Gideon Smith and the Brass Dragon
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David Barnett's Gideon Smith and the Brass Dragon is a fantastical steampunk fable set against an alternate historical backdrop: the ultimate Victoriana/steampunk mash-up!
Nineteenth century London is the center of a vast British Empire, a teeming metropolis where steam-power is king and airships ply the skies, and where Queen Victoria presides over three quarters of the known world--including the east coast of America, following the failed revolution of 1775.
Young Gideon Smith has seen things that no green lad of Her Majesty's dominion should ever experience. Through a series of incredible events Gideon has become the newest Hero of the Empire. But Gideon is a man with a mission, for the dreaded Texas pirate Louis Cockayne has stolen the mechanical clockwork girl Maria, along with a most fantastical weapon--a great brass dragon that was unearthed beneath ancient Egyptian soil. Maria is the only one who can pilot the beast, so Cockayne has taken girl and dragon off to points east.
Gideon and his intrepid band take to the skies and travel to the American colonies hot on Cockayne's trail. Not only does Gideon want the machine back, he has fallen in love with Maria. Their journey will take them to the wilds of the lawless lands south of the American colonies - to free Texas, where the mad King of Steamtown rules with an iron fist (literally), where life is cheap and honor even cheaper.
Does Gideon have what it takes to not only save the day but win the girl?
David Barnett
David Barnett is an author, a lightning rod, and a man who has lived multiple lives within multiple worlds of chaos. After years defined by the jagged friction of the underground music scene and a scorched-earth lifestyle of indulgence and excess, Barnett eventually learned to transmute his demons and harness the power of his ghosts, channeling a legacy of reckless abandon and outlandish antics into the art that saved his life. Writing from the raw intersection of survival and an insatiable appetite for the next extreme, he navigates the beautiful and the brutal with unflinching honesty. A winner of the 2025 WriterCon First Place award for Memoir, Barnett writes not to seek absolution, but to expose the price of chasing dreams and the toll of trudging through the muck in search of the signal beneath the static. He resides in Austin, Texas, where he has served as a steward for misunderstood minds and disaffected souls, remaining a dedicated seeker of the next distorted, exquisite frequency.
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