That is, until she finds a job on the airship Daedalus as a diver. Now she explores ruined cities, looking for treasure and people’s lost heirlooms until a young man hires her to find the impossible: a way to eradicate the Mist. Theodore Winchester is a member of one of the Five Families that rule the skies. Following in his father’s footsteps, he searches for the source of the Mist and hopes to stop the purges used to control overpopulation. But what he finds are horrifying secrets and lethal ambition. If he continues his quest, it could mean his own death. The Mist is rising and soon the world will be enveloped in its deadly embrace, turning what's left of humanity into the undead.

    He is, after all, a monster himself. Cursed in his errant past, his body now harbors a blazing fiend of pure, elemental chaos—kept in check by the bonds that smother his own magical abilities.But crime ever turns in the Clockwork City, and none are better suited to investigate those most sinister deeds of inscrutable sorcery than Corradon’s greatest detective magus. With his loyal apprentice, Keldon Veldanor, and a host of street-smart allies, Aldicus will face a crucible of sorcery and villainy with only his wits and the science of forensic alchemy to aid him.Yet, in the decaying depths of the Underworks far below the tick-tock city, there festers an even greater evil—a darkness that threatens not only the unsuspecting denizens of Corradon, but the fate of their entire world.

    As WWI comes to a close, a German general, an escaped prisoner of war, and the crew of an airship converge to effect THE ROMANOV RESCUE. Can there be a world without communism?Mankind's history is bound up in the fabric of fate, a strong cloth, tough and closely woven.   It is the beginning of 1918, the last year of the greatest war in human history to date. All the belligerents stagger on their feet. Starvation is an ever present reality, while disease waits in the wings. In Russia, no longer a belligerent but, instead, rapidly descending into civil war and chaos, a lone family—father, mother, four beautiful young girls, and a brave but sickly boy—await their own fate, shivering and hungry in the dark, hoping and praying for salvation.  Their relatives in England have turned their backs. The guards set over them do little but torment them. They look Heavenward, but God doesn't answer. They know they're a threat to the new regime, a threat that will, in time, be eliminated. But even the strongest fabric has flaws. An escaped prisoner of war, caught, injured, and punished, but still highly capable, might be one. An airship, returned and at loose ends after a failed mission to Africa might be another. A German general, taking a wrong turn on his nightly walk and suddenly coming face-to-face with the reality of the monster rising in the east, would be a third. Follow, then, as the general gives the orders, the prisoner of war raises the men from among his fellows, and the airship launches itself forward, to contest fate, to tear the fabric of time, and to effect The Romanov Rescue. About the Carrera series: “[I]nterplanetary warfare with . . . [a] visceral story of bravery and sacrifice . . . fans of the military SF of John Ringo and David Weber should enjoy this SF action adventure.”—Library Journal “Kratman's dystopia is a brisk page turner full of startling twists . . . [Kratman is] a professional military man . . . up to speed on military and geopolitical conceits.”—Best-selling author of America Alone Mark Steyn on Tom Kratman’s uncompromising military SF thriller Caliphate “Kratman raises disquieting questions on what it might take to win the war on terror . . . realistic action sequences, strong characterizations, and thoughts on the philosophy of war.”—Publishers Weekly   About Tom Kratman: “[Baen publisher] Toni [Weisskopf] and I disagree about everything except about how good his books are.”—John Birmingham

    

    These and so many other steampunk and gaslamp fairy tales await within the pages of Clockwork, Curses and Coal.Retellings of Hansel and Gretel, The Princess and the Pea, Pinocchio, The Twelve Dancing Princesses and more are all showcased alongside some original fairy tale-like stories. Featuring stories by Melissa Bobe, Adam Brekenridge, Beth Cato, MLD Curelas, Joseph Halden, Reese Hogan, Diana Hurlburt, Christina Johnson, Alethea Kontis, Lex T. Lindsay, Wendy Nikel, Brian Trent, Laura VanArendonk Baugh and Sarah Van Goethem.

    I've been called Savior and Enslaver. But no one has ever called me Child.”A young man signs his own death warrant when he joins an already failing militia. A teenage girl is haunted by her childhood abuse and begins to crave the very things she hates. A childless mother finds herself on the run as a convicted murderer. Yet they are all unaware that their own fates are tied to a young orphan who has drowned and come back to life in a foreign land where he will be the death of everyone he meets.Hælend’s Ballad is a grimdark fantasy/steampunk tale about what happens when men and women from two colliding cultures realize they may not be on the right side. Heroes are villains. The persecuted are oppressors. And when rumors begin to spread that the world is dying, the darkness of their own hearts betrays them.

