Ciprian, being of the chief artificers to the queen, I must occasionally prove my expertise against other challengers by creating a work so unique that it stands as a testament to my abilities. I am a creator of fabulous clockwork animals. You have most certainly heard of the menagerie of the Queen, and I have created something that outshines all of my previous works. However, everyone that I have shown it to says that it is too much and that all of the jewels on my fabulous bird couldn’t possibly be real, making it seem tawdry. You are a wise seer, as I see by your most wonderfully constructed mask, and I ask you, what can I do to sway their opinions?”

“Now, this is strictly between you and I because I have heard that you are most capable in resolving difficulties. As the Queen of this country, blessed with a great many capable artificers, good natured gentlefolk, and bounteous lands, it falls to me to ensure that the stewardship of all this comes to the proper hands. I was blessed with three sons before my dearest was taken from me, and in order to show equal favor among the three strongest lords of my lands, I sent each away to foster. Now that I am faced with determining which should be the most appropriate heir, I find that I know none of them well enough to choose. You are a wise seer, as I see by your most wonderfully constructed mask, and I ask you, what can I do to determine the best choice?”

After a moment of silence, the Fox carefully scratched at their chin under the Seer’s mask and said to each, “I shall return in three days with an answer.” Then the Fox moved on through the town visiting the market, the leather worker, and the smiths, gathering the requisites for their trade. Eventually, the Fox retired to their shop. As the Sun went down, they turned over the sign to indicate the location was closed and sat down at the worktable to think.

The sound of someone clearing their throat surprised the Fox.

Swinging about, they confronted a mask that was not familiar. It was an old woman’s visage done in dark wood. The Fox could tell there was no clockwork inside to move the features as with modern masks, but rather a series of springs that cleverly responded to the flex of the facial muscles of the owner. She was low in the shoulder, but obviously taller in her youth. Her voice was rough and breathy, “I am sorry to have caused fear. I merely awaited your return. Sometimes I am easy to overlook.”

“Hardly, madam. Not with such as a mask as this. It is a treasure. A marvel of execution. Might I look upon its workings?”

“You may, in time. I have a task for you, but first I must consider what I want. I will come to you when I am ready. If you are successful, you shall have all of the hours you desire to study my mask. But for now, it is unseemly for me to remove it. Do be patient and you will be rewarded.”

“Patient I will be then. Is there anything I can help you with now?”

“No, I once again apologize for startling you. I will take my leave. Good day.”

The Fox watched the woman with great curiosity as she left. What a delicious mystery. They were certain they knew everyone of consequence, having made all the finest masks in the kingdom, or so they thought. A delicious mystery, in deed.
Then, after assuring themself that no one else lurked in the shadows, they relocked the door. Around them hung the many cleverly carved masks that were the result of their dexterous hands. Bits of wire and gears were scattered about the table. The Fox picked up two small gears and a large one. Placing them down on the surface the Fox linked the teeth of the smaller ones into the big one. Moving them caused the larger to rotate. “That’s the way they want it to be,” the Fox commented. Then grasping another gear and dropping it in between all three, rotating it caused all of the gears to move. “This is the way it will be.” Laughing, the Fox leaned back in the chair and looked up at the multitude of masks hanging above them.

The masks had originally risen as mere fashion taken up when the royals were struck by the pox. These allowed the nobility to present whichever face they wished to the common folk. Now as the industry of coal-burning and steam came round, the masks also served to filter out the smog that lay over the city. It continued to amaze the Fox that so many put such faith in whatever mask one presented. As the maker of such masks, the Fox had access to all of them. From family member to family member, a long chain of mask-makers reached back into history. But few were willing to use their talents as the Fox did. Reaching up, they pulled off the Seer’s mask they wore and gazed upon it. The stars and symbols etched in gold complimented the lines carved into the face giving it a greater sense of age and wisdom, borrowed but briefly, and now set aside.

Opening a cabinet, they placed the Seer’s mask within and drew forth the orange-furred visage with its long dark whiskers and pointed nose. Staring at it, the Fox frowned and peered closer. Something felt wrong, something felt out of place, yet the mask appeared in fine working order.

Never mind, they thought, all is well now. Settling it on their face, they gave a sigh of relief. The ideas began to come at once. Very shortly thereafter, the Fox had a plan.

Jeff Young is a bookseller first and a writer second – although he wouldn’t mind a reversal of fortune.

He is an award-winning author who has contributed to the anthologies: Afterpunk, In an Iron Cage: The Magic of Steampunk, Clockwork Chaos, Gaslight and Grimm, Phantasmical Contraptions and other Errors, By Any Means, Best Laid Plans, Dogs of War, Man and Machine, If We Had Known, Fantastic Futures 13, The Society for the Preservation of C.J. Henderson, Eccentric Orbits 2 & 3, Writers of the Future V.26, TV Gods and TV Gods: Summer Programming. Jeff’s own fiction is collected in Spirit Seeker, Written in Light and TOI Special Edition 2 – Diversiforms. He has also edited the Drunken Comic Book Monkey line, TV Gods and TV Gods –Summer Programming and is the managing editor for the magazine, Mendie the Post-Apocalyptic Flower Scout. He has led the Watch the Skies SF&F Discussion Group of Camp Hill and Harrisburg for seventeen years. Jeff is also the proprietor of Helm Haven, the online Etsy and Ebay shops, costuming resources for Renaissance and Steampunk.

Learn more about Jeff Young here:

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eSPEC EXCERPTS – EF DEAL – A CAST OF CROWS

On February 10, 2023January 29, 2023 By eSpec BooksIn eSPEC EXCERPTS, KickstarterLeave a comment

We are at it again! Kicking off the year with a brand-new campaign: Full Steam Ahead!

Over the course of the campaign, we will be sharing these excerpts so you can get to know our authors’ style.

Rhymes with Lenore
Ef Deal

“Bore. Core. Gore. Cellar door.”

Like a nail scratching tin, the machine’s voice bit through the thick air of the metalworks laboratory. Edgar glared at his friend Dabbs and the foreign engineer who had saddled him with the infernal device.

“I asked for assistance. I asked for a means by which I might relieve the melancholia that has plagued me these past cold months.”

“Ignore lore.”

The rasp of the clockwork figure, corvid-shaped with an oiled bronze head, burnished brass torso, and shimmering plumage of rose gold, grated on Edgar’s ears like a rusted weathervane. The bird blinked its glass eyes innocently. Edgar would have sworn it mocked him with a wink. He leaned his fists on the worktable to stress his displeasure.

“I asked you to assist me in applying Golding Bird’s theories of electricity therapy for melancholia,” he said. “Dabbs, you were my boon companion at school. I thought you, above all others, could understand my plea. Instead of Golding Bird—” He waved derisively toward the automaton. “You made a golden bird! A raven, of all things. And it won’t cease its prattling.”

Dabbs, a heavyset, genial fellow, peered over the rims of his spectacles. “But I know how much you love Dickens, old boy. I remember your remarking on his talking crow, Grip. I thought it would bring a smile to your countenance.”

“Deplore,” the bird croaked.

With a frustrated roar, Edgar swept his arm across the table to upend the Raven, along with an array of retorts, beakers, condensers, and flasks, spilling their contents to the floor.

“Pour more?”

“And you betray my confidence by entrusting my commission to this French demon!” Edgar pointed an accusing finger at the slender figure beside Dabbs.

Dabbs approached warily and put a comforting arm around Edgar’s shoulder. “I assure you, Poe, Duval is the foremost electrical engineer in the field, specializing in clockwork automata. The Raven is exquisitely designed to your specifications, old boy; the finest mechanical intelligence. Were you meticulous in its application?”

Edgar growled. “I am not mad, Dabbs. Angry, yes, but mad—never.”

The two engineers exchanged concerned glances. With welding caps so tight against their heads and the odd goggle-eyed mask that covered Duval’s eyes, they looked more like hairless diabolical creatures conferring on the nature of Edgar’s soul. The tiny laboratory above the ironworks floor, already a steamy closet thick with fumes from the foundry, grew even warmer in the uncomfortable silence.

The Raven preened its burnished feathers, creating a soothing susurration of sound like brushes on a cymbal. It ruffled them out and eyed Edgar with the smug arrogance Edgar associated with his pseudo-father John Allan, demanding results he had never explained to the young orphan he had taken in, punishing mercilessly when Edgar failed to measure up to his expectations.

“Chore. Abhor. Boor. Knocked to the floor.”

It taunted him.

Duval examined the Raven, stroking its golden wings and tracing its claws with the delicate care of a nurturing parent. “Monsieur Poe, the Raven generates a very low voltage when it preens and ruffles, energy it stores and applies through the electrodes in its talons. This conduction of electricity should not have enabled the machine any further interaction than the mild therapeutic application you requested. How long did you expose yourself to the electrodes?”

Edgar flinched at the question, not for its unintelligible content but because it was the first time Duval addressed him, and he had not realized Duval was a woman. His collar tightened; his face flushed. He had unwittingly entrusted himself to a woman, the very cause of his melancholia.

One woman: his wife.

A year ago, Virginia’s throat had burst a blood vessel, and from that moment, the shadow of mortality consumed Edgar’s life apace with the disease consuming his beloved Virginia.

“More importantly, monsieur,” Duval said, poking her face into his, “were you in control of your own mind when you applied them?”

Flustered, Edgar snapped, “I am in possession of my faculties at this moment, madam, and I resent the insinuation.”

Duval pursed her lips. “Dabbs gave you clear instructions on the application. I heard him remind you that the influence of alcohol or opium while undergoing this therapy would incur dangerous consequences.”

Edgar dismissed her. “Baah. I recall no such instruction, and I would have you to understand I do not make use of opium or any such insalubrious substances that would interfere with the clarity of my mind. Such rumors of my addiction are but gross slanders. Nor have I touched a drop of alcohol for many months, as I promised my wife that I would remain sober so I may assist her in these painful days. Alcohol does not agree with my constitution.”

