David Lee Summers

"Fountains of Blood" appears in the anthology Straight Outta Tombstone edited by David Boop. In this story set in 1896, Billy McCarty of my Clockwork Legion novels is hired to protect prominent attorney and former Texas governor Albert J. Fountain who is returning home with his son after collecting evidence in the Lincoln County War. Ambushed by a strange creature of the night, the Fountains disappear and Billy turns to Marshal Larissa Seaton for help.

This weird western anthology also features stories by Jim Butcher, Phil Foglio, Alan Dean Foster, Kevin J. Anderson, Robert E. Vardeman, Jody Lynn Nye, and Nicole Kurtz.

Straight Outta Tombstone may be ordered from Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.

"The Vrykolakas and the Cobbler's Wife" appears in issue 66 of Cemetery Dance Magazine. Set in Greece at the beginning of the twentieth century, the story was inspired by a Greek folktale related in Montague Summers' The Vampire in Europe and tells the story of a cobbler who was turned into a vrykolakas and then comes back to haunt his family. The story is illustrated by GAK, who I had the pleasure of working with back in the early days of Hadrosaur Tales Magazine.

This issue of Cemetery Dance also features stories by Steve Resnic Tem, Jeremy C. Shipp, and Bill Pronzini, plus a number of reviews, interviews and articles by folks such as Ellen Datlow, Bev Vincent, and Brian James Freeman.

Cemetery Dance issue 66 is available at Amazon.com.

Hungur Chronicles features stories about vampires on Earth and from Outer Space. There's lots more to drink than just blood. While the neck is a good place to start, it doesn't have to end there. A vampire can also steal your dreams. Read with all the lights on and the windows closed.

The Samhain 2025 issue of Hungur Chronicles features my short story "Egaeus" which is a retelling of Edgar Allan Poe's short story "Berenice" but from Berenice's perspective. This tale doesn't require that you know the original, but I think it's a lot of fun if you read the two back to back. The story also features Scarlet Order vampire Nabila. Also in the issue are some great tales by John Leahy, Sharon L. Dean, Geoffrey Hart, and Matthew Fryer.

The Samhain 2025 issue of Hungur Chronicles is available from Hiraeth Publishing.

Monstrous Is a Matter of Perspective… Classic tales throughout time pit humanity against creatures of the night, beyond mortal understanding. But what–or who–makes a monster? Folklore has its tales to tell, but might there be a different view? In this anthology are fifteen tales inspired by Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley, paying tribute to their vision of Gothic horror.

In conjunction with the Tell-Tale Steampunk Festival, this anthologies includes stories by James Chambers, Aaron Rosenberg, Keith R.A. DeCandido, Hildy Silverman, Doc Coleman, Jessica Lucci, Dana Fraedrich, Ef Deal, Teel James Glenn, Christine Norris, Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Rachel A. Brune, Michelle D. Sonnier, and John L. French all alongside my tale. The collection features an introduction by bestselling author, Dacre Stoker, great grandnephew of Bram Stoker

My story in the issue "The Last Priestess" takes inspiration from both Mary Shelley's novel The Last Man and Bram Stoker's novel The Jewel of the Seven Stars. I send my spiritualist character, Dinella Stanton, to Mexico to see if she can exorcise the spirits of the mummies of Guanajuato. To date, her Egyptologist associate Professor Augustus Harriman hasn’t had much luck revitalizing mummies, but in Mexico he may get more than he bargained for, including a glimpse into his own future!

An Assembly of Monsters is available from Amazon.com.

"Arithmophobia," n.: The fear of numbers or mathematics.

Whether you love mathematics or find it terrifying, this anthology of thirteen original tales of terror is sure to send a chill down your spine. These stories tell us of strange and horrifying new geometries, crazed and violent mathematicians, sentient and malevolent numbers, and even some new mathematical twists on some classic monsters. You needn't be a mathematician to experience these new forms of mathematical terror, though students of the discipline might recognize some familiar names and ideas lurking in the shadows.

My story in the collection is "A Presence Beyond the Shadows" and imagines a professor of mathematics who has discovered a way to see beyond the three dimensions we experience. Sometimes you really don't want to know what's there!

Arithmophobia is available at Amazon.com.

In "Horsefeathers," it's the 1980s and Baba Yaga has learned an artifact from the 1001 Nights could be real and in the hands of the mujahideen in Afghanistan. She sends her best pilot from the Soviet Night Witch squadron to retrieve it at any cost.

What if monsters were real? How would the existence of monsters play out on the international stage? How about Amelia Earhart working for the US government on a mission to an island in the Bermuda Triangle where prehistoric life abounds? Or Sherlock Holmes teaming with his goddaughter Jane Watson and the simian head of DAT, France's paranormal spy network, to stop a dangerous hybrid of monster and machine from destroying London? There's Adam Frankenstein working in the German resistance to stop the Nazis from creating more of his kind from the bodies of their victims. During the Cold War, Baba Yaga and the Night Witches make a stealth attack on the King of Transyvania-Dracula. A very unusual assassin works the frigid waters of the Russian sea. The Invisible Madame tries to track down her son who was kidnapped by the British MI-7. And the legendary Phantom of the Opera, now a murderous body-stealing ghost and the top French operative, may have met his match in a teenage girl.

Staring Into the Abyss is available from Amazon.com.

Innovation Goes Rolling Along, But Who Keeps the Engines Running?

