I have to believe it’s right to be a warm voice, a companion if I can be, as soon as ever I find a friend.

Living on steam isn’t easy.

The important question is, what will your wear for a wedding dress, Alexia? You look horrible in white.

There are creatures in this world, small things and pretty things, which burn within them a fire for survival.

It was the dog Abel, who – as animals have been reported to do – had made his way over all England’s hills and rivers, to return to that home where he was first kindly...

The cracks grew over him like vines, faster and faster. At first he bucked, whinnying metallic screeches. Then he gradually stilled, looking up at me with frightened glass eyes.He was growing.New, molten glass leeched out...

It should be said that my parents had married for love. The affection and devotion they had shared was the rarest of indulgences, perhaps especially in those days. For them, it had been love at...

A steampunk nationBaby pollution rises up then the loving comes arraigning ’causeOur art’s official and only partially artificialAnd our heart’s in the middle of sharp hardened shards of metal butThere’s not where it settlesBecause it’s...

…no matter what it may hold.

He could sit in the dust and dark of the carriage house and rot for the rest of his life. Clearly that’s what he wished to do. It was not my place to get in...

Everything was a broken line for me in those days. I was slipped into the empty spaces between words.

We’re fragile things, Harb. It doesn’t look like it but we are. We’re here one minute, and just like that, we’re gone. The Peacemakers (The Nemesis Engines)

OMG YOU GUYS it has come to my attention that SOMEONE on the internet is saying that my fictional 19th century zombies are NOT SCIENTIFICALLY SOUND. Naturally, I am crushed. To think, IF ONLY I’d...

That is the difference between great men and small, we great are willing to do the hard things, the uncomfortable things to ensure we succeed.

Beauty was a weapon as well, one Viola enjoyed wielding.

The Girauds’ child was looking more and more like a problem.Luke pressed his lips into a thin line. When she’d leaned in the stagecoach blazing with fervor over what was in the arcane books, it...

Il Destino però è un essere capriccioso e beffardo, e un anno dopo avvenne quella che sui libri di storia venne in seguito riportata come la Grande Mutazione. A oggi gli scienziati non sono in...

It takes use to make knowledge worthwhile.

What do you mean, my life is at risk?” I questioned. “From one of the other professors?””Oh, it goes much deeper than that, Freddy,” he said with a half crazed, wide eyed smile. Leaning in,...

Geoff’s arm emanated with a solid warmth I longed for after our days aboard S.S. British-Craphole.

Well, I don’t read many novels! Because I’m kinda fully-booked already! But, obviously, you’re a science fiction writer at a Futurist conference! And I can see that you’re all dressed up like some fancy guy...

This is the time of myths, Orphan. They are the cables that run under the floors and power the world, the conduits of unseen currents, the steam that powers the great engines of the earth.

These violators responded only as cowards could. They ran.

The tools of their trade were simple, effective things: iron knuckles, saps and the like. But the iconic tool of the scuttler arsenal was a woven leather belt with a heavy iron or brass buckle...

Take to the Sky,” but the rest of the time blurred after I drank absinthe with the Captain.

«I love both her and them. I have come to understand that she is what they are. A woman accepts a man, expecting that he will change. A man takes a woman, expecting that she...

What makes us the strongest tribe on the continent is the fact that a group that opposes these values–a group that would have mankind remain in the new dark ages–is permitted to grow, permitted to...

I like stories about supervillains. They teach children that you can accomplish great things even when the whole world is against you.

Not another word, not another thought, not another sniffle. If you need to pass gas, I pray you’ll clench your backside and keep walking until we are certainly alone.

They aren’t insane enough to join the party.

As they walked, it seemed almost every building had some similar contrivance as decoration, adorning the street in a cacophony of clangs, bangs and whirs. The street’s surroundings danced with steam and smoke, the scent...

When you read my stories, I want you to see the world through my eyes; as if I based my work on you. Come away with me, and I’ll show you a world that you’ve...

Steampunk is Victorian science fiction

When John-Joseph Heller’s fights became too much of a sure thing, story has it he moved on to more risky fights with grown men and even starved dogs. Though he was scarred often, he was...

We learned the seven traditional ways to make words unclear.””Seven? That many? Which was the most effective?””Poor grammar skills.

And then there was an explosion.

Music can make you feel things that aren’t yours—sadness, or love, or joy. A good song has a magic to it. It pulls you in and the feelings in the music take over and you...

Indeed. I have often thought that when a man selects one word over another he often reveals far more of himself than he intended.

she delighted in being of the same substance as them, and in knowing that when she died her flesh would nourish other lives as they had nourished her.

Let us fly, Madam Harpy Queen. Show me how you dance on the wind.

But there was nothing. No village or town as far as her eyes could strain. Nowhere for her saviours to come from and take her to; just fields and trees and the weeping arc of...

This time he had no choice but to look into her eyes. He did not look away. It was the bright fierce gaze that she remembered so vividly from their first meeting. He’d reminded her...

Here lies the body of Colonel Cornell’s. The rest of the fellow, I fancy, in hell is.

I tell you all the time, you will never be able to replace me with a brass and steam contraption.

Garrett. My name is Garrett and please make my name a sin to speak. Maybe that way I won’t have people like you screaming out for people like me; for people like you are so...

Rejoice in the colours…

What is it, you ask?” Kali said, trying to cover her surprise with nonchalant words. “I haven’t thought of a name yet. Got any ideas?””Shit,” the pirate said, said of. The gag made elocution difficult.”That...

Goons were the lowest sort of homunculi, only superior to zombies.

But I don’t want to be a vampire drone.’ Sophronia winced. ‘They’ll suck my blood and make me wear only the very latest fashions.

hand. I was charged with organizing the messages: descriptions of the creatures, descriptions of their space vessels, descriptions of their conveyances, of their weapons, of their movements. Positions of our soldiers, of our allies’ soldiers....