The rude Frenchwoman took up a lamp and pressed closer to Edgar, studying his eyes. Steel grey pierced Edgar’s soul, analytical, intrusive, unforgiving. Satisfied, she said, “His pupils are responsive, not dilated. We’ll proceed.”

Outrage at the flagrant temerity of the engineer in travesty pounded in his temples, deafening him. He pictured Duval strapped into the experimental chair with electrical and galvanizing apparatus so forcefully applied as to eject her teeth from her skull. He trembled, constraining his fury.

Dabbs patted his shoulder. “Easy, old boy. What do you say we recommence from the start.” He gathered up the Raven and stroked its head, eliciting a sweet hum as its rose-gold plumage excitated electrical forces. Dabbs indicated the chair, wired to both voltaic piles and Daniell cells. “Take a seat again, Edgar. Breathe normally.”

Edgar complied, even as he said in confusion, “Recommence? Again? We’ve done this before?”

Ef Deal is a new voice in the genre of speculative steampunk with her debut novel, Esprit de Corpse, but she is not new to publishing. Her short fiction has appeared in various magazines and ezines over the years. Her short story “Czesko,” published in the March 2006 F&SF, was given honorable mention in Gardner Dozois’ Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, which gave both her and Gardner great delight. They laughed and laughed and sipped Scotch (not cognac, alas) over the last line.

Despite her preoccupation with old-school drum and bugle corps ~ playing, composing, arranging, and teaching ~ Ef Deal can usually be found at the keyboard of her computer rather than her piano. She is Assistant Fiction Editor at Abyss & Apex magazine and edits videos for the YouTube channel Strong Women ~ Strange Worlds Quick Reads.

Esprit de Corpse from eSpec Books is the first of a series featuring the brilliant 19th-century sisters, the Twins of Bellesfées Jacqueline and Angélique. Hard science blends with the paranormal as they challenge the supernatural invasion of France in 1843.

When she’s not lost in her imagination, Ef Deal can be found in historic Haddonfield, NJ, in a once-haunted Victorian with her husband and two chows. She is an associate member of SFWA and an affiliate member of HWA.

Learn more about Ef Deal here:

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eSPEC EXCERPTS – DAVID LEE SUMMERS – GRIMM MACHINATIONS

On February 6, 2023January 29, 2023 By eSpec BooksIn eSPEC EXCERPTS, KickstarterLeave a comment

We are at it again! Kicking off the year with a brand-new campaign: Full Steam Ahead!

Over the course of the campaign, we will be sharing these excerpts so you can get to know our authors’ style.

The Porcelain Princess
David Lee Summers

Based on Snow White and the Seven Dwarves

Alberta, the alchemist queen, strode through the palace when she heard music from the courtyard. She followed the sound and sighed. A beautiful, snow-white porcelain automaton danced and whirled to melodies from an internal music box. The automaton had been commissioned by her one-time husband, the late king, as a shrine for his daughter’s heart. She possessed the same ebony hair and blood-red lips as the original. Alberta admired the engineering that went into the porcelain princess. The automaton danced with grace, and she could almost believe the Princess Janara had come to life again.

“She watches, you know.”

Queen Alberta startled, then snarled. She whirled and faced… herself. “She is just a doll,” Alberta said.

The automaton known as Mirror stood, ticking and whirring. It blinked and cocked its head. “Am I just a doll?”

“You’re… different.” Queen Alberta continued down the corridor, followed by Mirror. “You were built to speak for me in public.”

“I was built to be a target for assassins,” Mirror said.

“An indestructible target,” the queen amended.

“‘Difficult to destroy,’ might be more accurate.”

“You watch and report.” The queen’s gaze narrowed. “What do you mean when you say the porcelain princess watches?”

“Do not underestimate her,” Mirror warned. “Her jacquard brain is a fine machine. It stores patterns. It learns. The porcelain princess watches you. She is learning about your contacts and how you govern. When you send her on errands, she learns about the city. The people love the image of the princess. She grows popular and she knows it.”

The alchemist queen frowned as she climbed the stairs and entered her library. As long as a part of Princess Janara lived, as long as the porcelain princess had her human heart, the king had an heir, a king’s child who could build a coalition that could overthrow a king’s widow.

The queen narrowed her gaze. “Automata cannot act independently. They must be programmed.”

“You have programmed me to simulate independent behavior.” Mirror folded her hands in a careful study of the queen’s habit. “How different is that in a world of courtly etiquette and public perception?”

The queen proceeded through the library and stepped out onto a balcony overlooking the city-state of Marsstadt. Smokestacks around the city revealed factories that supplied machines to the surrounding principalities. An airship made its way to a mooring tower near one of the factories to deliver supplies and pick up trade goods. Whoever controlled Marsstadt, controlled the continent.

The queen looked back into the library. Mirror had remained behind. It would never do for both of them to appear in public view, side-by-side. An accidental glance would ruin the ruse. “Have you ever considered taking my place?”

“No, ma’am.” Mirror approached the door but remained in the shadows. “My existence depends on you. I’m not certain the same can be said for the porcelain princess.”

