Fiction has a special role in the way we relate to each other. Fiction can take us outside of our own experience and give us a small hint of what it's like to be someone else. Speculative fiction - including steampunk - has always been a metaphorical mirror to our own society, allowing us to see ourselves and our behaviors from the outside in ways that we otherwise couldn't. It's not magic. It's the interworking of dozens of finely machined gears. It's the craftswoman adjusting the tension on a spring so it doesn't break. It's the stoker making sure the furnace fires stay burning. It's the conductor collecting tickets, the passengers watching the landscape roll by, the excited child standing next to the engineer who gets to pull the cord and hear the train's steam whistle. It might not be magic, but it's still amazing. Especially with a project like Steampunk Universe, making an anthology of steampunk stories that feature diverse characters who are disabled or aneurotypical. Join editor Sarah Hans, our cover artist James Ng, and contributors Ken Liu, Jody Lynn Nye, Maurice Broaddus, Malon Edwards, Emily Cataneo, Pip Ballantine and nine others today.

One should never be afraid to love or shoot the one they care about. A famed markswoman once said that. Or so it's claimed. Imagine a town with a dog sheriff from another planet. A zombie attack clean-up woman. An attractive alien who likes to play love goddess. A magical concert with dead musicians that gets out of hand. Or those of the old west who meet aliens. Those from the far future hunted for not volunteering to die. A woman who learns a lesson with a twist during war time. And more... Come along with our writers and travel the diverse trails of their tales, of loving and sometimes shooting, in these pages of Love' em, Shoot 'em. Featuring stories by: A.M. Burns, Guy Anthony De Marco, A.M. Symes, Holly Robards, Spencer Carvelho, Joyce Frohn, D.J. Tyrer, Villa K Kokko, CB Droege, Nicole Godfrey, Luke Dutka, Catherine Oler, Kate Coe, David Boop, Ross Baxter, S.L. Williams, Danielle Airola, Christine Ballantine, J.A. Campbell, Rebecca McFarland Kyle, and David Permutter

Mage Obak may be the foremost scholar of Mage's myths in Taderah, but he is also something of a problem. Dismissed from a mission to find Treloolir due to his arrogant attitude, his life begins to fall apart when his studies are passed to a rival scholar. He is sent away to a small coastal village and tries to learn a different way of living, but he still yearns to regain his old life.

The land of Quorl is under attack. S'ian, badly injured when her Glider crashed is trapped in a city under siege. Meanwhile out on the plains, Toru is desperately defending his own city and people from the advancing enemy. The fighting is no longer between men: a battle for the air has started, and new weapons force both sides into desperate measures. Even if Toru succeeds in pushing the enemy back from Meton, what will the cost be? Can Toru reconcile his duty to his country with his own dreams?

Toru Idalin, Lord Heir of Meton, has a problem. The man he loves has accidentally made Toru into a powerful Mage, and Toru caused a soulbond between himself and a grieving Healer. Now Catter has left, unable to deal with Toru's connection to S'ian. But when Quorl is attacked by an enemy intent on gaining the secret of newfound flight and electricity, the ripples from Catter's actions become even more important, and Toru is thrown into the struggle to defend both his land and his partner.

Death is permanent. This is the falsehood that we tell ourselves so we can sleep at night. It's the lie that we tell our children so they don't carry their kitten's corpse to the old cemetery deep in the forest. It's the myth that we wrap ourselves in so we can ignore the gut-wrenching terror of what really follows deaththe unfathomable unkno