Mammoth Book of Steampunk Adventures Read online

  Praise for The Mammoth Book of Steampunk

  “Of the dozens of newly minted steampunk anthologies out there, I cannot imagine any one of them being better than this gorgeous anthology. Editor Wallace has collected stories that show both the range and the depth of imaginary worlds that today’s authors can create, each one seeming to redefine not only what steampunk is, but what it can do, ranging across the globe and involving politics, religion, and sexuality. These stories go the extra mile and I cannot recommend this collection too highly. It’s one of the best books of the year.” Galaxy’s Edge

  “The Mammoth Book of Steampunk, edited by Sean Wallace, focuses on newer elements of steampunk and proudly includes work by Mary Robinette Kowal, Jay Lake, Cat Rambo, Ekaterina Sedia, Catherynne M. Valente, Genevieve Valentine and more.” Kirkus Reviews

  “The Mammoth Book of Steampunk, edited by Sean Wallace, includes five original stories (and a large selection of good recent work). All the originals are worthy of attention.” Locus

  “World Fantasy Award-winning editor Wallace has compiled an outstanding anthology of thirty stories (including four originals) sure to satisfy even the most jaded steampunk fans, and engage newcomers and skeptics. Each story exemplifies steampunk’s knack for critiquing both the past and the present, in a superb anthology that demands rereading.” Publishers Weekly, starred review

  “What I liked best about the majority of these short stories was that they’re true to steampunk; no real unusual deviations for those of you looking for goggles and corsets . . .” Wired

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  The Mammoth Book of

  Steampunk Adventures

  Sean Wallace

  Constable & Robinson Ltd

  55–56 Russell Square

  London WC1B 4HP

  www.constablerobinson.com

  First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Robinson

  Copyright © Sean Wallace, 2014 (unless otherwise stated)

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book

  is available from the British Library.

  UK ISBN: 978-1-47211-061-9 (paperback)

  UK ISBN: 978-1-47211-075-6 (ebook)

  Typeset in Plantin by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Mackays

  An Hachette UK Company

  www.hachette.co.uk

  First published in the United States in 2014 by Running Press Book Publishers,

  A Member of the Perseus Books Group

  All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher.

  Books published by Running Press are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the United States by corporations, institutions and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or email [email protected].

  US ISBN: 978-0-7624-5464-8

  US Library of Congress Control Number: 2014934590

  9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Digit on the right indicates the number of this printing

  Running Press Book Publishers

  2300 Chestnut Street

  Philadelphia, PA 19103-4371

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  www.runningpress.com

  Contents

  Introduction by Ann VanderMeer

  “Love Comes to Abyssal City” by Tobias S. Buckell

  “A Mouse Ran Up the Clock” by A. C. Wise

  “Tanglefoot” by Cherie Priest

  “Benedice Te” by Jay Lake

  “Five Hundred and Ninety-Nine” by Benjanun Sriduangkaew

  “Smoke City” by Christopher Barzak

  “Harry and Marlowe and the Talisman of the Cult of Egil” by Carrie Vaughn

  “Anna in the Moonlight” by Jonathan Wood

  “Edison’s Frankenstein” by Chris Roberson

  “The Canary of Candletown” by C. S. E. Cooney

  “Green-eyed Monsters in the Valley of Sky, An Opera” by E. Catherine Tobler

  “Selin That Has Grown in the Desert” by Alex Dally MacFarlane

  “The Clockworks of Hanyang” by Gord Sellar

  “The Curse of Chimère” by Tony Pi

  “Memories in Bronze, Feathers, and Blood” by Aliette de Bodard

  “The Return of Chérie” by Nisi Shawl

  “On the Lot and In the Air” by Lisa L. Hannett

  “Terrain” by Genevieve Valentine

  “I Stole the DC’s Eyeglass” by Sofia Samatar

  “The Colliers’ Venus (1893)” by Caitlín R. Kiernan

  “Ticktock Girl” by Cat Rambo

  “La Valse” by K. W. Jeter

  “The Governess and the Lobster” by Margaret Ronald

  “Beside Calais” by Samantha Henderson

  “Good Hunting” by Ken Liu

  Acknowledgements

  About the Contributors

  Introduction

  Steampunk is Alive and Well,

  Thank You Very Much

  What more can one say about steampunk that hasn’t already been said? Apparently, quite a lot. Just when you thought this subgenre was past its sell-by date, this anthology provides compelling evidence that authors can take now-familiar steampunk ideas and concepts and breathe new life into them.

  Writers and and readers love steampunk – it allows us to play with and think about history in new and wondrous ways. It lets us trample on old tired beliefs and consider what could be, ponder alternative possibilities. Not only do these tales reimagine history – and therefore our futures – they show you just how wide and broad the theme truly is; simply slapping some clock parts and gears onto a sto
ry doesn’t make it steampunk.

  E. Catherine Tobler’s “Green-eyed Monsters in the Valley of the Sky, An Opera” (original to this volume) is a perfect example of mixing familiar tropes and creating something marvellously exciting. Who would think you could combine dinosaurs with opera and come up with a steampunk story that takes place largely in an island in the sky and make it work? And let’s throw in some Shakespeare, too, while we’re at it. In addition to the story’s mystery and adventure, there is an underlying theme of love we may not understand until it completely unfolds. As Serafina says: “He has made you into something you were not prepared to be.”

  Chris Roberson’s inventive take on the Frankenstein story demonstrates one of the core appeals of a Steampunk tale. As Chabane, laments in “Edison’s Frankenstein”, you can’t escape tradition. However, he also realizes: “Maybe it wasn’t all of the tomorrows that mattered . . . Maybe what was truly important was preserving the past, and working for a better today. Perhaps that was the only real way to choose what kind of future we will inhabit.”

  As we mull over how best to choose our future, we are faced with an ongoing, senseless war in Jonathan Wood’s “Anna in the Moonlight”. (Another original to this volume.) This irrational war is brought about because two old friends – both in positions of power – have a disagreement over religion and technology. Aren’t we facing similar challenges today in science vs religion debates? And yet the individual is all but forgotten. “In creating their myth of our times, Lords Simon and Percy, the newspapermen, my fellow historians, have all forgotten something. They have forgotten you and me, the common men and women forced to live in the world they are forging.”

  Many great pieces of fiction deal with social issues of the day. And steampunk is a perfect vehicle for this. C. S. E Cooney creates Candletown and explores the difficult circumstances of the mining industry in “The Canary of Candletown”. The mine workers are offered mecha-limbs when they lose theirs or otherwise fall ill, making them even more dependent on the Company. And speaking of better living through technology, Gord Sellar’s story, “The Clockworks of Hanyang”, explores themes of creator/maker and machine. He examines the results of humankind’s arrogance in creation, “. . . their human makers had built them into something worse than slavery: incompletion was the lot of the great mass of mechanika, an incompleteness of development, an utter desolation of each mechanika’s secret potential.” We see more evidence of how the machines we build can turn on us in Cherie Priest’s “Tanglefoot”, when Madeline cautions young Edwin about his mechanical creation and friend Ted: “Keep him close, unless you want him stolen from you – unless you want his clockwork heart replaced with something stranger.”

  Nor can steampunk be contained only to the milieu of Victorian England. Indeed, the cables of steampunk stretch far. We discover an Aztec narrative in “Memories in Bronze, Feathers and Blood” from Aliette de Bodard. Ken Liu surprises us with Chinese demon hunters who don’t behave the way one expects in “Good Hunting”, and Nisi Shawl takes us to the Congo with “The Return of Chérie”.

  Not all the stories here are cautionary tales. There is no lack of entertaining adventure stories. After all, it is often the sense of adventure, of invention, and even mystery and intrigue that first draws us to steampunk. This anthology rewards even the most well-read steampunk reader with a wealth of satisfying stories. We find adventurers running off to capture ancient, perhaps extraterrestrial, artefacts in Carrie Vaughn’s “Harry and Marlowe and the Talisman of the Cult of Egil”. We hold our breath in anticipation when two old flames reunite in Samantha Henderson’s “Beside Calais”. And we are charmed and delighted by the mechanical crustacean in Margaret Ronald’s “The Governess and the Lobster”.

  Steampunk over? Not by a long shot. And this anthology will show you why.

  Ann VanderMeer

  Love Comes to Abyssal City

  Tobias S. Buckell

  To be an ambassador meant to face outsiders, and Tia was well prepared for it. There was the overpowered, heavy, high-caliber pistol ever strapped to her right thigh. Sure, it was filigreed with brass and polished wood inlay, a gunsmith’s masterpiece, but it was still able to stop many threats in their tracks. A similarly crafted-but-functional blade swung from her hip. And then there was the flamethrower strapped to her back.

  This was not so much for threats, but for contraband and outside material forbidden in the Abyssal City.

  Today she’d taken the elevators up the edges of the ravine that split the ground all the way down to the hot, steamy streets a mile below. Overhead, tall, wrought iron arches and glass ceilings spanned the top of the ravine, keeping life-giving air capped in. Up here, near the great airlocks, the air bit at her skin: cold and low enough on oxygen that you sometimes had to stop and pant to catch your breath.

  “Ambassador?” the Port Specialist asked, his long red robes swirling around the pair of emergency air tanks he wore on his back, his eyes hidden behind the silvered orbs of his rubber facemask. His voice was muffled and distant. “Are you ready?”

  “Proceed,” Tia ordered.

  Today they examined the long, segmented iron parts of a train that hissed inside the outer bays. The skin of the mechanical transporter cracked and shifted, readjusting itself to pressurized air. From the platform she stood on, she surveyed the entire length of the quarantined contraption.

  It had thundered in, unannounced, on one of the many rails that criss-crossed the rocky, airless void of the planetary crust.

  It was a possible threat.

  “Time of arrival,” the Port Specialist intoned, and turned his back to her to grab the long levered handles of an Interface set into the wall. He pulled the right handles, pushed in the right pins, and created a card containing that data.

  “Length,” Tia called out. She bent her eyes to a small device mounted on the rim of a greening railing. “One quarter of a mile. One main motor unit. Three cabs. No markings. Black outer paint.”

  Behind her the Port Specialist clicked and clacked the information into more cards.

  A photograph was taken, and the plate shaved down to the same size as the cards and added.

  A phonograph was etched into wax of the sound of the idling motor that filled the cavernous bay.

  All this information was then put into a canister, which was put into a vacuum tube, which was then sucked into the city’s pipes. “The profile of the visiting machine has been submitted,” intoned the Port Specialist.

  “We wait for Society’s judgement,” replied Tia, and pulled up a chair. She sat and looked at the train, wondering what was inside.

  The reply came back up the tube fifteen minutes later. The Port Specialist retrieved the card.

  “What does Society say?” Tia asked.

  “There is a seventy per cent threat level,” the Port Specialist said.

  “Time to send them on their way,” Tia said. “I will help you vent the bay.”

  But the Port Specialist was shaking his head. “The threat level is high, but the command on the card is to allow the visitors into the sandbox. Full containment protocol.”

  Tia groaned. “This is the worst possible timing. I had a party I was supposed to attend.”

  The Port Specialist shrugged and checked the straps on his air mask. He tightened them, as if imagining the possible danger of the train to be in the air around him, right this moment. “And I have a family to attend,” he said. “But we have a higher duty right now.”

  “I was going to be introduced to my cardmate,” Tia said. The first step in a young woman’s life outside her family home. The great machine had found the person best suited for her to spend the rest of her life with.

  It would disappoint her family and her friends that she would be stuck in lockdown in the sandbox with some foreign people waiting to make sure they cleared quarantine.

  The Port Specialist handed her the orders. “Verify the orders,” he said.

  Tia looked down at the ma
rkings, familiar with the patterns and colors after a lifetime of reading in Society Code.

  A large chance of danger.

  But they were to welcome in this threat.

  “Hand me an air mask and a spare bottle,” Tia sighed.

  The Port Specialist did so, and Tia buckled them on. She checked the silvered glasses on the eyeholes and patted down her body armor. She put in earplugs, pulled on leather gloves, and then connected a long hose to the base of her special gas mask.

  “Hello?” she said. “This is Tia.”

  The sounds and sights of what she saw would be communicated back through, and monitored by Port Control, with the aid of a significant part of Society’s processing power. Crankshafts and machinery deep in the lower levels of the city, powered by the steam created from pipes below even that, would apply the city’s hundreds of years of algorithms and calculations to her situation and determine what she would do next.

  And Port Control, really someone sitting in a darkened room in front of a series of flashing lights, would relay that to her.

  “This is Port Control, you are clear to engage,” came the somewhat muffled reply from the speaking hose.

  Tia walked up to the train, stopping occasionally to yank the bulk of the hose along with her, and rapped on the side of the steel door.

  Pneumatics hissed and the door scraped open. Tia’s hand was on the butt of her gun as a man, clad in full rubber outer gear and wearing a mask much like hers, stepped forward, a piece of parchment held out before him.

  He had a gun on his waist, and his hand on it as well. They approached each other like crabs, cautiously scuttling forward.

  Tia snatched the parchment, and they retreated away from each other. She read the parchment by holding it up where she could both read it, one handed, and keep an eye on the other man.

  Manifest: three passengers.

  Passenger one and two, loyal and vetted citizens of a chasm town two stops up along the track. Affiliation: Chasm Confederation.

  Passenger three was an unknown who had ridden down the track from places unknown. Affiliation: unknown.