Reader beware: to open this tome is to invite dread into your heart. Every page you turn will bring you closer to something wicked. And when the dead begin to rise from the steaming pits of hell, only then will you discover that it is already too late. Your life is forfeit.Featuring an introduction by Leanna Renee Hieber, author of the Eterna Files and Strangely Beautiful saga, DeadSteam plays host to the scintillating writing of David Lee Summers (Owl Dance, The Brazen Shark), Jen Ponce (The Bazaar, Demon’s Cradle), Wendy Nikel (The Continuum), Karen J Carlisle (The Adventures of Viola Stewart), Jonah Buck (Carrion Safari), and more…With seventeen chilling tales of dreadpunk, gaslamp, and dark steampunk, DeadSteam will leave you tearing at the pages, desperate for more. For within these pages, the dead rise from their graves to haunt the London Underground, witches whisper their incantations to the wind, a sisterhood of bitten necks hunts fog-drenched alleyways lit only by gaslight, and only one thing is certain: that dread will follow you until you turn that final page.And that sinking feeling in the pit of your chest? That fear that something is following you, watching you, hunting you? It is not for nothing. Look over your shoulder, dear reader. Watch behind you. Listen to the whispers in the darkness.But know this...it is all inevitable.
...definite knack for the dark, eerie angle of Victorian Britain. I very much enjoyed this. (William J Jackson, Author of An Unsubstantiated Chamber)
Raffle brings together a fine selection of 17 "dreadpunk" (gaslamp horror and dark steampunk) stories in this gritty, enjoyable anthology. The London Underground becomes a playground for the undead in Raffle's suspenseful "Burke Street Station." A greedy lover gets her comeuppance in Jay Seate's "The Velvet Ribbon." Rob Francis's "B.A.R.B." plays with the concept of devil worship, and the lengths a grieving man might go to revive his dying wife. The pinnacle of the collection is Ross Smeltzer's "The Hunger," in which a man's encounter with the undead in a forgotten cemetery lurches him toward Lovecraftian insanity. Although Raffle includes several stories that hover around a similar idea or theme (there is a glut of vampire fiction in this anthology), the standout tales are those that break from conventional horror. The nature of human frailty and propensity towards violence is underscored in all of the collected tales, making it more than just full of good scares. Seasoned horror readers will appreciate this dark anthology. (BookLife)
This is a delightful collection of seventeen dreadpunk horror stories, think Penny Dreadfuls. I have never heard of dreadpunk but I have to say I have fallen in love with these stories. They include several stories full of vampires, zombies, witches and so much more. There is a story or to that will delight anyone that enjoys the horrors of the world. (Jessica Bronder)
