Pimp My Airship

By Maurice Broaddus,

Book cover of Pimp My Airship: A Naptown by Airship Novel

Book description

Warning: Don’t Believe the Hype!

All the poet called Sleepy wants to do is spit his verses, smoke chiba, and stay off the COP’s radar—all of which becomes impossible once he encounters a professional protestor known as (120 Degrees of) Knowledge Allah. They soon find themselves on the wrong side…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked Pimp My Airship as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This is not your parents’ steampunk! It’s an oh-so-different take on the genre with an edgy, improbable, and yet somehow entirely believable motley band of revolutionaries. Delightfully,  it was born in a wisecrack! Maurice complained online about the lily-whiteness typical of steampunk mythology (tru dat!) and quipped that he might well have to write “Pimp my Airship” in retaliation. More than one editor told him that if he wrote it, they’d buy it. Well, what’s an author to do? So, he did. 

And yes, there ARE airships, and yes, they ARE tricked out.

I don’t often read “steampunk” because it usually reflects the Victorian era of England or a ‘what if’ scenario involving the Confederacy and I’m just sick to death of the subjects. Along came “steamfunk,” an addition to the genre where the focus wouldn’t be on exclusively white characters, but Black sourced from the African continent. Then once upon a time, Broaddus cracked a joke on Twitter: “I’m going to write a steampunk story with an all-Black cast and call it ‘Pimp My Airship.’ To his chagrin (and eventual delight) several editors asked to see the story. The worldbuilding in this…

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