In the midst of war and a changing world, you seldom hear tales of the dedicated souls that keep ingenuity and progress moving. The mechanics who not only hear the music of the machine but can tear them down and put them together again better than before. Those who love to get their hands dirty figuring out how things work, those without whom progress would grind to a halt. That changes now. In addition to my story, you'll find tales by Aaron Rosenberg, John L. French, Heather E. Hutsell, Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Ken Schrader, Misty Massey, James Chambers, Derek Tyler Attico, Maria V. Snyder, and Bernie Mojzes.

My story in Grease Monkeys imagines an alternate past in Colorado's San Juan Mountains when a pair of disreputable gangsters with an airship go into competition with an aging rail line. Of course the gangsters aren't going to play by the rules. How can a plucky narrow-gauge railroad keep the mail moving when they can't buy new locomotives in the age of diesel?

Grease Monkeys: The Heart and Soul of Dieselpunk is available at Amazon.

Invention and Adventure Go Hand in Hand

Clockwork technology and ingenuity are not the sole purview of Jolly Ol' England. By airship or locomotive, prairie schooner or steamboat, it is time to explore the global landscape through lenses polished in the Age of Steam! In addition to my story, you'll find tales by: Beth Cato, Aaron Rosenberg, Jeff Young, Hildy Silverman, Christine Norris, Cynthia Radthorne, James Chambers, Danielle Ackley-McPhail, and Ef Deal

My story in Other Aether is called "No One Alone" and tells how Onofre Cisneros of my Clockwork Legion novels builds his submarine, the Legado and tries to get the interest of an American investor.

Other Aether: Tales of Global Steampunk is available at Amazon.

DeadSteam edited by Bryce Raffle and published by Grimmer and Grimmer Books features my story "Specter in the Light." The story is set during the early days of my alma mater, New Mexico Tech, when it was known as the New Mexico School of Mines. It imagines staff members using Nikola Tesla's innovations to bring electric light to mines. The problem is, the electricity awakens something sleeping deep within the mountain where they conduct their test!

DeadSteam is an anthology of dreadpunk, gaslamp, and dark steampunk. These are tales of the ghoulish and the gothic, chilling stories of haunted streets, of vampires and demons stalking the city from fog-drenched alleyways lit only by gas lamps. 17 chilling stories of the monsters lurking around every corner, the ghosts haunting the darkest streets of Victorian London, and the dead things crawling out of their graves to consume the flesh of the living. In addition to my story, you'll find stories by Jen Ponce, Karen J Carlisle, Jonah Buck, James Dorr, Alice E Keyes, and Steve Carr. The foreword is by Leanna Renee Hieber.

DeadSteam is available at Amazon and Smashwords.

Dinella Stanton returns in "The Sun Worshipper's Ghost." Professor Augustus Harriman hoped the spirit of a long-dead Egyptian pharaoh would possess the mummy he reanimated with clockworks. Instead the pharaoh has started tormenting the professor. Can Dinella save him before the ghost exacts its revenge on the professor?

Just when you thought the nightmare was over, what was dead comes crawling back from the beyond. We warned you not to open that fateful tome. But you just couldn't resist, could you? Back with more chilling tales of the dark and supernatural, the anthology of dreadpunk, gaslamp, and dark steampunk returns to haunt you with mummies, witches, vampires, gorgons, ghosts. The second installment in the DeadSteam series from Grimmer & Grimmer Books, DeadSteam II promises an even darker, grimmer gothic than the first offering.

DeadSteam II is available at Amazon.com.

Once Upon a Time, ageless tales were told from one generation to the next, filled with both wonders and warnings. Tales of handsome princes and wicked queens, of good-hearted folk and evil stepmothers. Tales of danger and caution and magic … classics that still echo in our hearts and memories even to this day, told from old, cherished books or from memory at Grandma's knee.

Oh yes, tales have been told … but never quite like these. Journey with us through the pages of Gaslight and Grimm to discover timeless truths through lenses polished in the age of steam.

I retell Grimm's "The Dragon and his Grandmother" as "The Steam-Powered Dragon." Three British soldiers pressed to fight in India encounter a steam-powered dragon who offers to take them away from life in the army and gives them an alchemical device that turns coal into diamonds. The catch is that the dragon will return and ask three riddles. If the soldiers can t answer, they will become the steam-powered dragon s slaves, keeping his boilers stoked for the rest of their lives.

Gaslight and Grimm is available at Amazon.

Once Upon a Time… tales of wisdom and warning were passed from one generation to the next. Tales of humble makers and ruthless nobles, of helpful fae and evil tricksters. Tales of making and unmaking, caution and magic… classics that still echo in our hearts and memories even to this day, told from old, cherished books or from memory at Grandma's knee.

Oh yes, tales have been told… but never quite like these. Journey with us through the pages of Grimm Machinations to rediscover timeless truths through lenses polished in the age of steam.

My story in the anthology is called "The Porcelain Princess" and it's a retelling of "Snow White." To tell this version, I went back to notes left behind by the Brothers Grimm and explored the story of Snow White's birth and how the wicked queen came to rule the land. In my version, the queen's mirror isn't polished glass, but an automaton who stands in for the queen. What's more, the princess's precious heart takes on new significance, since it live on in an immortally beautiful, dancing doll. Explore politics and machineries in this adaptation of the classic legend and see it through a new lens.

Grimm Machinations is available at Amazon.