Diana Pho - Steampunk World

Yet, it was a marvel to see everything working. In front of my eyes, she folded and unfolded like a silvery origami construction, until finally, a chrome fox as beautiful and deadly as the oldest legends stood before me.

She padded around the flat, testing out her sleek new form, trying out her stealthy new movements. Her limbs gleamed in the moonlight, and her tail, made of delicate silver wires as fine as lace, left a trail of light in the dim flat.

She turned and walked—no, glided—towards me, a glorious hunter, an ancient vision coming alive. I took a deep breath and smelled fire and smoke, engine oil and polished metal, the scent of power.

“Thank you,” she said, and leaned in as I put my arms around her true form. The steam engine inside her had warmed her cold metal body, and it felt warm and alive.

“Can you feel it?” she asked.

I shivered. I knew what she meant. The old magic was back but changed: not fur and flesh, but metal and fire.

“I will find others like me,” she said, “and bring them to you. Together, we will set them free.”

Once, I was a demon hunter. Now, I am one of them.

I opened the door, Swallow Tail in my hand. It was only an old and heavy sword, rusty, but still perfectly capable of striking down anyone who might be lying in wait.

No one was.

Yan leapt out of the door like a bolt of lightning. Stealthily, gracefully, she darted into the streets of Hong Kong, free, feral, a hulijing built for this new age.

…once a man has set his heart on a hulijing , she cannot help hearing him no matter how far apart they are…

“Good hunting,” I whispered.

She howled in the distance, and I watched a puff of steam rise into the air as she disappeared.

I imagined her running along the tracks of the funicular railway, a tireless engine racing up, and up, towards the top of Victoria Peak, towards a future as full of magic as the past.

New Zealand born fantasy writer and podcaster Philippa (Pip) Ballantineis the author of the Books of the Order and the Shifted World series. She is also the co-author with her husband Tee Morris of the Locus best selling, Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences novels, which have all appeared in the top 10 science fiction titles of the Goodreads Awards for the year they were published. Her other awards include an Airship, two Parsecs, the Steampunk Chronicle Reader’s Choice, and a Sir Julius Vogel. She currently resides in Manassas, Virginia with her husband, daughter, and a furry clowder of cats.

Alex Bledsoegrew up in west Tennessee an hour north of Graceland (home of Elvis) and twenty minutes from Nutbush (birthplace of Tina Turner). He's been a reporter, editor, photographer and door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman. He now lives in a Wisconsin town famous for trolls, writes before six in the morning and tries to teach his three kids to act like they’ve been to town before. He is the author of the Eddie LaCrosse series (most recently He Drank, and Saw the Spider ), the Tufa novels ( Wisp of a Thing and The Hum and the Shiver ) and the Firefly Witch ebooks.

Emily Cataneois a dark fantasy and horror writer based in Boston, Mass. Her short fiction is forthcoming from the Chiral Mad 2 anthology and from the online magazine Kaleidotrope. She is a 2013 graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop and a member of the online Codex Writers Group. Her stories usually involve winter, bones, female friendships, the Victorian occult, anxious characters, and the darkly beautiful. When she's not writing fiction, she's a freelance journalist for the paper of record in the Greater Boston area.

S. J. Chambersis the Hugo and World Fantasy nominated co-author of the best-selling The Steampunk Bible and The Steampunk Bible 2014 Calendar (Abrams Image). Her fiction has appeared in a variety of venues, including Mungbeing magazine (where her story “Of Parallel and Parcel" was nominated for a Pushcart prize), New Myths , Yankee Pot Roast , as well as in anthologies like the World Fantasy nominated Thackery T. Lambshead’s Cabinet Of Curiosities (HarperCollins), Zombies: Shambling Through The Ages (Prime Books), and the Spanish steampunk anthology Planes B . She has stories forthcoming in Starry Wisdom Library (PS Publishing), Acronos II (Tyrannosaurus Books), and in The New Gothic (Stone Skin Press) the latter which features her collaboration with writer extarodinaire Jesse Bullington.

Lillian Cohen-Mooreis an award winning editor (Indie RPG Awards, Origins Award, for Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple ), and devotes her writing to fiction, journalism and game design. Influenced by the work of Jewish authors and horror movies, she draws on bubbe meises (grandmother’s tales) and horror classics for inspiration. She loves exploring and photographing abandoned places. She is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Online News Association.

Indrapramit Dasis a writer and artist from Kolkata, India. His fiction has appeared in publications including Clarkesworld Magazine, Asimov's Science Fiction and Apex Magazine , as well as anthologies such as The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirtieth Annual Collection (St. Martin's Press), Aliens: Recent Encounters (Prime Books) and Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond (Rosarium Publishing). He has written reviews of film, books, comics and TV for Strange Horizons and Slant Magazine . He is a grateful graduate of the 2012 Clarion West Writers Workshop and a recipient of the Octavia E. Butler Scholarship Award to attend the former. He completed his MFA at the University of British Columbia and is currently in Vancouver working as a freelance writer, artist, editor, critic, TV extra, game tester, tutor, would-be novelist, and aspirant to adulthood.

Malon Edwardswas born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, but now lives in the Greater Toronto Area, where he was lured by his beautiful Canadian wife. Many of his short stories are set in an alternate Chicago and feature people of color. Currently, he serves as Managing Director and Grants Administrator for the Speculative Literature Foundation, which provides a number of grants for writers of speculative literature.

Jaymee Gohis the postcolonial steampunk writer of Silver Goggles, a blog that focuses on postcoloniality, anti-racism and the meaningful participation of people of color in steampunk beyond tokenism. She has been seen on the Apex Book Company Blog, Racialicious.com, and Tor.com. Her non-fiction has been published in Steampunk III: Steampunk Revolution , The WisCon Chronicles , and Fashion Talks: Undressing the Power of Style. Her previously published short stories take place in the same steampunk 'verse as this one. Currently she is a Comparative Literature PhD student at UC Riverside.

Jay Lakeis the award-winning author of ten novels, five collections, and over 300 short stories. He was the winner of the 2004 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. He has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards. He has been published by Tor Books, Night Shade Books, MonkeyBrain Books, Fairwood Press, Wheatland Press, and Subterranean Press. He is also a cancer survivor who blogs about politics, technology, and health.

Ken Liuis an author and translator of speculative fiction, as well as a lawyer and programmer. His fiction has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov's, Analog, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, and Strange Horizons , among other places. He has won a Nebula, two Hugos, a World Fantasy Award, and a Science Fiction & Fantasy Translation Award, and been nominated for the Sturgeon and the Locus Awards. He lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts.