There’s a renaissance of sorts underway for tales of gunslingers, ghosts and myths of the old west thanks to the introduction of Steampunk elements to the classic Western genre.
The Whirlwind in the Thorn Tree – The Outlaw King Book 1 (4/5 stars, currently priced at 99 cents)
After coming home from a stint in Afghanistan, veteran Ross Brigham learns that his father has passed away. Dearly departed Dad was a famous fantasy novelist, and the 300 fans that show up for the funeral demand that Ross finish E. R. Brigham’s long-running magnum opus.
Ross and two of the author’s devotees investigate his untimely death and discover that he might have been murdered…and the time-bending gunslingers of Dad’s steampunk novels might be real.
As they try to acclimate to the arid deserts of the author’s fantasy world, the three damaged heroes become pawns in a war for humanity’s survival. The Muses have grown tired of immortality and now incite atrocities on Earth, trying to lure down a leviathan from the stars.
Can Ross and his new friends stop the scheming satyrs before both worlds are eaten?
Inspired by such old-school fantasy classics as Stephen King’s The Dark Tower, C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, and Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time.
Bonus! Now contains book two, Law of the Wolf!
The Shotgun Arcana (4.5/5 stars, currently priced at $9.99)
R. S. Belcher’s debut novel, The Six-Gun Tarot, was enthusiastically greeted by critics and readers, who praised its wildly inventive mixture of dark fantasy, steampunk, and the Wild West. Now Belcher returns to Golgotha, Nevada, a bustling frontier town that hides more than its fair share of unnatural secrets.
1870. A haven for the blessed and the damned, including a fallen angel, a mad scientist, a pirate queen, and a deputy who is kin to coyotes, Golgotha has come through many nightmarish trials, but now an army of thirty-two outlaws, lunatics, serial killers, and cannibals are converging on the town, drawn by a grisly relic that dates back to the Donner Party…and the dawn of humanity.
Sheriff Jon Highfather and his deputies already have their hands full dealing with train robbers, a mysterious series of brutal murders, and the usual outbreaks of weirdness. But with thirty-two of the most vicious killers on Earth riding into Golgotha in just a few day’s time, the town and its people will be tested as never before—and some of them will never be the same.
The Shotgun Arcana is even more spectacularly ambitious and imaginative than The Six-Gun Tarot, and confirms R. S. Belcher’s status as a rising star.
At the publisher’s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied.
Railroad! Volume One: Rodger Dodger – a steampunk western (4/5 stars, currently priced at 99 cents)
Railroad is a fast paced steampunk story of gadgetry, gunplay and grit.
Join us as we follow the strange stand-alone train known as the Sleipnir (pronounced Schlipnear); eight cars of free traveling steam powered might. Able to lay her own tracks, as well as pick them up again, the train is a marvelous feat of engineering, and as an unbound entity she can travel anywhere her master desires.
The only trouble is the trouble she attracts. Her owner and creator, one Professor Hieronymus J. Dittmeyer, can’t seem to help but catch the attention of all manner of odd characters, including an undead conductor and a ghostly guardian. But even the most well intending ghost just isn’t enough to keep trouble from the tracks. From run of the mill outlaws, to world-class super villains, the crew of the Sleipnir needs hands-on protecting and they need it fast!
Enter Rodger Dodger, dead-eye marksman and all around vexed soul. Dodger finds he is inexplicably drawn to the Sleipnir and her crazy crew, though he is reluctant to return to the work of a gunslinger after a dreadful history of bloodshed and violence. At the request of a restless spirit, Dodger takes on the work, straps on the biggest guns this side of the Mississippi and soon finds his life will never be the same again. (Which is just fine with him because he didn’t like the one he had anyways.)
On a train that can go anywhere, anything is bound to happen!
Cultwick: The Sweeper Bot Plague (4.5/5 stars, currently priced at $4.99)
Cultwick: The Sweeper Bot Plague tells the story of a group of rebels known by the moniker of the Chromework Confederacy, as they uncover the truth behind the malady that has been ravaging the empire for more than two decades. Told from the perspective of six distinct characters, Cultwick: The Sweeper Bot Plague serves as an introduction to this world of strange science, technological marvels, and a government striving for utter domination over its empire.
Erynn Clover, a young chromesmith working in Cultwick City with an appalling streak of bad luck, is chosen by the government run lottery to participate in genetic experiments. Though the intention of these experiments is purported to be for the eradication of the Sweeper Bot Plague, Erynn has her doubts. Rather than submit to the government’s edict, Erynn flees to the western frontier, branding herself as a heretic and inadvertently dragging her family into the empire’s crosshairs.
For their part, the Cultwick government refuses to let any citizen selected by the lottery escape from their responsibilities as a part of the ongoing experiments, so the empress sends Operative Alice Page after the heretic. Alice, a highly religious woman following the tenets of the Church of Biosynthesis, follows Erynn westward on orders to find her, force her to return to Cultwick City, and ultimately face the deathly consequences of her actions.
Jessie’s War – Civil War Steampunk (4.5/5 stars, currently priced at $2.99)
She’s about to become a pawn in a brutal game between nations…
The American Civil War has raged for more than ten years. The outcast daughter of a famous inventor, Jessica White has struggled to salvage what little remains of her life. Then, one cold winter night, the lover she’d given up for dead returns, claiming the Union Army bought the plans for her father’s last invention. But he’s not the only one who lays claim to the device, for the Confederacy wants the invention as well. Both sides will kill to have it.
…And only he can save her.
As an agent for the Union Army, Luke Bradshaw is a man who will use whomever and whatever is at his disposal in order to complete his mission. An attack by Confederate soldiers ensures that Jessie will turn to him for help, but Luke can’t help but wonder about the secrets she keeps—and if those secrets will ultimately prove fatal.
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