Steampunk Wars: Beyond the Rim

by Josh Coker

ATTENTION SCIENCE If you're looking for a dystopian adventure with a gritty heroine, airship battles and lost treasure, this is the book for YOU! BUT FIRST A WARNING... This story is PACKED with page-turning scenes. So if you love science fiction, you may not be able to put it down.When you buy Steampunk Wars, you'll enjoy the following timeless science fiction elements the steampunk genre is known Victorian style speech and dress- Airships and dirigibles- Modified weapons- A plucky crew of diverse characters- A dystopian adventure into the unknown- Ancient ruins- Monsters and alchemy- Lost treasure - Legends of Atlantis...AND SO MUCH MORE!Below is a just a taste of the story you're going to Windrider is a gritty airship captain looking for opportunity and adventure. The crew of the Evangeline is in desperate need of coin. While searching for work at the Air Harbors, Anna is approached by Sir Earnest Walmsley, founder of Atlantis. The famous explorer is leading an expedition to find a lost city, and offers her a job to transport his team beyond the Rim. Despite her reservations, Anna cannot resist the call to adventure. Little does she know, dark forces are plotting against her.Not only will Anna's world be turned upside down, but she will be forced to make a decision that will affect every man, woman, and child in the Empire.Within this steampunk dystopian adventure, you'll find airships, dirigibles, air harbors, Victorian-era speech, style, design, and clothing. Not to mention the pirates, explorers, automatons, alchemy, modified weapons, monsters, ancient ruins, and MUCH MUCH MORE!When you buy this book, you won't be able to put it down.

208 pages, Paperback

Published December 16, 2019

Reviews

[Red Tide]

Interesting

The characters are a perfect fit for the story. The motivations and interactions are so very, very nineteenth century. Throw in airship tech and the action gets very real.

It totally reads like a nineteenth century adventure novel.

[Harold E Britt]

H.P. inspired.

The story is clearly inspired by Lovecraft and fits in the Victorian Steampunk Adventure category. Great fun with fabulous beasts, airships and lost cities challenging the characters. Villians are properly maniacal , protagonists are delightfully heroic with a bit of rogue thrown in. Well worth the read.

[Tim O'sullivan]

Good story, good characters. This is my first steampunk fiction book. Not the greatest into to the genre. Also basically a novella at 105 pages

[Rachael]

Quick and interesting read. I really enjoyed the characters, the storyline, and the ending cliffhanger. I'm looking forward to reading the next one!

[Torfinn Ingolfsen]

I really liked it.

[M.H. Thaung]

I read this book and its sequel (Down the Rabbit Hole) as part of a bundle, and I'll review them together here. They are novella-sized (I guess 80-90 pages each?) episodes in the adventures of airship captain Anna Windrider. As noted in the blurb, we have a plucky crew, ancient ruins and monsters etc. This gives rise to the usual high derring-do that comes along with the territory, and the action scenes don't disappoint.

I'm a little hesitant to comment on "the story" since each book feels like part of a larger whole rather than a fully developed story in itself. That fits with my impression of episodes - each novella has a challenge, discovery, plenty of action later on, and then ends with a set-up for (presumably) the next part of the overall story. I could imagine such an episodic approach working well in a periodical publication: I'm less sure of the approach with publishing novellas.

The prose is pretty clean, though I noticed a few typos (notably "tall tails" instead of "tales" near the start of the first chapter). I didn't feel completely engaged while I was reading. This might have been because of copious internal character thoughts which generally repeated whatever had already been described/shown to the extent that (for me) they felt obtrusive.

Still, it was a pleasant way to pass an hour or two.