Ride into the Wild West with ten steampunked expansions of classic American tales.
A Princess of Jasoom by J. Aurel Guay: An intrepid young researcher reaches for the stars from the Arizona desert, and finds love where she least expects it.
Winged Hope by Megan Oliphant: The widow of a brilliant inventor fights insurmountable odds to see her husband’s dreams realized and save the life of her daughter.
The Van Tassel Legacy by Jay Barnson: A stranger arrives in Sleepy Hollow to unearth old conspiracies and bring the Van Brunts to justice.
Invested Charm by M. Irish Gardner: A mysterious woman doles out justice in Boston society, but who will catch her first: organized crime or the law?
Payoff for Air Pirate Pete by D. Lee Jortner: A pair of train-robbing outlaws bite off more than they can chew when they kidnap the son of a railroad bigwig.
Rise of the House of Usher by J.R. Potter: A mad scientist gains power over life and death at the cost of his family’s sanity, if not their very lives.
The Silver Scams by M. K. Wiseman: A fast-talking confidence man ensnares all of Holland in his scheme to eliminate dikes forever . . . for a price.
Nautilus Redux by Scott E. Tarbet: Captain Nemo’s crew stumble upon an island castaway who claims to be Captain Ahab of the Pequod. Only Moby Dick knows the truth.
Mr. Thornton by Scott William Taylor: Hounded by tragedy and betrayal, a gifted young blacksmith wanders from The Ohio to The Yukon searching for honor, loyalty, and justice.
West End by Neve Talbot: A heartbroken Theodore Laurence follows the siren song of steam to Jamaica, where love and law collide with explosive results.
Awesome Anthology!
Steampunk is a hard genre to work with when you have to keep it short. World building is key, and that’s hard to accomplish when your time is limited. You’ve got to not only create fleshed out characters and an intriguing plot, you also have to create a fantastical world as the backdrop. These authors did a fantastic job.
Amazon
Bitesized Chunks of REAL Steampunk!
Mechanized Masterpieces 2: An American Anthology by a group of incredibly talented authors is a wonderful example of using a premium of words to convey a journey back in time, the marvels of the human mind and their inventions, all while being completely entertaining and feeling totally satisfying.
Barnes & Noble
A fun roller coaster ride through a what if scenario of a mechanized world.
I found it hard to put down the book, wanting to know what happened next. And at times, I had to close the book and walk away because I just couldn’t stand the suspenseful rollercoaster ride. I couldn’t stay away for too long though, I was back within minutes to continue the adventure.
AmazonAVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK AND EBOOK
THE AUTHORS
J. Aurel Guay
Hailing from New England where he lives with his bride, and their two children, J. Aurel Guay writes both fantasy and science fiction with emphasis on strong plots and meaningful themes. Having played at writing fiction since grade school, Guay more recently has revived his passion as a coping skill in reaction to graduate school in biomedical science. Soon to complete his graduate studies, he is intent on publishing further short stories and novels.
Megan Oliphant
An editor at The X, Megan Oliphant has studied creative writing since college, taking classes from the founder of LTUE, Marion K. “Doc” Smith at Brigham Young University, and attended Orson Scott Card’s Literary Boot Camp in June of 2014. Her primary interests are in fantasy, ranging from dark urban to high epic, but she’s a sucker for a good mystery that she can’t guess the ending to before she gets there. She divides her time between reading, writing, and “familying” with her husband and five children in North Carolina.
Jay Barnson
Software engineer, video game developer, and father, Jay Barnson is a transplant to the state of Utah from the east coast. He grew up on a diet of science fiction and fantasy ranging from Howard, Heinlein, and Tokien to Lucas and Spielberg. His wife and daughters had to drag him to his first steampunk convention. And now they can’t drag him away from the genre.
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M. Irish Gardner
A daydreamer at heart, M. Irish Gardner has dabbled in imaginary worlds from day one and developed an incurable addiction when she finally began recording her ideas. Her bachelor’s degree in recreation management does nothing for her writing, but she sure knows how to play. She lives in Arizona with her husband, two daughters and all the other characters in her head.
D. Lee Jortner
Playing with imaginary friends and writing and directing plays in the neighbor’s garage filled D. Lee Jortner’s childhood. Today she lets her imagination flow onto her keyboard as she writes mystery, fantasy and steampunk stories and novels. “Payoff for Air-Pirate Pete” is her first short story for Xchyler Publishing. She also enjoys her marketing role with the company and teaching English composition at Ivy Tech Community College in Valparaiso, Indiana. When not writing or working, Jortner is usually busy with her husband, children or grandchildren.
J. R. Potter
A lover of graphic novels and the occult fiction of the late great John Bellairs, James gravitated towards the paranormal world from an early age. Watching the first episode of The X-Files with his older brother was a transformative experience, as well as an education in great storytelling and mythmaking.
Since “growing up,” James has devoted his time to finding his voice through writing, publishing short fiction in The Portland Review, and winning two international short story competitions for science fiction and horror. When he’s not writing, he tours with his incredible wife Amy as “The Crooked Angels,” an Americana duo specializing in rocking your socks off.
Potter is currently collaborating with artist Klaus “Plaid Klaus” Shmidheiser in the graphic novel series “Glimmer Society.”
M. K. Wiseman
A Wisconsin gal with a Southwest soul, M. K. Wiseman can generally be found wandering happily amongst the pages of the largest book she can get her hands on. She came upon writing rather accidentally, finding that, sometimes, there are stories that simply must be told. A techie with a penchant for typewriters, she is a magnet for misadventure, though her own story has yet to unfold. Harboring such dreams as someday possessing a library complete with hidden bookcase doors, piloting a hot air balloon, and running away in a sailboat.
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Scott E. Tarbet
Scott Tarbet writes enthusiastically in several genres, sings opera, was married in full Elizabethan regalia, loves Steampunk waltzes, and slow-smokes thousands of pounds of Texas-style barbeque. An avid skier, hiker, golfer, and tandem kayaker, he makes his home in the mountains of Utah.
Scott William Taylor
Scott William Taylor lives and writes in Utah. He grew up living on the side of a mountain and lives on that same mountain today, with his family and a dog that loves cheese. Scott is married, with four children. He received his undergraduate degree in Communications from the University of Utah and a Masters in English from Weber State University.
Scott is the creator and producer of A Page or Two Podcast. He also wrote the award-winning short film, Wrinkles. When not writing and working, Scott enjoys participating in community theater productions with his children.
Neve Talbot
As a child, Neve Talbot developed the habit of lulling herself to sleep by dreaming up continuations of her favorite books too soon ended. She never left off the habit, and eventually gained confidence in worlds of her own creation. She first cracked open a spiral binder in high school, and has spent the past decade dutifully penning her prerequisite one million words of bad writing before getting to the good stuff. Now author and journalist, Neve currently lives with her husband in a quasi-reality filled with fantasy, sci-fi, historical fiction, Regency romance, the classics, and history books, suspended between the piney woods and sprawling metropolis of southeast Texas. She plans on exploring the world when she grows up.
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