    Scotland Yard seems determined to turn a blind eye. But with one look at her best friend's corpse, Liz Sharp knows the truth: the killer is a werewolf, one of the monsters that rules Europe.If she doesn't hold the monster accountable, no one else will. But Liz is a werewolf victim herself, her scars condemning her as the sort of female who'd sell her blood for easy money. Even if she finds out who’s responsible for Sal’s death, who would believe her?Probably not the emotionally repressed princess whom Liz serves as a lady's-maid/bodyguard. And definitely not the irritatingly personable policeman dogging her steps from the slums of Whitechapel to the palaces of St James.As corpses mount up, Liz discovers that no one is precisely who she thought: not Sal, not herself, and certainly not the werewolf. The one thing she knows for sure? The truth will cost her everything. And Liz is hardly in a position to pay.Luckily she has a few tricks hidden in the pockets of her trusty bloomers…A witty historical fantasy adventure, perfect for fans of the Parasol Protectorate or Pride and Prejudice and Zombies! Follow the intrepid Miss Sharp into an 1890’s Europe ruled by werewolves, vampires, and sirens…

    He has the responsibility to marry and carry on the family name, but a secret vow to God, after a near-fatal battle wound, could change his future from royal heir to humble servant of the church. His journey to the monastery to become a monk is interrupted when he meets a dangerous, but beautiful, woman who has plans and secrets of her own.Abandoned by her father and raised in an institution as property of the Crown, Julianna Westerfield longs to be free to pursue love and have a family of her own. Trained to be a spy and assassin, she has a chance to earn her freedom by completing this last and most dangerous assignment. Her mission to uncover a murderous plot and the identities of the Black Guard has already cost several agents their lives, and now the assassins are after her. To survive she must depend on a handsome monk and his cantankerous donkey.Was it divine intervention that caused John and Julianna’s paths to cross? Can they put aside their differences and join forces to deliver stolen papers containing vital information to the king in time to save countless lives?

    

    

    Tinely. His disguise is a dress, and his mode of escape an airship destined for the Americas.The only problem is Ethan James. He’s tall, dark, and interested in Gabriel. Despite their difference in class, Gabriel can’t help but feel a connection with the man, something he tries to resist. Despite Gabriel’s protests, Mr. Tinely invites the young man to travel with them across the American continent.But at every turn, pursuers await them, and when Gabriel discovers the true reason he’s being hunted and the special gift he holds, will he be able to survive and learn to accept who he really is? Or will he become a pawn in his enemy’s plan to end the world as they know it?

    Yet, when the couple decides to rejoin the light of the mortal world, something goes terribly wrong. Pierce is unexpectedly yanked back to his old life! And not only is he sent back into his original body, but he discovers that this resurrection was orchestrated by none other than his very own physician, Dr. Duncan Hackett, who has been dubbed the Soul Thief for being able to steal spirits from the afterlife. Pierce desperately wants to return to Taisia, but there are too many obstacles standing in his way, including a strange mind illness invading certain areas of England! With so much happening, Pierce struggles to get by one day at a time in the hopes that he and his love will be reunited once again.

    

    

    But is that all she is? Tamara Fieldmarsh used to aid the New Victoria underworld as an engine tamer repairing airships for dangerous smugglers. Now, after a traumatic experience, Tamara finds herself an officer in the Emperor's Defense Force! She becomes the focus of a lovelorn co-ed, an enemy to fellow officers, and the discoverer of secrets, treason, and duplicity. During all of this, she breaks all the rules (the BIG ones) to save the life of the most desirable captain in her fleet. At the end of it, she discovers there is no war more fierce and futile than one waged by a heart desperate to deny it is in love.

    In a Victorian world filled with flying dirigibles and clockwork automatons, a young woman searches desperately for the secrets to her past - a past that left her with extraordinary, but unnatural, mechanical limbs.Collects LADY MECHANIKA #0-5

    

    Known as biomatons, they are property by law and have been manipulated and mind-controlled into subservience. Taryn Roft, a 17-year-old girl, attending classes at Grafton's School of Mechanicks in London has a secret. What's even worse—she cannot remember anything before her twelfth birthday.When a mysterious privateer discovers her secret, he offers her an ultimatum: accompany him to his airship, or her secret will be revealed to everyone. For Taryn, it's not much of a choice. Facing prejudice and cruelty may be nothing new to the only girl at an all-boys' school, but the further from home she gets, the darker her situation becomes.

    

    Blythman, Adrian Bagley, Crysta K. Coburn, Peter James Martin, Joseph Carrabis, Jack Pentire, R. Bruce Connelly, Melissa Wuidart Phillips, Davia Sacks, Liz Tuckwell, Kate Baucherel and Alexandrina Brant.

    . .Aladdin has always had a sense of adventure and a nose for trouble. Now he’s half a world away from his birthplace to investigate the secrets of the land his father came from. And hopefully find treasure on the way. But the last thing he was expecting to find was two genies and a fair princess who absolutely loathes him . . .Princess Rani doesn’t believe in curses by day. By night, though, she can't escape her own curse she finds herself leaving her body and bound to the lamp as a Jinn. Nor can she hide from the truth she forgets by day: she's enslaved to the master of the lamp until she breaks the curse by marriage. When Aladdin appears as the better alternative to the son of the sorcerer who cursed her, Rani does her best to advise the latest master of the lamp to woo her by day. If only Rani by day could remember she’s not supposed to hate her bumbling suitor.How can you break a curse you don’t remember?The Clockwork Faerie Tale Novella series can be read as standalones or together, for whenever you want your steampunk happily ever after.