A – Z | Your Cover’s Blown

Your Cover’s Blown by Shinju Yuri

It’s surprisingly hard to find books starting with a Y. You’d think there be a lot of titles starting with some for of You, and there are some, but not as many as you’d think.

So I went searching, and I wanted something short, something I could finish in one go despite having the kids running around me.

Have you checked out Shousetsu Bang*Bang? It’s A Webzine for Original Queer Fiction and Art. I’ve read a couple of stories from there before, and when I saw that there was a short steampunk story starting with a Y, I figured it was meant to be.

Every time I read steampunk, I’m thinking I should read more steampunk. Something about the steam and the mad scientists get me going LOL. Your Cover’s Blown has an inventor called Walter who forgets to eat and sleep once he’s working on something. Frederick, on the other hand, is rather sly and steals things to get back as the people who ruined his father’s company.

Walter takes one look at Frederick and thinks about well-oiled machinery LOL. This is totally worth an aww. Super cute, and I loved Walter. I suffer from an aversion to speech tags, though, and there were a few times it got to be too much for me, but Walter made up for it.

Read it here!

Your Cover's Blown Walter had never fallen in love before but he’d always thought it would be like the feeling when you slotted something into place and knew, even before you turned on the steam and watched the gears begin to move, that everything was where it was supposed to be. Even before the gears began to move smoothly, faster and faster, until everything was a steady contented hum. He’d heard that it was something like a chemical reaction, though. If it was, that was all right, because he was used to them. The trick was to make big, gloriously horrible balls-ups of the thing and remember to duck if it blew. And do it over and over again until you got it right.