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Empires of Steam and Rust
Revolution of Air and Rust
1915. Teddy Roosevelt is building an empire. Only Pancho Villa stands in his way.
The American Expeditionary Force under the command of General "Black Jack" Pershing has invaded Northern Mexico. Pancho Villa leads his revolutionary army in a desperate raid against the American force only to be outflanked. Just as Pershing's airships prepare to deliver the death blow, Pancho Villa is transported to a parallel Earth where he finds an unexpected ally and the technology that might just turn defeat into victory.
Revolution of Air and Rust is a stand-alone novella set in the Empires of Steam and Rust world created by Robert E. Vardeman and Stephen D. Sullivan. A story filled with military action, espionage and gadgetry that's sure to satisfy fans of steampunk and alternate history.
The American Expeditionary Force under the command of General "Black Jack" Pershing has invaded Northern Mexico. Pancho Villa leads his revolutionary army in a desperate raid against the American force only to be outflanked. Just as Pershing's airships prepare to deliver the death blow, Pancho Villa is transported to a parallel Earth where he finds an unexpected ally and the technology that might just turn defeat into victory.
Revolution of Air and Rust is a stand-alone novella set in the Empires of Steam and Rust world created by Robert E. Vardeman and Stephen D. Sullivan. A story filled with military action, espionage and gadgetry that's sure to satisfy fans of steampunk and alternate history.
- GenresSteampunk
82 pages, Paperback
First published November 12, 2012
2 people are currently reading
128 people want to read
About the author
David Lee Summers
104 books91 followersDavid Lee Summers is an author, editor and astronomer living somewhere between the western and final frontiers. He is the author of eleven novels including The Solar Sea, Owl Dance, and The Astronomer's Crypt. His short fiction and poetry has appeared in such magazines as Realms of Fantasy, Cemetery Dance, The Martian Wave, Star*Line and The Santa Clara Review. He has edited the science fiction and fantasy magazine, Tales of the Talisman and the Full-Throttle Space Tales Anthologies Space Pirates and Space Horrors. Over the years, David has also worked at numerous observatories in the U.S. including Kitt Peak National Observatory.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 2, 2024
While I reviewed Cameron D. Blackwell's 'Cherry Vanilla' this month and he's certainly an Arizona author, that was a skimpy volume clocking in at under fifty pages, so I thought I'd include a second book by an Arizona author for good measure. Sure, David Lee Summers is a little bit of a stretch because he technically lives in New Mexico, but he works at Kitt Peak Observatory on our side of the border and he's a constant and welcome presence at Arizona conventions, so I'm happy about sneaking him in as an honorary Arizona author. This isn't a particularly long book either, because it's a seventy-four page novella, but the combined page counts work.
'Revolution of Air & Rust' is part of a shared universe, 'Empires of Steam and Rust', and I confess to not being entirely sure how everything links together. It was certainly created by Stephen D. Sullivan and Robert E. Vardeman in 2012 and the first book, which appears to be Vardeman's 'Gateway to Rust & Ruin', seems to me to be a steampunk version of the TV show 'Primeval', strange holes in the fabric of space/time serving as ways to play with recent history rather than to battle dinosaurs. Then again, I've only read the Goodreads synopsis!
All four books within this series, each by a different hand, appear to share a universe but also to serve as entirely standalone works. Certainly, they're set far from each other: the first in Europe, then Sullivan's in Russia and Sarah Bartsch's in Japan. Summers set his in the American southwest, unsurprisingly for him, and it's roughly inspired by the raid that Pancho Villa made into United States territory in 1916, over the border in Columbus, New Mexico. One of the victims of that raid is buried two blocks from Summers's house in Las Cruces.
Of course, this isn't real history in the slightest, but it trawls in a whole lot of names that I recognise, even if I had to look them up to learn how they connected. The one I knew most about is Teddy Roosevelt, the 26th president, who doesn't appear in this book but hovers over it like a cloud. He's apparently aiming to build an empire in the Americas that might compete with the colonial empires of Europe, and, in particular, he's chosen to deploy his American Expeditionary Force into Mexico.
What frames the novella is that the Americans have focused their invasion in the state of Veracruz in the south, while Black Jack Pershing has led a smaller force into the north, at Chihuahua. Pancho Villa is leading the resistance to the latter and sees an opportunity. If his forces can crush Pershing's, then they can head south and force the larger US army to fight a battle on two fronts, given that Venustiano Carranza is already fighting it from a little further south. Even though Álvaro Obregón has chosen to defect to the Americans, that one win might make all the difference.
If that sounds overly tactical, hinting at this being detailed alternate history for the true devotees of that genre, the ones who write in and complain if an author references a chin strap that isn't demonstrably historically viable, I should swiftly underline that that isn't at all the case. It's the crucial bedrock that Summers puts in place quickly and effectively without ever bogging anything down. In fact, he has that unfold in conversation within a Madera cantina, so it feels friendly and open and gives him the chance to introduce Villa to the waitress, Maria Reyes, who will play a larger part in proceedings than we initially expect.
And, even though there's a battle early on, with Villa's men attacking Ciudad Chihuahua, it's one that's over almost as quickly as it begins, with the Americans victorious and Villa apparently lost in the battle. What we know, that his men don't, is that he's not dead and he's certainly not a traitor to the cause who escaped during the havoc he wreaked, given that the Americans were clearly waiting for them to arrive. Instead, he escaped through an orange tunnel that took him to a completely different Chihuahua, one with a rusty sky and a post-apocalyptic desolation. And now we're firmly in steampunk territory.
I don't want to go too far into what happens in this mysterious alternative world, because you should experience that for yourself, but it's a notably different environment to what Villa knows and one that brings him challenges and opportunities. What I can say is what happens to be listed in the back cover blurb, namely an unexpected ally and technology. I won't say what, because it's a lot of fun to discover, but Villa spends some time there and benefits from the experience, returning through another portal to...
And you'll have to read the book to get any more out of me, beyond what you ought to be extrapolating from history or at least as much of that history as I've mentioned already. I will add that readers of 'Owl Dance', the first in Summers's 'Clockwork Legion' series, will recognise one character here, or at least an alternate version of him, and readers of that book's first sequel, 'Lightning Wolves' may recognise another, though I haven't read that one yet and it certainly changed since this book, because Summers calls it 'Wolf Posse' in his afterward. I hope that character remains in the completed and published version, as I want to meet her again and learn more of her story.
And that underlines the most negative thing about this book: that it ends. It wraps up in an appropriate manner for the novella that it is, so I have no complaints, but I wanted it to keep on going. There are twelve chapters here and I firmly believe that Summers could have continued into another twelve chapters, while still finishing in just as appropriate a way to what would then be a novel as he did with this novella. In fact, it wasn't difficult to imagine this as the first couple of episodes in a movie serial and they tended to run for a full dozen.
In fact, not only is that not particularly negative thing the most negative thing I can say about this book, I can only really come up with one other negative thing and that's only a proofreading slip-up, albeit not an unusual one. It's not "here, here"; it's "hear, hear". It annoys me every time I see it, even though it's a thoroughly minor thing. Anything else I could say about a novel isn't valid here, because novellas have limited space and it's not remotely possible to do as much in them as can be done in a novel.
On every point, it succeeds. I was on board immediately, because the scene was set with a deft skill. I cared about the characters, whether I knew who they were in historical terms, and I felt that there was nuance to the historical setting, rather than being phrased as a simplistic, black and white conflict between good guys vs. bad guys. The technology works well, both historical and steampunk and the escalation that happens fits perfectly into a fictional framework. I even got caught out by the twist, which is very capably handled.
I just wanted to keep on reading and there were no more pages for me to turn to. While I see that this series didn't last past 2012, this being the fourth of four books, I do wonder if David has thought about writing a sequel. I'll have to ask him at the next con.
Originally posted at the Nameless Zine in December 2022:
https://www.thenamelesszine.org/Books...
Index of all my Nameless Zine reviews:
https://books.apocalypselaterempire.com/
'Revolution of Air & Rust' is part of a shared universe, 'Empires of Steam and Rust', and I confess to not being entirely sure how everything links together. It was certainly created by Stephen D. Sullivan and Robert E. Vardeman in 2012 and the first book, which appears to be Vardeman's 'Gateway to Rust & Ruin', seems to me to be a steampunk version of the TV show 'Primeval', strange holes in the fabric of space/time serving as ways to play with recent history rather than to battle dinosaurs. Then again, I've only read the Goodreads synopsis!
All four books within this series, each by a different hand, appear to share a universe but also to serve as entirely standalone works. Certainly, they're set far from each other: the first in Europe, then Sullivan's in Russia and Sarah Bartsch's in Japan. Summers set his in the American southwest, unsurprisingly for him, and it's roughly inspired by the raid that Pancho Villa made into United States territory in 1916, over the border in Columbus, New Mexico. One of the victims of that raid is buried two blocks from Summers's house in Las Cruces.
Of course, this isn't real history in the slightest, but it trawls in a whole lot of names that I recognise, even if I had to look them up to learn how they connected. The one I knew most about is Teddy Roosevelt, the 26th president, who doesn't appear in this book but hovers over it like a cloud. He's apparently aiming to build an empire in the Americas that might compete with the colonial empires of Europe, and, in particular, he's chosen to deploy his American Expeditionary Force into Mexico.
What frames the novella is that the Americans have focused their invasion in the state of Veracruz in the south, while Black Jack Pershing has led a smaller force into the north, at Chihuahua. Pancho Villa is leading the resistance to the latter and sees an opportunity. If his forces can crush Pershing's, then they can head south and force the larger US army to fight a battle on two fronts, given that Venustiano Carranza is already fighting it from a little further south. Even though Álvaro Obregón has chosen to defect to the Americans, that one win might make all the difference.
If that sounds overly tactical, hinting at this being detailed alternate history for the true devotees of that genre, the ones who write in and complain if an author references a chin strap that isn't demonstrably historically viable, I should swiftly underline that that isn't at all the case. It's the crucial bedrock that Summers puts in place quickly and effectively without ever bogging anything down. In fact, he has that unfold in conversation within a Madera cantina, so it feels friendly and open and gives him the chance to introduce Villa to the waitress, Maria Reyes, who will play a larger part in proceedings than we initially expect.
And, even though there's a battle early on, with Villa's men attacking Ciudad Chihuahua, it's one that's over almost as quickly as it begins, with the Americans victorious and Villa apparently lost in the battle. What we know, that his men don't, is that he's not dead and he's certainly not a traitor to the cause who escaped during the havoc he wreaked, given that the Americans were clearly waiting for them to arrive. Instead, he escaped through an orange tunnel that took him to a completely different Chihuahua, one with a rusty sky and a post-apocalyptic desolation. And now we're firmly in steampunk territory.
I don't want to go too far into what happens in this mysterious alternative world, because you should experience that for yourself, but it's a notably different environment to what Villa knows and one that brings him challenges and opportunities. What I can say is what happens to be listed in the back cover blurb, namely an unexpected ally and technology. I won't say what, because it's a lot of fun to discover, but Villa spends some time there and benefits from the experience, returning through another portal to...
And you'll have to read the book to get any more out of me, beyond what you ought to be extrapolating from history or at least as much of that history as I've mentioned already. I will add that readers of 'Owl Dance', the first in Summers's 'Clockwork Legion' series, will recognise one character here, or at least an alternate version of him, and readers of that book's first sequel, 'Lightning Wolves' may recognise another, though I haven't read that one yet and it certainly changed since this book, because Summers calls it 'Wolf Posse' in his afterward. I hope that character remains in the completed and published version, as I want to meet her again and learn more of her story.
And that underlines the most negative thing about this book: that it ends. It wraps up in an appropriate manner for the novella that it is, so I have no complaints, but I wanted it to keep on going. There are twelve chapters here and I firmly believe that Summers could have continued into another twelve chapters, while still finishing in just as appropriate a way to what would then be a novel as he did with this novella. In fact, it wasn't difficult to imagine this as the first couple of episodes in a movie serial and they tended to run for a full dozen.
In fact, not only is that not particularly negative thing the most negative thing I can say about this book, I can only really come up with one other negative thing and that's only a proofreading slip-up, albeit not an unusual one. It's not "here, here"; it's "hear, hear". It annoys me every time I see it, even though it's a thoroughly minor thing. Anything else I could say about a novel isn't valid here, because novellas have limited space and it's not remotely possible to do as much in them as can be done in a novel.
On every point, it succeeds. I was on board immediately, because the scene was set with a deft skill. I cared about the characters, whether I knew who they were in historical terms, and I felt that there was nuance to the historical setting, rather than being phrased as a simplistic, black and white conflict between good guys vs. bad guys. The technology works well, both historical and steampunk and the escalation that happens fits perfectly into a fictional framework. I even got caught out by the twist, which is very capably handled.
I just wanted to keep on reading and there were no more pages for me to turn to. While I see that this series didn't last past 2012, this being the fourth of four books, I do wonder if David has thought about writing a sequel. I'll have to ask him at the next con.
Originally posted at the Nameless Zine in December 2022:
https://www.thenamelesszine.org/Books...
Index of all my Nameless Zine reviews:
https://books.apocalypselaterempire.com/
September 21, 2020
I enjoyed this short Kindle book.
January 19, 2015
Pancho Villa vs. Morlocks! And that's just a small part of it. Inventive, fun steampunk alternate history adventure.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews