Download or read book Balanced on the Blade s Edge written by Lindsay Buroker and published by Lindsay Buroker. This book was released on 2014-04-01 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Colonel Ridge Zirkander isn’t the model of military professionalism—he has a tendency to say exactly what’s on his mind, and his record has enough demerits to wallpaper the hull of an airship—but as the best fighter pilot in the Iskandian army, he’s used to a little leniency from his superiors. Until he punches the wrong diplomat in the nose and finds himself issued new orders: take command of a remote prison mine in the inhospitable Ice Blades Mountains. Ridge has never been in charge of anything larger than a flier squadron—what’s he supposed to do with a frozen fortress full of murderers and rapists? Not to mention the strange woman who shows up right before he arrives… Sardelle Terushan wakes from three hundred years in a mage stasis shelter, only to realize that she is the last of the Referatu, the sorcerers who once helped protect Iskandia from conquerors. Their subterranean mountain community was blown up in a treacherous sneak attack by soldiers who feared their power. Everyone Sardelle ever knew is dead, and the sentient soulblade she has been bonded to since her youth is buried in the core of the mountain. Further, what remains of her home has been infested by bloodthirsty miners commanded by the descendants of the very soldiers who destroyed her people. Sardelle needs help to reach her soulblade—her only link to her past and her last friend in the world. Her only hope is to pretend she’s one of the prisoners while trying to gain the commander’s trust. But lying isn’t her specialty, especially when the world has changed so much in the intervening centuries, and if Colonel Zirkander figures out who she truly is, he’ll be duty-bound to sentence her to the only acceptable punishment for sorcerers: death.

Download or read book The Difference Engine written by William Gibson and published by Spectra. This book was released on 2011-07-26 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1855: The Industrial Revolution is in full and inexorable swing, powered by steam-driven cybernetic Engines. Charles Babbage perfects his Analytical Engine and the computer age arrives a century ahead of its time. And three extraordinary characters race toward a rendezvous with history—and the future: Sybil Gerard—a fallen woman, politician’s tart, daughter of a Luddite agitator Edward “Leviathan” Mallory—explorer and paleontologist Laurence Oliphant—diplomat, mystic, and spy. Their adventure begins with the discovery of a box of punched Engine cards of unknown origin and purpose. Cards someone wants badly enough to kill for…. Part detective story, part historical thriller, The Difference Engine is the collaborative masterpiece by two of the most acclaimed science fiction authors writing today. Provocative, compelling, intensely imagined, it is a startling extension of Gibson’s and Sterling’s unique visions—and the beginning of movement we know today as “steampunk!”

Download or read book Daemon written by Daniel Suarez and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-01-08 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Daniel Suarez’s New York Times bestselling debut high-tech thriller is “so frightening even the government has taken note” (Entertainment Weekly). Daemons: computer programs that silently run in the background, waiting for a specific event or time to execute. They power almost every service. They make our networked world possible. But they also make it vulnerable... When the obituary of legendary computer game architect Matthew Sobol appears online, a previously dormant daemon activates, initiating a chain of events that begins to unravel our interconnected world. This daemon reads news headlines, recruits human followers, and orders assassinations. With Sobol’s secrets buried with him, and as new layers of his daemon are unleashed, it’s up to Detective Peter Sebeck to stop a self-replicating virtual killer before it achieves its ultimate purpose—one that goes far beyond anything Sebeck could have imagined...

Download or read book Discerned written by Sarah Addison-Fox and published by Sarah Addison-Fox. This book was released on with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Mick and Celeste accept the offer to search for rogue agents, what should have been one final adventure becomes Torrance Kyle's worst nightmare. Amaya Mason may no longer be an agent, but there is no way she'll allow a mistake from the past wreck her happy ending. And she will fight anyone who stands in her way. Mick Haynes didn't expect to have Celeste under his command, but she's not about to let him forget just how capable she is, and that she's more than just the woman he loves.

Download or read book The Anubis Gates written by Tim Powers and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1997-01-01 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Take a dazzling journey through time with Tim Power’s classic, Philip K. Dick Award-winning tale... “There have been other novels in the genre about time travel, but none with The Anubis Gates’ unique slant on the material, nor its bottomless well of inventiveness. It’s literally in a class by itself, a model for others to follow, and it's easy to see how it put Powers on the map.”—SF Reviews Brendan Doyle, a specialist in the work of the early-nineteenth century poet William Ashbless, reluctantly accepts an invitation from a millionaire to act as a guide to time-travelling tourists. But while attending a lecture given by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1810, he becomes marooned in Regency London, where dark and dangerous forces know about the gates in time. Caught up in the intrigue between rival bands of beggars, pursued by Egyptian sorcerers, and befriended by Coleridge, Doyle somehow survives and learns more about the mysterious Ashbless than he could ever have imagined possible...

