Airship Lies

by Ian Thomas Healy, Deepak Singh (Illustrations)

Airship Lies is a Steampunk/Western anthology containing five stories from the Age of Wonder, ranging from the Old West to the wilderness beyond the Frontier to the very edge of space In a world where men have begun their conquest of space in rickety, steam-powered spaceships called Fultons, a desperate freight crew struggles to make an impossible deadline.The A boy gets caught up in a storm and finds himself the unwelcome guest of the pirate crew of the legendary dirigible, the Black Dog.The Ghost in the Frontier town Muddy Creek has always had more than its fair share of weirdness, but nobody expected a ghost to begin haunting Angus McTavish's barbershop.Plague When a raid accidentally brings a nasty virus aboard the pirate airship Coyote, mutinous thoughts surface and family members face off against each other.Rabbit All Gordon wanted to do was explore the wilderness and make maps, but after he is robbed and left for dead, he must decide whether he is the sort of man cut out for revenge.

122 pages, Paperback

Published January 5, 2018

About the author

Ian Thomas Healy is a prolific writer who dabbles in many different speculative genres. His superhero novel Deep Six: A Just Cause Novel was a Top 100 Semi-finalist in the 2008 Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Award. He’s a seven-time participant and winner of National Novel Writing Month where he’s tackled such diverse subjects as sentient alien farts, competitive forklift racing, a religion-powered rabbit-themed superhero, cyberpunk mercenaries, cowboy elves, and an unlikely combination of vampires with minor league hockey. He is also the creator of the Writing Better Action Through Cinematic Techniques workshop, which helps writers to improve their action scenes.

His goal is to become as integral to the genre of superhero fiction as William Gibson was to cyberpunk and Anne Rice was to urban fantasy.

Ian lives in Colorado with his wife, three children, and a plethora of housepets. When not writing, which is rare, he likes to take road trip, enjoys watching football and hockey, and listening to or playing music. His ebooks can be found on Smashwords, Kindle, Nook, iBook Store, and other online retailers.

Reviews

[Julie Howard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very different and slightly strange but hey it was a lot of fun and I quiet enjoyed it. It also contained everything from space ships to pirates, outlaws to barber's, ghosts to killer viruses and each book is very different from the last.. There is five short stories in this book.
Pressure.
I was getting into this story and wondering what else was going to happen when it abruptly ended. I must admit I did rewind slightly to see if I stopped listening and missed it, nope straight onto the next story. So other than the ending I liked this one.
I spaceship captain risks the life and limbs of his crew when he takes on a job to fly around the world in a short amount of time. They are up against the clock with an under staffed crew, on a space ship that has seen better day and heading into a meteor storm. Can the Fultons make it on time?
The Leash
I think this one was my favourite.
When a families small holding keeps getting attacked the there cattle stolen or killed, the son volunteers to man the hot air balloon to sound the alarm. Rather than spend his days board waiting for something to happen he writes stories to entertain his sister when he returns home. So caught up in his writing he misses a thunder storm and gets captured by air pirate's. Can be prove it is worth keeping him alive or will be be made to take a very long walk off a short Plank?I
The Ghost in the Barbershop
This was fun
A barber is chased out of his shop by a screaming ghost. To afraid to return he spends the night in the local jail. When the sheriff suggest they seek advice from a traveling fortune teller the men believe they have solved there ghostly problem.
Plague Ship
I think this was my least favourite and could have been better if it had been a longer story, with the author giving you more background story.
After a raid the crew of the pirate airship the Coyote start getting sick, including the captain. Leave a brother and sister fighting over who is in charge. The one thing they do agree is they need medicine. The sister thinks they should just take it and any treasures they fancy in the process. The brother believes they should make a deal and offer a fair price so they can turn and do further business. Who will come out on top?
Rabbit Stones
This book is very different to the rest.
Gordon thought he was going to die when he is robbed, left in the dessert best with no food or water and only a dead horse for company. Until a kindly stranger un-ties him and let's him travel with her on her journey. They both come from two very different worlds, he is from the modern world were money and revenge rules the head. She has grown up in the dessert and believes in a gentler world where magic and nature combine. Can they teach each a better way to live?
I liked the narrator. With give stories he had a number of characters to give a voice to but somehow they did sound different.
I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.