Publisher Description
Imagine an alternate universe where romance and technology reign. Where tinkerers and dreamers craft and recraft a world of automatons, ornate clockworks, calculating machines, and other marvels that never were. Where scientists and schoolgirls, fair folk and Romans, intergalactic bandits, Utopian revolutionaries, and intrepid orphans—decked out in corsets, clockwerk suits, and tall black boots—solve dastardly crimes, escape from monstrous predicaments, consult oracles, and hover over volcanoes in steam-powered airships.
Here, in the first major steampunk anthology for young adults, fourteen masters of speculative fiction, including two graphic storytellers, embrace the genre’s established blend of sci-fi and fantasy, action and adventure, history and romance, and refashion it in surprising ways and in settings as diverse as Canada, New Zealand, Appalachia, Wales, ancient Rome, future Australia, and alternate California.
Visionaries Link and Grant have invited all-new interpretations, explorations, and expansions, taking a genre already rich, strange, and inventive in the extreme and challenging contributors to remake it from the ground up. The result is an anthology that defies even as it defines the genre.
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About the Authors
Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) was born in Odense, Denmark, the son of a poor shoemaker and a washerwoman. As a young teenager, he became quite well known in Odense as a reciter of drama and as a singer. When he was fourteen, he set off for the capital, Copenhagen, determined to become a national success on the stage. He failed miserably, but made some influential friends in the capital who got him into school to remedy his lack of proper education. In 1829 his first book was published. After that, books came out at regular intervals. His stories began to be translated into English as early as 1846. Since then, numerous editions, and more recently Hollywood songs and Disney cartoons, have helped to ensure the continuing popularity of the stories in the English-speaking world.
Kelly Link is a firm believer in the do-it-yourself ethos that powers the steampunk movement. She has started a zine, founded an independent publishing house, owns two letterpresses, and edited the fantasy half of The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror for five years. She lives in Massachusetts.
Gavin J. Grant, along with his wife Kelly Link, edited the
acclaimed anthology Steampunk! They
also started a zine, founded an independent publishing house, own two
letterpresses, and edited the fantasy half of The Year’s Best Fantasy and
Horror for five years.
About the Narrators
Neil Hellegers grew up in New Jersey and attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a BA in theater arts and a minor in psychology before getting an MFA in acting from the Trinity Rep Conservatory in Providence, Rhode Island. He moved to New York City in 2003 and, since then, has made a career of theatrical performance, percussion, theater education, and audiobook narration. He currently lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son.
Arthur Morey has won three AudioFile Magazine “Best Of” Awards, and his work has garnered numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards and placed him as a finalist for two Audie Awards. He has acted in a number of productions, both off Broadway in New York and off Loop in Chicago. He graduated from Harvard and did graduate work at the University of Chicago. He has won awards for his fiction and drama, worked as an editor with several book publishers, and taught literature and writing at Northwestern University. His plays and songs have been produced in New York, Chicago, and Milan, where he has also performed.
Julia Whelan is a novelist, screenwriter, lifelong actor, and multiple award-winning audiobook narrator. She graduated with a degree in English and creative writing from Middlebury College and Oxford University. She is a former child actor who has appeared in multiple films and television shows.
Sarah Coomes trained
at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and spent three blissful years
there, learning how to cry, speak Shakespeare, and stage fight like a tiger.
She is a comedienne and an actress, appearing in numerous television shows in England,
including a recurring role as Nurse Leonard in the popular series EastEnders. She won the 2008 Westminster
Prize for her play Hookie and an
AudioFile Earphones Award for her narration of The Unforgotten Coat by Frank Cottrell Boyce in 2011.
Shannon McManus, award-winning narrator, is a Los Angeles–based actor, writer, and voice artist. Her natural vocal abilities and extensive theater training have led to work in audiobook narration, commercial voice-over, and animation. Critical praise includes an Audiofile Earphones Award and a Publishers Weekly Listen Up! Award in children’s and young adult fiction.
Nico Evers-Swindell is a New Zealand film, television, and voice actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Prince William in the 2011 film William and Kate. Other acting credits include the film Edge of Darkness and appearances in episodes of Law & Order.