Download or read book The Gauntlet written by Karuna Riazi and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-03-28 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A trio of friends from New York City find themselves trapped inside a mechanical board game that they must dismantle in order to save themselves and generations of other children in this action-packed debut that’s a steampunk Jumanji with a Middle Eastern flair. Nothing can prepare you for The Gauntlet… It didn’t look dangerous, exactly. When twelve-year-old Farah first laid eyes on the old-fashioned board game, she thought it looked…elegant. It is made of wood, etched with exquisite images—a palace with domes and turrets, lattice-work windows that cast eerie shadows, a large spider—and at the very center of its cover, in broad letters, is written: The Gauntlet of Blood and Sand. The Gauntlet is more than a game, though. It is the most ancient, the most dangerous kind of magic. It holds worlds inside worlds. And it takes players as prisoners.

Download or read book Steam Wars written by Fred Perry and published by Antarctic Press. This book was released on 2014-07-04 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Not so long ago in a galaxy relatively close by, a ragged alliance of rebels engages in an epic struggle to free their world from the grip of LORD BARON and the HEGEMONIC CRUX. Having stolen the formula for WARP COAL, the secret fuel of the enemy dreadnoughts DUCHESS IMOEN flees for her life. She then stumbles across her only hope: BO, the last of the legendary storm foil warriors known as the QUANTUM DRAGOONS-and Lord Baron's son!

Download or read book Timebound written by Heather Albano and published by Stillpoint Digital Press. This book was released on 2018-11-22 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The thrilling conclusion of the Keeping Time trilogy! A diva, a crime lord, a resistance fighter, a bohemian — who will she be this time? Katrina, Maxwell, Elizabeth, William, and their comrades have one last chance to set time right... only this time they’re up against time-traveling storm troopers from the Third Reich. What happens when time loops in on itself, and the center of the Gordian knot is a secret, heavily guarded facility in Norway? It turns out that Napoleon wasn’t the only megalomaniac with dreams of world conquest our heroes need to stop! COMING November 22, 2018! (Science fiction Steampunk time-travel, historical romance and adventure) Extract: Exasperated, Maxwell picked up letter and bag together, and the loose drawstring mouth opened, dumping the contents literally into his lap. He had time to think, The last damned thing I want is my father’s watch— Then he got a good look at it. And nothing was ever the same again. One could not be indifferent when one held in one’s hands an object that could not possibly exist. Instead of one face, it had four, two crowded on one side and two on another. One of these looked like it might actually tell time, though it was not doing so at present. The second had both an inner and outer dial, with numbers running all around it. The third was even more complicated, comprised of eight dials nesting within each other. These had numbers as well, ones significant enough that they immediately jumped to his attention: 0, 2, 1, 1, 1, 8, 1, 9. The second of November, 1819. The day his parents had vanished. And the fourth face simply could not exist. The fourth face displayed moving images. Tiny ones, but perfectly distinct, a scene aboard a sailing ship that lurched over waves even as he watched it. And then dissolved, to be replaced by knights in plate mail competing in a joust. The dry and logical voice he kept within had no chance to offer any opinions about coincidence, or to speculate with what Georgie might be lacing his brandy. The situation was too real, too immediate, to be considered sardonically at one remove. Maxwell’s heart beat fast and his palms sweated as he held the timepiece. With his other hand he fumbled to pick up the second object the red velvet bag had deposited into his lap. A locket. Of the sort a man rather than a woman would wear, and so the contents came as no particular surprise. This was William Carrington’s memorabilia, after all. Of course he had a locket containing a picture of Elizabeth Barton. Maxwell had only ever seen one portrait of her, the one painted on her sixteenth birthday, a year before she had run off to Gretna Green and her family had disowned her. It had hung in a disused bedchamber in the house of his Barton grandparents, but he had managed to carve out a little time to creep away and stare at it upon each childhood visit. She looked to be a few years older in this little locket miniature, or perhaps it was only the matron’s cap confining her curls that granted the illusion. The letter. The letter would explain all this. He had never in his life opened a letter so eagerly. My dear son, it began. We need your help. And for the second time in two days, Maxwell felt as though he had been punched in the gut.

Download or read book Secrets in the Mist written by Morgan L. Busse and published by Enclave Escape. This book was released on 2021-08-10 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What's lurking in the Mist is the least of their worries... In a world where humanity lives in the sky to escape a deadly mist below, Cass's only goal is survival. That is, until she finds a job on the airship Daedalus as a diver. Now she explores ruined cities, looking for treasure and people's lost heirlooms until a young man hires her to find the impossible: a way to eradicate the Mist. Theodore Winchester is a member of one of the Five Families that rule the skies. Following in his father's footsteps, he searches for the source of the Mist and hopes to stop the purges used to control overpopulation. But what he finds are horrifying secrets and lethal ambition. If he continues his quest, it could mean his own death. The Mist is rising and soon the world will be enveloped in its deadly embrace, turning what's left of humanity into the undead.

Download or read book Sensibility Grey Steampunk Collection Books 1 3 written by Kirsten Weiss and published by misterio press. This book was released on 2022-03-31 with total page 943 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: California Territory, 1848. Steam-powered technology is still in its infancy. Gold has been discovered, emptying the village of San Francisco of its male population. And newly arrived immigrant, Englishwoman Sensibility Grey, is alone. Sensibility has spent her life tinkering in her father’s laboratory and missing the finer points of proper British life. But when her father dies in penury, she’s shipped to the wild west of the California gold rush. Threats lurk behind every saloon and storefront in this anarchic territory. And her father kept deadly secrets, secrets that may destroy Sensibility and those she comes to love. Three thrilling novels of steampunk suspense, packed with mechanicals, magic and murder. Buy the Sensibility Grey Steampunk Collection and start reading these page-turning gaslight adventures today.

Download or read book Assholes written by Aaron James and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2012-10-30 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the spirit of the mega-selling On Bullshit, philosopher Aaron James presents a theory of the asshole that is both intellectually provocative and existentially necessary. What does it mean for someone to be an asshole? The answer is not obvious, despite the fact that we are often personally stuck dealing with people for whom there is no better name. Try as we might to avoid them, assholes are found everywhere—at work, at home, on the road, and in the public sphere. Encountering one causes great difficulty and personal strain, especially because we often cannot understand why exactly someone should be acting like that. Asshole management begins with asshole understanding. Much as Machiavelli illuminated political strategy for princes, this book finally gives us the concepts to think or say why assholes disturb us so, and explains why such people seem part of the human social condition, especially in an age of raging narcissism and unbridled capitalism. These concepts are also practically useful, as understanding the asshole we are stuck with helps us think constructively about how to handle problems he (and they are mostly all men) presents. We get a better sense of when the asshole is best resisted, and when he is best ignored—a better sense of what is, and what is not, worth fighting for.

Download or read book Steampunk Specs written by Christopher Barzak and published by AudioText. This book was released on 2013-02-28 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of unabridged, spectacular steampunk speculations includes several classics of the genre. These tales will sweep you away with their amazing automata, daring dirigibles, grinding gears, and scintillating steam as days long gone are infused with tech. In “Smoke City,” by Christopher Barzak, a woman comes to terms with the loss of her family to the child labor mills of the city. A doctor tries to cope with a strange plague terrorizing the citizens of London in Jeffrey Ford’s “Dr. Lash Remembers.” In “Machine Maid,” by Margo Lanagan, a sexually repressed wife gets revenge on her husband through a robot maid. Friedrich Engels strives to spread class revolution as a labor organizer for factory cyborg matchstick girls in Arbeitskraft, by Nick Mamatas. In “Ninety Thousand Horses,” by Sean McMullen, an acclaimed mathematician, with a murky past, is forced to spy for an industrialist prior to becoming Britain’s foremost rocket expert during World War II. An orphan boy builds an automaton, in an aging scientist’s laboratory, that becomes more than an idle companion in Cherie Priest’s “Tanglefoot (A Clockwork Century Story).” In “Clockwork Fairies,” by Cat Rambo, an English aristocrat courts a woman who would rather spend her time in a laboratory than at high society balls. At Chicago’s Columbian Exposition, in 1893, an Algerian bodyguard crosses paths with a disoriented naked man in Chris Roberson’s “Edison’s Frankenstein.”. In “A Serpent in the Gears,” by Margaret Ronald, a dirigible journeys to an isolated land and discovers people and animals merged with machine parts. Radio Jones finds a way to listen in on the Naked Brains, who rule the world, while Rudy the Red fights against the oppressors in “Zeppelin City,” by Michael Swanwick& Eileen Gunn.