Queen Alberta had taken great pains to assure she controlled Marsstadt. It all started when she had come to the palace as an advisor and the king’s alchemist. One day, the former queen and her daughter, Princess Janara, planned to tour the country in an airship – a goodwill tour to cement alliances with the surrounding city-states. Using her alchemical knowledge, Alberta planted several incendiary devices around the airship. It went up in a satisfying fireball just outside the city’s gates. King Friedrich’s first wife died instantly, and Princess Janara had been mortally wounded.

The king brought in his seven finest craftsmen to build the porcelain princess as a shrine for Janara’s living heart. All the while, Alberta comforted the king. Eventually the king married Alberta, but not before he’d made a decree. “Janara is my true heir. Only the person who pledges their life to guarding the porcelain princess shall succeed me.” Alberta had no choice but to sign the pledge. A few weeks later, the king succumbed to a mysterious illness and Alberta inherited the dancing doll.

“It seems to me the porcelain princess could use something other than palace intrigue to stimulate her jacquard mind. Please summon the royal huntsman. I will be in my laboratory.”

Mirror nodded. “Very good, ma’am.”

David Lee Summers became a steampunk in 1987 when he used a nineteenth-century telescope on Nantucket to examine the evolution of distant pulsating stars. Since that time, he has published a dozen novels and numerous short stories and poems spanning a wide range of the imagination. Owl Dance, Lightning Wolves, The Brazen Shark, and Owl Riders comprise the Clockwork Legion steampunk series. His other novels include The Astronomer’s Crypt, Vampires of the Scarlet Order, and Firebrandt’s Legacy. His latest novella is a World War II-era cryptid tale called Breaking the Code.

David’s short stories have appeared in such magazines and anthologies as Realms of Fantasy, Cemetery Dance, Straight Outta Tombstone, Gaslight & Grimm, and After Punk. He’s been twice nominated for the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s Rhysling Award.

In addition to writing, David has edited the science fiction anthologies: A Kepler’s Dozen, Kepler’s Cowboys, and Maximum Velocity: The Best of the Full-Throttle Space Tales. When not working with the written word, David operates telescopes at Kitt Peak National Observatory. Learn more about David at http://www.davidleesummers.com.

Learn more about David Lee Summers here:

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eSPEC EXCERPTS – DANA FRAEDRICH – A CAST OF CROWS

On February 4, 2023January 29, 2023 By eSpec BooksIn eSPEC EXCERPTS, KickstarterLeave a comment

We are at it again! Kicking off the year with a brand-new campaign: Full Steam Ahead!

Over the course of the campaign, we will be sharing these excerpts so you can get to know our authors’ style.

A Careful Application of Fish
Dana Fraedrich

You might think a mission to locate and steal treasure from inside a small, wooden ship would be easy. Except for two very important things:

That ship is locked up tight inside a much larger building.

And, more importantly, things get tricky when you’re stuck inside the body of a raven.

Granted, I’m not cursed with this body all the time. Only during the day. When the sun goes down, however, I change back into a woman. That was the crux of my brilliant plan. I’d sneak in as a raven before sundown and then wait to leave under the cover of dark in my human form with treasure in hand.

The ship, a schooner by the name of the Gold Bug, lived up to its name. Throughout the afternoon, I’d watched it sail into port, gleaming with a golden sheen under the bright, tropical, southern sun of my home-city—Bone Port.

The bulk of the city is shaped a bit like a chubby crescent moon, which hugs the clear, green-blue waters of Bone Bay, which in turn, is full of smaller islands that speckle the inlet like stars. Ships coming into and leaving our fair shores have to navigate around these islands. That gave me plenty of time to fly over to the Gold Bug and discretely ensconce myself amidst the sails.

Ravens are neither common nor native to these tropical climes, and while there are plenty of tropical seabirds with black plumage, any sailor worth their salt wouldn’t mistake me for a gull or a tern and certainly never a cormorant. And nor do I think anyone would have guessed that I was really secretly a human, cursed to live my days in this avian form, but ravens are extremely clever and have been known to have been utilized for espionage. This is an important factor, given how Bone Port, along with the rest of the continent to the north, was at that time ensconced in a bit of an all-out civil war, but that is a story for another time. Suffice to say, thus was my reasoning for perching atop the gaff of the mainsail rather than below on the railing. Had I chosen to risk being seen, things might not have gone so completely wrong.

In my defense, however, I’d been warned to take care. The treasure I was after reportedly had the simultaneous ability to help fund our war efforts and cripple a large segment of our enemy’s forces. Jupiter, the man who’d hired me for this mission, had said to be on the lookout for lots of hired muscle.

Well, technically, he’d said, “Calandra, my sources say the target is protected by the best security money can buy. You’re one of my top operatives, so do me a favor and don’t get yourself killed.”

Jupiter was also an incredible spymaster, so he usually said things like, “Don’t get yourself killed,” and, “Never assume anything. Always work off of the intel.”

