Guten Abend, meinen Damen under Herren! You are this chilly March evening aboard the zeppelin Hans Glücker, departing old Calais for the city of New Amsterdam, jewel of British North America. Among you is a celebrity: the famed Don Sebastien de Ulloa, known to the Continent as the Great Detective, along with his assistant Jack Priest.

Ah! I see your concern. Clearly you know of Don de Ulloa’s reputation. Allow me to assure you, they are only passengers on this voyage, just part of our small and cozy coterie as we sail across the Atlantic. So, relax, ladies and gentlemen. After all, this is 1899, and this is a zeppelin. What could possibly go wrong?

The long novella Lucifugous chronicles this trip and the mysterious disappearance within, and opens Campbell award-winning writer Elizabeth Bear’s hardcover debut, the mosaic novel, New Amsterdam, due out from Subterranean Press in May.

Elizabeth Bear is the acclaimed author, most recently, of Carnival and Blood and Iron.