Download or read book Shadows Beneath written by Brandon Sanderson and published by Dragonsteel, LLC. This book was released on 2014-06-29 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Hugo Award-winning hosts of the Writing Excuses writing advice show comes a collection of all-new stories of the fantastic, with beautiful illustrations and a behind-the-scenes look at each story’s creation. Brandon Sanderson’s “Sixth of the Dusk,” set in his Cosmere universe shared by the Mistborn books and the #1 New York Times bestselling Stormlight Archive, showcases a society on the brink of technological change. On the deadly island of Patji, where predators can sense the thoughts of their prey, a lone trapper discovers that the island is not the only thing out to kill him. Mary Robinette Kowal’s “A Fire in the Heavens” is a powerful tale of a refugee seeking to the near-mythical homeland her oppressed people left centuries ago. When Katin discovers the role the “eternal moon” occupies in the Center Kingdom, and the nature of the society under its constant light, she may find enemies and friends in unexpected places. Dan Wells’s “I.E.Demon” features an Afghanistan field test of a piece of technology that is supposed to handle improvised explosive devices. Or so the engineers have told the EOD team that will be testing it; exactly what it does and how it does it are need-to-know, and the grunts don’t need to know. Until suddenly the need arises. Howard Tayler’s “An Honest Death” stars the security team for the CEO of a biotech firm about to release the cure for old age. When an intruder appears and then vanishes from the CEO’s office, the bodyguards must discover why he is lying to them about his reason for pressing the panic button. For years the hosts of Writing Excuses have been offering tips on brainstorming, drafting, workshopping, and revision, and now they offer an exhaustive look at the entire process. Not only does Shadows Beneath have four beautifully illustrated fantastic works of fiction, but it also includes transcripts of brainstorming and workshopping sessions, early drafts of the stories, essays about the stories’ creation, and details of all the edits made between the first and final drafts. Come for the stories by award-winning authors; stay for the peek behind the creative curtain.

Download or read book The Mammoth Book of Steampunk written by Sean Wallace and published by Robinson. This book was released on 2012-04-05 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An anthology focusing on newer elements of steampunk, one which deconstructs the staples of the genre and expands on them, rather than simply repeating them, with a greater spread both in terms of location and character. This is steampunk with a modern, post-colonial sensibility. Contributors include: Jeff VanderMeer, Caitlín Kiernan, Mary Robinette Kowal, Jay Lake, Cherie Priest, Cat Rambo, Catherynne M. Valente, Genevieve Valentine and many more.

Download or read book Clockwork Phantom written by Cecilia Dominic and published by AIBHS. This book was released on 2019-06-26 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Lots of twists and turns that keep you turning pages long after you should have stopped to go to sleep!" An actress with a strange affliction. A violinist on the run so his next performance won’t be his last. A theatre with a deadly secret… Once hailed as the greatest actress in Paris, Marie St. Jean is happy to wait out the Prussian siege behind the scenes in her mother’s theatre. But when her mother gives Marie an ultimatum—tread the boards again or she and her friends will end up on the streets—she faces an impossible choice. She can assume a role that will cost her part of her soul or bargain with the ghost of the theatre, who seeks knowledge locked in memories she's repressed. Marie’s other problem – her attraction to alluring violinist, Johann Bledsoe, a temptation she dares not explore, particularly as the phantom grows jealous. Johann left disgrace and his gambling debt behind in England, but a fatal stabbing outside the Théâtre Bohème makes him fear he’s been exposed. He’d love nothing more than to claim Marie as his own, but after the siege ends, his past will catch up to him again. Under the baleful eye of steam-powered ravens, murders and revelations from the past drive Marie and Johann closer to the truth of what really lurks below the stage, and what dangers hang over their heads. Their only hope could lie in exposing their darkest secrets. Will they have to surrender to the Eros Element in a way that could push them to the edge of madness? Clockwork Phantom is the second book in the Aether Psychics, a fast-paced steampunk series with puzzling mysteries and hints of magic. If you like historical mysteries and have always wanted to read a steampunk retelling of The Phantom of the Opera, then you'll love this thrilling tale. Grab your copy of Clockwork Phantom to lift the curtain now! Note: Clockwork Phantom can be read on its own or as part of the Aether Psychics series. It was originally titled Light Fantastique.