I had to admit, I wasn’t impressed with the intel we had. Looking down from my perch high above the deck, everything seemed normal. Having grown up by the sea, I’d spent as much time on boats of all forms and sizes and uses as I had on land—my time bearing this transformative curse notwithstanding. I knew a normally functioning ship when I saw it. And everything about the Gold Bug was tediously ordinary.

The figurehead was, instead of some great beast or daring warrior, a scarab beetle. Not the most imposing sight to behold on the high seas, but the Gold Bug was allegedly only a simple merchant vessel, so it didn’t need to strike fear into the hearts of enemy combatants. And the captain, one Hortense Bridlepath, had a reputation for running a tight ship. The distinct lack of shilly-shallying amongst her crew bore that out. The only strange part was why a simple merchant vessel needed to be locked securely inside a ship hangar, which was where the Gold Bug currently headed. But while that might raise some eyebrows, money talked and could easily convince those eyebrows to raise themselves at other things. Word of those payoffs had been what tipped Jupiter off to something being amiss about the Gold Bug and its cargo.

I was so busy puzzling over all the suspicious things not happening below me on deck I’d forgotten to keep an eye on my surroundings. Those of you who possess even the merest sliver of nautical experience may see where this is going. I mentioned previously that I’d perched atop the gaff of the mainsail. For the non-nautically inclined, a gaff is basically a rod that sticks out from the mast to help support and steer a sail. And while schooners like the Gold Bug are on the smaller end of sea-going vessel types, they are often still riddled with smaller, extra sails on top. While I was distracted by how bloody normal everything below was as the Gold Bug threaded its way around our star field of small islands and sandbars, the topsail swung around and smacked into me like a cricket bat into a ball.

With a grating caaaaaaaaw! I arced through the air, spinning, flapping wildly, and failing to catch the wind beneath my wings. I plonked into the water with a… well, a plonk. And then debated staying there because, even though the sailors above would never be able to identify me as anything but a stupid bird, that doesn’t make getting hurled so spectacularly into the sea any less humiliating. I bobbed to the surface, coughed the water out of my lungs—yes, birds do cough—and listened for any indications that my cover had been blown. Nothing more than raucous laughs, reenactments, and a few bets as to whether or not I was dead met my ears.

Dana Fraedrich is a dog lover, self-professed geek, and author of the steampunk fantasy series Broken Gears, which includes the Amazon bestseller, Out of the Shadows. Dana’s books are full of secrets and colorful characters that examine the many shades of grey that paint the world. When she isn’t busy writing or attending book shows and author conferences, she can be found playing video games and frolicking among the Bookstagram community (the bookish corner of Instagram).

Even from a young age, she enjoyed writing down the stories that she imagined in her mind. Born and raised in Virginia, she earned her BFA from Roanoke College and is now carving out her own happily ever after in Nashville, TN with her husband and two dogs. Dana is always writing; more books are on the way!

Learn more about Dana Fraedrich here:

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eSPEC EXCERPTS – KEN SCHRADER – GREASE MONKEYS

On February 2, 2023January 29, 2023 By eSpec BooksIn eSPEC EXCERPTS, KickstarterLeave a comment

We are at it again! Kicking off the year with a brand-new campaign: Full Steam Ahead!

Over the course of the campaign, we will be sharing these excerpts so you can get to know our authors’s style.

Stormspike
Ken Schrader

Rosamund Thorpe stood on the flight deck of His Majesty, King George VI’s flying fortress: Arc Royal, scowling into the night over the North Sea. Wind tugged at her shoulder-length brown hair. Its chill fingers snatched each plume of breath as it left her lips.

Stars glittered overhead, and a half-moon gave just enough light to see the fighter planes tethered to the flight deck around her. Two meters from the edge, strips of blue lights ran the perimeter of the deck. They weren’t bright enough to make the ship a target. They were a safety precaution.

And they were out.

The blackouts started a few days ago. They hadn’t lasted long, but on a ship like the Royal, they were as disruptive as a fishhook in the finger.

Worse, Rosamund and her crew hadn’t been able to find the cause. Which made the whole mess officially her fault.

It made no sense. Not even a blown fuse, but here she was, out on the deck, warding the edges because the bloody safety lights were out.

As if sensing her thoughts, the thin strips glowed to life.

“You could have had someone else ward the—what the hell?” A voice spoke from behind her.

Abigail Shaul, her second, stood hunched against the cold, her fists shoved deep into the pockets of her jacket. She stared at the safeties, head cocked, her brown hair whipping about her head.

“You look surprised,” Rosamund said.

“I am surprised,” Abigail said. “I came out here to give you a status update. We hadn’t started on the safeties.”

Rosamund frowned at the lights. “What did you find?”

“Not a bloody thing,” Abigail said.

“That can’t be right.”

“It is,” Abigail said. “Power has been restored, and we’ve been from one end of the outage to the other. Nothing.”

Rosamund glared at the lights. Her breath exploded in a cloud of gray. “The deck safeties are on their own backup circuit. Why did they go down?”

“We hadn’t made it there yet,” Abigail said. “The crew’ll look into it, but I have a feeling that they’ll find the same amount of nothing.”

