The Mammoth Book of Steampunk
Sean Wallace
Language: English
Pages: 512
ISBN: 0762444681
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
This is steampunk with a modern, post-colonial sensibility. Contributors include: Jeff VanderMeer, Caitlin Kiernan Paul Di Filippo, Mary Robinette Kowal, Jay Lake, Cherie Priest, Cat Rambo, Ekaterina Sedia, Catherynne M. Valente, Genevieve Valentine and many more
Mot. And this is the ballad of the last human. Acknowledgements “Steampunk: Looking to the Future Through the Lens of the Past” © 2012 by Ekaterina Sedia. Original to this volume. “Fixing Hanover” © 2008 by Jeff VanderMeer. Originally appeared in Extraordinary Engines. Reprinted by permission of the author. “The Steam Dancer (1896)” © 2007 by Caitlín R. Kiernan. Originally appeared in Sirenia Digest. Reprinted by permission of the author. “Icebreaker” © 2012 by E. Catherine
slack. A copper point on the head would be perfect, but Tom figured he could make do with the steel. When the line came up short and the nervous weather watch huddled around him, Tom pulled himself away from his work on the harpoon shaft. “It’s like this, men,” he shouted. He hated speaking, hated rousing men like this – that was the job of officers and shop foremen, not a thinker like himself. Especially when he was the youngest man on the deck. Salmon gave Tom a big wink. “That up there’s
Nephil’s laughter changed to an eerie howl. Tom looked up again, his vision growing red – why? he wondered even in that moment – to see sparks pouring from the monster’s mouth, its hands, its hair. Far more electricity than could have come from Tom’s Planté-Fauré battery cell. The Nephil raged amid a storm of blue, yellow and green sparks, lightning snakes that writhed along its arms and legs, seared its eyes, set fire to its skin. I have opened a circuit to Heaven, Tom thought. He collapsed
achieved already. Her superiors had spent a profligate amount of money requisitioning a set of those flasks from the German chemist who’d recently invented them, precisely with an eye towards impressing men like Rillieux, who looked down upon any science that did not show European roots. Yet as Rillieux gazed at the flask, Jessaline was dismayed to see a look of consternation, then irritation, cross his face. “I am an engineer, mademoiselle,” he said at last, “not a chemist.” “We have already
falling behind, they had to employ two wrenches, one per hand. Sweat poured off them. They shed their hats, then their jackets, then their shirts and pants, leaving them clad only in voluminous underwear. Harpo, on the other hand, was feeling no pressure at all. He began drilling holes in his hat, then his jacket, then his shirt and pants. Groucho urged Dumont into his office, then doffed his hat, clasped it to his chest and tossed it aside. He chased her around the desk. Dumont projected both