Steam Girl

(unpublished sketch)

It’s high time I mentioned this: ‘Steam Girl’ is my first published prose story (i.e. without pictures), which came out late last year in Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories, edited by the wonderful Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant, and published by Candlewick Press in the US and Walker Books in the UK. I’ve written prose fiction all my life (in between the comics), but never felt brave enough to publish any until now.

Steampunk! also includes prose stories by M. T. Anderson, Holly Black, Libba Bray, Cassandra Clare, Cory Doctorow, Elizabeth Knox, Garth Nix, Christopher Rowe, Delia Sherman, Ysabeau S. Wilce and Kelly Link herself and comics by Shawn Cheng and Kathleen Jennings. It’s a fantastic anthology and I’m thrilled to be included.

The cherry on the cake is that ‘Steam Girl’ has just been reprinted in The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, volume 6, edited by Jonathan Strahan (published by Night Shade Books), which is very humbling. Guess I’d better finish that damn novel now, eh?

Ways to buy it and a couple of reviews after the jump:

Here’s a couple of reviews I rather liked:

Karen Meisner on

And a neat video review from the rather awesome Stevie Finegan, aka SableCaught, who reads WAY TOO MANY BOOKS!

And here are some of the ways you can buy Steampunk! or The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, vol. 6:

Buy from Amazon.com

Buy for Kindle

Buy UK edition from BookDepository

Buy from Amazon.com

This entry was posted on Friday, March 16th, 2012 at 8:23 pm and is filed under Books, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

5 Responses to “Steam Girl”

1. Seth says:

   January 31, 2013 at 9:36 am

   Steam Girl was awesome, please do write more

2. Stevie says:

   February 21, 2013 at 11:28 pm

   I think you’ll find that you can never read too many books! : P

   Thanks for including my review though ^__^ And please write more, I am desperate to read whatever you pen!

3. Dylan Horrocks says:

   February 22, 2013 at 11:25 am

   Stevie – I recently finished another story for another anthology. Fingers crossed…

4. Manny C says:

   December 7, 2023 at 7:57 pm

   Dylan,

   Just read Steam Girl in the Science Fiction anthology. It was easily the most gripping story in the anthology for me. You really captured the magic and awkwardness of making a connection as a lonely kid. Did you somehow steal my childhood journals and use them as inspiration?

   The story was lovely. I felt like it really spoke to me. If you’ve published other prose stories, let me know! I couldn’t find anything from a quick google search.

   Thanks!

5. Dylan Horrocks says:

   April 7, 2024 at 2:31 pm

   Thanks! I’ve published a couple of other prose stories:

6. ‘Kitty Capulet and the Invention of Underwater Photography’ in Monstrous Affections: an Anthology of Beastly Tales, edited by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant, (Candlewick, 2014)
7. ‘The Square of Mirrors’ in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #32 (Small Beer Press, 2015)
8. ‘The Paresach’s Tulips’ in Monsters in the Garden: an Anthology of Aotearoa New Zealand Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Elizabeth Knox and David Larsen (Te Herenga Waka Press, 2020)

I can’t promise they’re all as satisfying as ‘Steam Girl’ (easily my most popular prose story to date). Each story is pretty different (warning: ‘The Paresach’s Tulips’ gets pretty dark and grisly).

Anyway, thanks again – I’m glad it struck a chord!