Download or read book The Viper and the Urchin Books 1 3 written by Celine Jeanjean and published by Celine Jeanjean. This book was released on with total page 1091 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dive into this fun series following a gang of quirky misfits in a world that’s like a mix of Victorian London and the tropics. The gang’s made up of: - A skinny pickpocket with dreadlocks, a cheeky grin, and a smart mouth - A foppish assassin with a fear of blood - A handsome, elite fighter, master of the sardonic raised eyebrow - A smuggler with a drinking problem and a propensity for brawling - And a no-nonsense, heavily tattooed female machinist, trying to keep them all in line Can they complete their missions without getting caught, killed, and without arguing? The latter is by far the most problematic…. Join the gang with this boxset from The Viper and the Urchin series which includes 3 steampunk capers. Over 900 pages full of quirky characters, humour, and adventure. >> Book 1 – The Bloodless Assassin: Ride on a mechanical, steam-powered spider along the rooftops, prowl through cutthroat infested, crookback lanes, and enjoy the decadence of Damsport’s steam baths…until a dead alchemist appears in the baths. >> Book 2 – The Black Orchid: Discover the luxurious debauchery of a mysterious black and gold brothel where wine and silk flow like water… and where the clientele has a tendency to disappear. >>Book 3 – The Slave City: Arabian nights with mechanized elephants. In the centre of the city of Azyr is an arena with bloodstained sand, and over it all looms a gleaming white marble palace housing a mad tyrant… If you’re ready to escape into the wondrous and whacky world of The Viper and the Urchin series, scroll back up to grab the boxset now! Keywords: Fantasy Books, Fantasy Omnibus, Top Rated Books, Omnibus Bundle, Fantasy Box Set, Epic Fantasy Books, Fantasy Omnibus Set, Epic Fantasy, Fantasy Bundle, Boxed Set, Fantasy Omnibus Collection, Best Rated Omnibus, Epic, Steampunk Books, Steampunk series, Best Rated Steampunk Books, Fantasy female lead, Fantasy female character, Fantasy Box Sets, Fantasy Series Box Set, Fantasy action adventure, quirky characters, banter, snarky fantasy, fantasy humor, Strong female lead, Free fantasy steampunk, free book, free novel, free books to read and download, free fantasy, free novel, snappy banter, funny fantasy, fantasy with strong female lead, magic, original world-building, free full length fantasy, humorous fantasy books, gaslamp fantasy, historical fantasy, humorous fantasy, funny fantasy, quirky fantasy, quirky characters, Fantasy female lead, Fantasy female character, fantasy female protagonist, fantasy strong female character, unlikely friendship, banter, snark, snarky, humour, alchemist, fantasy assassin, fun read, fast read. Perfect for fans of: Lindsay Buroker, Terry Pratchett, Gail Carriger, Shelley Adina, Joseph Lallo, Tilly Wallace, CJ Archer

Download or read book Karen Memory written by Elizabeth Bear and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2015-02-03 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Bear pumps fresh energy in the steampunk genre with a light touch on the gadgetry and a vivid sense of place . . . Karen and the ladies kick ass.” —Library Journal (starred review) Set in the late nineteenth century—when the city we now call Seattle Underground was the whole town (and still on the surface), when airships plied the trade routes, would-be gold miners were heading to the gold fields of Alaska, and steam-powered mechanicals stalked the waterfront, Karen Memery (“like memory only spelt with an e”) is a young woman on her own, making the best of her orphaned state by working in Madame Damnable’s high-quality bordello. Through Karen’s eyes we get to know the other girls in the house—a resourceful group—and the poor and the powerful of the town. Trouble erupts one night when a badly injured girl arrives at their door, begging for sanctuary, followed by the man who holds her indenture, and who has a machine that can take over anyone’s mind and control their actions. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the next night brings a body dumped in their rubbish heap—a streetwalker who has been brutally murdered. Bear brings alive this Jack-the-Ripper yarn of the old west with a light touch in Karen’s own memorable voice, and a mesmerizing evocation of classic steam-powered science. “[A] rollicking, suspenseful, and sentimental steampunk novel . . . [Karen’s] story is a timeless one: a woman doing what is needed to get by while dreaming and fighting for great things to come.” —Publishers Weekly