Machines in Smoke and Steel

Machines in Smoke and Steel collects ten short stories set in the universes of the Machine Mandate and Her Pitiless Command respectively, including three never-before-seen stories.

In these pages, ambitious soldiers come to the attention of godlike artificial intelligences. A terrified nun finds her convent infiltrated by a mercenary. Two women fought in a machine-run death tournament and must now grapple with consequences. The young prince of a desert country meets with an inhuman invader.

Covering both science fiction and fantasy, these stories showcase striking landscapes, complex machinations carried out by AIs and wounded humans, and bring to life the interstices of both the Machine Mandate and Her Pitiless Command that were not covered in the novels.