“It can’t be nothing,” Rosamund said. “This is contested territory. If we run into the Germans during an outage…”

“We’ll figure it out.” Abigail turned up the collar of her jacket. “But we can only play what’s in front of us, and everything appears to be working now.”

A chill blast flowed across the deck, and Rosamund turned into it. The cold hitched her breath in her chest. She took it in and released it in a long plume. She hated not knowing. It got under her skin like a splinter.

A wall of clouds gathered at the horizon. A storm, probably—if the wind didn’t change.

She turned to Abigail. “Is everyone accounted for?”

“Aye. At least the night shift.” Abigail frowned. “What are you thinking?”

A sour feeling coiled in Rosamund’s stomach. She didn’t want to give voice to the thought. Tensions were already frayed among the crew.

A shiver rattled Abigail from head to foot. “Why are we still out here?”

“We’ve still got to brief the captain.” A wry grin quirked Rosamund’s lips. “Tell him we don’t have any idea what’s going on.”

“Ah.” Abigail’s blue eyes glittered. “I suppose I’ll get used to the cold eventually.”

***

Her wristwatch chimed at an ear-splitting pitch, and it took every ounce of self-restraint to keep Rosamund from smashing it against the bulkhead.

She sat up, stretched, and her right shoulder popped. She’d gotten too little sleep over the past few days. So had the rest of her crew, and she wasn’t going to ask them to do anything she wasn’t willing to do herself.

As expected, Captain Ethan Bywater hadn’t liked hearing that his chief engineer didn’t know what was going on with the power aboard his ship. Of course, with the power back on, all Rosamund had was her assurances that she’d get to the bottom of it.

It wasn’t his way to shout. Instead, he’d told her that he had every faith in her skill, while the look on his face was that of a disappointed parent.

She wished he’d shouted.

She stood, shivering as her bare feet hit metal. The chill of the deck meshed with a flash of frustration as she replayed their discussion in her head. She showered, dressed, and left her bunk wanting to dismantle some machinery—or the one responsible.

The first rays of dawn had yet to crest the edge of the world. Rosamund stepped onto the flight deck, her boots crunching a sheet of ice. The wind bit into her, coating the back of her throat with a pleasant arctic tang.

The weather soothed her, and she strode with quiet calm toward the forward weapon embankment the crew called the Fist of England.

The Arc Royal commanded a pair of Fists. One forward and one aft. Massive Tesla cannons, they were capable of throwing arcs of devastating electrical energy well over twenty-five kilometers.

Rosamund tested them every week, but recent events had convinced her to step up her schedule. There had been no outages for the last forty-eight hours, but that hadn’t kept her crew from working overtime, testing and retesting.

She blew out a frosty breath and climbed the ladder to the gunnery station. At the door, she paused, turning to look out over the sea.

The storm drew closer. It would overtake them, probably by the end of the day, unless the captain decided to outrun it.

Rosamund stepped into the room and threw the switch. A pair of caged incandescents snapped to life, filling the space with a warm, yellow light. She removed a radio from its charging station on the wall, inserted the earpiece, and switched it on. A staticky pop sounded in her ear, then the hum of an empty channel.

“Abigail, are you there?” Rosamund asked.

“Bright and early, chief.”

“Good.” Rosamund stepped clear of the room, adjusting her volume and baffles against the wind. “I want this test to go as smooth as a sheet of ice, but don’t hesitate to pull the plug if anything seems even slightly out of the ordinary.”

“Understood,” Abigail said. “Then it’s a leisurely afternoon spent pouring over diagnostics.” A trace of weariness entered her voice. “That should be fun. I’ll make sure the coffee is in your quarters before we get there.”

“Good woman,” Rosamund said. Footsteps on the deck signaled the arrival of the first of her crew. She glanced over her shoulder into the smiling face of Engineer First-Class Sam Holmes.

“Morning, Sam,” she said.

“Morning, chief,” he said. “I thought I was early. Did you sleep out here?”

“You know I don’t sleep.”

Sam chuckled. “Must be a requirement for promotion.” He pulled the edges of his jacket tighter. “Along with an immunity to the cold.”

“I grew up in this,” Rosamund said. “I’ll let you know when it starts getting cold.” Holmes snorted as he turned to the controls.

Rosamund repeated her instructions to Sam. She handed him her radio, clapped him on the shoulder, then climbed down to the deck.

Ken Schrader writes Science Fiction, Fantasy, Weird Westerns, and anything else he can get away with. He’s a shameless Geek, a fan of the Oxford comma, and he makes housing decisions based upon the space available for bookshelves.

He sings out loud when there’s no one around, enjoys a good grilling session, and loves a powerful drum beat. He can also procrastinate so well you’d think it was a superpower.

He lives in Michigan, and despite the seasonal allergies, he always enjoys mowing the lawn.

Learn more about Ken Schrader here:

Website * GoodReads * Amazon Author Page

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eSPEC EXCERPTS – JAMES CHAMBERS – GRIMM MACHINATIONS

On January 31, 2023January 29, 2023 By eSpec BooksIn eSPEC EXCERPTS, KickstarterLeave a comment

We are at it again! Kicking off the year with a brand-new campaign: Full Steam Ahead!

Over the course of the campaign, we will be sharing these excerpts so you can get to know our authors’ style.

The Souls of Misbehaved Boys
James Chambers

Based on The Adventures of Pinocchio

A boy in ashy rags and secondhand shoes shivered on the corner of Stratemeyer Alley. He blew into his cupped hands to warm his fingers, while he gazed the length of the alley, seeking. Despite his obvious destitution, he risked much venturing out after midnight in Appleton Corner. Criminals in this part of New Alexandria traded in more than money and contraband. Even an undernourished urchin offered potential riches in his pale flesh and brittle bones. The boy knew this, of course, and the tip-tap of passing footsteps sent him retreating into the nearest doorway’s cloaking shadows. After the pitter-patter faded, the child returned to the curb, his rangy body a scarecrow in the quavering gaslight.

His wide, watery eyes scrutinized the gloom. Seconds produced minutes which accumulated, as they must, into an hour. The boy slumped to the cobbles, his back against the sooty brick of a tenement building. After a time, he tented his legs, rested his head on his knees, and sobbed in the posture of lost boys everywhere. Denied a lifeline in the midnight desert of stone and fog, he dozed, tumbling into an irresistible slumber born of fatigue of the heart as well as the body—a thin and shiftless sleep where he saw his mother’s sad face in his dreams, defined forever by her pleading eyes, the only beauty he’d ever known.

The bray of a donkey echoing along the alley snapped the boy alert.

He bounced to his feet, eyes wide, in wonder at a silver shimmer that repelled the night like a fallen moonbeam. The illumination tumbled shadows along the alley until they assumed the shapes of their material counterparts: a pack of twenty-four donkeys drawing a broad coach driven by a pale, plump man with a cherubic grin. The donkeys all wore leather children’s shoes tied to their feet, so their hooves made little noise upon the cobblestones; straw bound by rags to the iron coach wheels muted their passage too. Only the beasts’s snorting breaths and the Coachman’s wheezing chuckle gave voice to the assembly, creating the impression that the coach sailed out of the night itself. Spirits lifted, the astonished boy whistled and waved.

Lamps dangled from hooks flanking the driver’s seat. They bobbed and scintillated until settling as the coach stopped. The Coachman’s doughy face glistened in the lamp glow. Produced by no ordinary oil, the light fringed everything it touched with a hazy glimmer. From the coach, a multitude of young eyes observed the boy, whose joy faltered upon seeing so many youths like him packed in tight. Though the crowded boys welcomed him with cheers, he saw no room at all left to join them.

“Hello, lad,” the Coachman said. His voice whispered like a cat’s hiss, like a mother’s good night kiss, like a secret hurriedly breathed into one’s ear. “Do you know where my coach goes?”

The boy nodded, too intimidated to speak.

“Excellent, yes, excellent. So there are no misunderstandings, let me hear you speak the place.”

The boy parted his lips and blurted his answer: “The Land of Toys.”

“Ah, correct, accurate, right you are.”

His voice unlocked, the boy spoke more readily. “They say that in the Land of Toys every day but Sunday is a Saturday.

Boys spend all day playing, and there are no teachers, no… parents. Is it true?”

“Most positively true, indeed. Now, young master, what is your name?”

“Bron, sir. Bron McMartin.”

“Such a stout name! Well, Bron McMartin, do you wish to travel to the Land of Toys? Not every boy is meant to make the journey. Do you wish to leave behind your old life for that wonderful place with these other fine, young lads?”

Bron hesitated, awestruck by the donkeys, the coach, and the Coachman himself, but mostly by the crammed-in boys garbed in so many different styles of attire they formed a patchwork quilt of youth that seemed to hail from every part of the world.

He frowned. “There’s no room! How can I ride with you?”

The Coachman chuckled, like bells dampened in felt, as if he didn’t fully exist in Bron’s world. “I always have room for one more. You shall ride right here with me.” He patted the space beside him on the driver’s bench. “But only if you really, truly wish to go to the most marvelous land in all the world. Is that your heart’s honest desire?”

Bron nodded. “Yes, yes! It is.”

“Climb on, then, Master Bron.”

The Coachman offered his hand.

A faraway voice reached Bron’s ears: No, Bron, don’t! Get down! Get away! The unknown voice drifted to him from the far end of Stratemeyer Alley. Run! The coach is not what you think. It’s bad, Bron! Very bad!

Bron glanced at the alley mouth, but the oily glow of the coach lamps bleached away everything beyond their reach. The driver’s welcoming hand waited. The boys in the coach urged Bron to board. The impatient donkeys tamped their feet. Their eyes frightened Bron. They resembled the eyes of the old dock horses where his father worked the ports on Muhheakantuck Bay, sad, worn-out horses with their ribs showing on their last days before being sent to slaughter. Their eyes reminded him of hungry dogs that scavenged food in the gutters; of his mother’s eyes on nights his father came home reeking of drink; of her eyes on the last night Bron saw her before she vanished, or ran away, or went home to her family in the South, or was kidnapped by pirates. He didn’t know which of his father’s explanations to believe, but none altered the sorrowful look on her face that pitied him in his dreams.

