I'm proud and excited to be a part of an ensemble project putting a spotlight on dieselpunk culture and adding to the the mythos of neo-noir and retro-futurism. It's called the Dieselpunk ePulp Showcase. Four writers. Four stories. For free... pretty much everywhere.
Do you need more gritty, hard-boiled noir in your life? Do you feel the urge to drag on your beaten coat, tip your fedora to just the right angle, and slum it in a smoky speakeasy? Do the grimy streets of another age call to you from deep within your blood? If so, then do I have the book for you.
Featuring works by Grant Gardiner, John Picha, Bard Constantine, and Jack Philpott, the writers of Dieselpunks.org would like to present the very first Dieselpunk ePulp Showcase.
These four tales embody the spirit of another age and are absolutely free to download.
For young hoods, the Aether Age streets of mob-plagued Chicago present a world of opportunity. And Mack and Mickey are headed straight for the top in "
That Sort of World: a Tale of the Aether Age" by Grant Gardiner.
It's class-warfare in Citadel City as Pandora Driver and her Car of Tomorrow deliver rough justice to the elites and a douche named the Gooch in "Who are the People in your Neighborhood?" by John Picha.
"The Wise Man Says" by Bard Constantine introduces Mick Trubble: a hard drinking, chain smoking charmer who bites off more than he can chew... then chews like hell. The Troubleshooter takes the grit and slang of a hardboiled detective and drops it in a dystopian setting that mixes Fedoras, trench coats, flying cars and android policemen.
Our last tale is set in the World of Mañana by Jack Philpott…
The dirty streets of Roanoketown were his home and his only family, until he met HER. Now he'll follow HER into hell, tamahaak held high, and fight as a proud Indian against the Anglo Oppressors. He'll wager his life to be a true "Friend of the Spirits."
Download them here for free, or pick them up at your favorite online bookstore
Dieselpunks
Why would we give this away for free?
#1 - Because we’re good people. Really. If you like these free dieselpunk stories and want to buy us a drink, we wouldn’t turn it down. In fact, if you like the stories, the best thing you can do for us is write a review at your favorite online bookstore and share the book with your friends. Good reviews bolster our authors’ online reputation and help them with future book releases.
#2 - We’re building interest in dieselpunk fiction and paving the road for other dieselpunk writers.
#3 - By giving away freebies like The Dieselpunk ePulp Showcase (volume 1), we’re attracting people to Dieselpunks and growing our online community. Dieselpunks is the world’s largest and most active news site and social network for dieselpunk artists, and it’s projects like these that show how much we care about our fans.
Do you want more?
Meet our authors and check out their other works:
Jack Philpott is a born writer and artist who somehow ended up as an Electrical Engineer. Whether he's enjoying chilled Vermouth on the streets of Geneva, being catapult-launched off of a perfectly good aircraft carrier, or digging in the sandbox with his son, Jack tries to appreciate the sublime nature of the moment.
Jack's previous works include several articles for Palladium Books'® Rifter™ periodical plus the perpetually-upcoming Rifts® Delta Blues trilogy (with Josh Sinsapaugh), several fan award winning "timelines" for Alternatehistory.com (as Geekhis Khan), and regular contributions to Dieselpunks.org (as Cap'n Tony). Jack co-created the World of Mañana with Norman James in 2010. See more exciting adventures from the World of Mañana in the upcoming Twit Publishing Dieselpunk Anthology ("Cocktails on the Street of Bones") with even more stories to come... mañana.
# # # # #
John Picha was born on St. Patrick's Day 1968 in Joliet, Illinois. He was raised in Frankfort, a suburb of Chicago, but his mind always seemed to be elsewhere. The little Midwesterner was captivated by comic books, cartoons and animation, mythology and all things imagined. He made the world around him more exciting by pretending. A bicycle was a spacecraft, a bush became a dinosaur, and, of course, there was always a bath towel hidden away for a quick change into a super hero. You can find John’s full bio on his website:
www.takejohn.com
It was the 1930s. Young Betty McDougal discovered how hard life could be when her family was evicted from their farm and forced to live in a Citadel City shelter. They struggled to survive. It was a time of desperation, sin, mistakes and lessons Betty didn't want to learn. Her life felt pointless until a mysterious stranger delivered her an ominous black car. It transformed her.
Pandora Driver summons the spirits of pulps past and adds dieselpunk hardware in a retro-hero tale for mature readers. It ain't Shakespeare. It's pure Pulp! There are more
Pandora Driver stories headed your way, so keep an eye on
www.pandoradriver.com for updates on her future adventures.
In addition to Pandora Driver, be on the lookout for more of John’s ePulp titles coming in 2013: Skyracos, Rurik, and Dead Reckoner.
# # # # #
Bard Constantine was born in Chicago, raised in Southern California, and currently resides in Birmingham, Alabama. But where he really resides is in the worlds he creates in his writing. A writer of gritty futures and far-flung fantasy, he decided to concentrate on publishing when he approached the age of thirty. Although he writes in several genres, his hallmark character is Mick Trubble: the rugged, wisecracking protagonist of The Troubleshooter novels.
The Troubleshooter is the flagship title of Bard’s expanding Havenworld universe, in which humanity dwells in city-sized constructs called Havens to survive a terrifying Cataclysm that nearly wiped out life on earth. Further exploration of other Havens in this world will be coming soon.
# # # # #
The Dieselpunk ePulp Showcase is Grant Gardiner’s first foray into the world of ePublishing but it won’t be his last. He is currently working on an upcoming pulp alternate-universe adventure series, The Tales of Tommy Thunder, Scourge of the Skypirates, as well as several more dieselpunk short stories for his collection series The Tales of the Aether Age.