Get away, Bron! Run!

Footsteps joined the anonymous voice now.

“The Land of Toys is only for the cleverest boys.” The Coachman lowered his hand, prelude to withdrawing it. “I won’t take one who doesn’t genuinely wish to go.”

“Oh, but I want to go. I do! I do!”

Bron boosted himself onto the coach step, grabbed the driver’s fleshy mitt, and hoisted himself onto the seat.

“Huzzah! An excellent choice made by an excellent bo—”

Interrupting the Coachman’s words came a solid shadow caroming between him and Bron. It latched itself to the Coachman’s shoulders then erupted into a flurry of thin arms and legs beating the man about the face and throat. The thock-thock of wood striking flesh filled Bron’s ears as the shadow-shape pummeled the driver. Its torso clanked and spit blasts of wet air.

“You dare strike me?” the outraged Coachman cried.

He lashed back at the shadow-figure, his hands tangled briefly by the coach reins, but then he seized his attacker in his massive, pulpy grip. Held motionless in mid-air by the Coachman’s outstretched arms, the shadow-fighter resolved into a most unexpected thing: a marionette! A carved, wooden head, arms, and legs sprouted from its iron-and-brass torso, which breathed steam from valves along its ribs. Bron knew marionettes from the street fairs his father took him to, leaving him alone for hours at the puppet theater while he drank in the beer garden, but he’d never seen one like this. It wore clothes like those of the Italian immigrant children Bron’s father despised and seemed to act all on its own.

“Put me down!” the marionette said in a boyish voice. “You won’t steal any more boys.”

Bron searched for a puppeteer pulling strings and speaking for the effigy from a nearby rooftop or ledge but saw no one. With one hand, the marionette grasped its left ear, formed of brass rather than wood, and cranked it rapidly, sending its wooden nose jutting out to strike the Coachman square in the face. The more he cranked, the more the nose hammered the man until his expression crumpled with a pained grunt.

“Oh, you insolent pest,” the Coachman cried. “I’ve had my fill of you. Stay out of my business!”

He hurled the artificial boy to the alley stones then lashed the reins and spurred on the donkey team. They trampled the poor marionette, snapping its joints, denting and cracking its iron-and-brass body, spilling gears and rods from within, and splintering its limbs beneath their hooves despite their soft shoes. The coach wheels trundled over it, further crushing it under their weight.

The pleading voice sounded again: Jump, Bron! Before it’s too late!

As the coach accelerated, Bron saw a boy and a girl, a few years older than him, rushing after the coach. They waved their hands and yelled for him to flee. The vague shadow of an adult followed them. Get off the coach! Don’t go!

The pleas planted seeds of doubt in Bron’s head. They sprouted fast through the happy singing of the boy passengers and the feline humming of the Coachman. The coach rolled out of the alley onto the verge of a place Bron didn’t know, a part of the city he’d never seen, or perhaps a space altogether different, one between New Alexandria and the Land of Toys. The warning voices, the snap of splintering wood, and the cracking of brass echoed in his head. A mournful donkey glanced at Bron, who thought of his dream mother. Menace writhed now in the Coachman’s expression, devoid of its former warmth and welcome. The round-face man curled his vermicular lips in a terrible grin of smug satisfaction.

“We’re on our way now, boy,” he said.

His altered face spoke of unknown dangers more than pleasures and filled Bron with the same chill his father’s intoxicated eyes sent along his spine the nights he came home late from the pub. He wished to escape that fear. The chance that it might travel with him even to the Land of Toys proved too much to bear. Bron leapt. His body burned, as if the light of the coach lamps peeled itself from him, then he struck hard cobblestones and tumbled into the gutter.

The coach rolled on, its passengers belting out a happy child’s song. The donkeys’ braying faded. The Coachman laughed, then all of it—the boys, the donkeys, the Coachman, the coach, and its realm of glimmering light—blinked out of existence.

James Chambers received the Bram Stoker Award® for the graphic novel, Kolchak the Night Stalker: The Forgotten Lore of Edgar Allan Poe and is a four-time Bram Stoker Award nominee. He is the author of the short story collections On the Night Border and On the Hierophant Road, which received a starred review from Booklist, which called it “…satisfyingly unsettling”; and the novella collection, The Engines of Sacrifice, described as “…chillingly evocative…” in a Publisher’s Weekly starred review. He has written the novellas, Three Chords of Chaos, Kolchak and the Night Stalkers: The Faceless God, and many others, including the Corpse Fauna cycle: The Dead Bear Witness, Tears of Blood, The Dead in Their Masses, and The Eyes of the Dead. He also writes the Machinations Sundry series of steampunk stories. He edited the Bram Stoker Award-nominated anthology, Under Twin Suns: Alternate Histories of the Yellow Sign and co-edited A New York State of Fright and Even in the Grave, an anthology of ghost stories. His website is: www.jameschambersonline.

Learn more about James Chambers here:

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