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Airship Hunters
A thrilling novel of turn-of-the-century intrigue and mystery!
It is 1897 and the skies are haunted by mysterious airships and unfathomable secrets.
Tasked with hunting down these strange vehicles of the air and determining their origin and intent, two U.S. government agents toil under unusual conditions to supply their shadowy superiors with information. But that information proves to be as elusive as the airships themselves.
Ride with Agents Valiantine and Cabot across the Midwest as they encounter reports of strange lights, phantom soldiers, unreliable witnesses, and the ultimate source of their airborne prey.
They are the Airship Hunters, and they cannot be waylaid from their path to uncover the greatest mystery of them all.
It is 1897 and the skies are haunted by mysterious airships and unfathomable secrets.
Tasked with hunting down these strange vehicles of the air and determining their origin and intent, two U.S. government agents toil under unusual conditions to supply their shadowy superiors with information. But that information proves to be as elusive as the airships themselves.
Ride with Agents Valiantine and Cabot across the Midwest as they encounter reports of strange lights, phantom soldiers, unreliable witnesses, and the ultimate source of their airborne prey.
They are the Airship Hunters, and they cannot be waylaid from their path to uncover the greatest mystery of them all.
220 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2015
24 people want to read
About the author
Jim Beard
93 books24 followersJim Beard became a published writer when he sold a story to DC Comics in 2002. Since that time he's written official Star Wars and Ghostbusters comic stories and contributed articles and essays to several volumes of comic book history. His prose work includes SPIDER-MAN: ENEMIES CLOSER, an original novel; co-editing and contributing a story to PLANET OF THE APES: TALES FROM THE FORBIDDEN ZONE; a story for X-FILES: SECRET AGENDAS; GOTHAM CITY 14 MILES, a book of essays on the 1966 Batman TV series; SGT. JANUS, SPIRIT-BREAKER, a collection of pulp ghost stories featuring an Edwardian occult detective; MONSTER EARTH, a shared-world giant monster anthology; and CAPTAIN ACTION: RIDDLE OF THE GLOWING MEN, the first pulp prose novel based on the classic 1960s action figure. Jim also currently provides regular content for Marvel.com, the official Marvel Comics website.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
November 2, 2015
"Airship Hunters" is a nicely put together piece of pulp that keeps you guessing throughout. Just when you think you've figured it out, the authors throw in another twist. Are the strange flying objects part of some pre-Wright Brothers invention or are stranger things afoot? How do the looming, shadowy superhuman creatures play into all this? Who can our Aero Marshals trust on their cross-country journey to solve these mysteries? The protagonists are part Holmes/Watson and part Mulder/Scully. Despite my excruciatingly long read time, you can pick this up and read it on a long rainy afternoon. When you're finished, you'll be begging for a sequel.
March 5, 2017
WARNING: SPOILERS
Fiction is such a delicate thing. If one small element is missing, or is inconsistent with a previous small element, or doesn’t jibe with their experience of the world, the reader can immediately be taken out of the narrative with a loud mental THUNK. Stories are made up of a series of small elements; when you think about it, a novel must contain hundreds, if not thousands, of details that must work in harmony for the book as a whole to succeed. This is a large part of the reason why I believe that finishing a novel – of any genre and regardless of literary “quality” – that works within the parameters set up by the author is nothing short of a minor miracle.
The withdrawal of the reader’s suspension of disbelief because of problematic details in a narrative is unfortunate because most readers come to a novel looking to be entertained. They’re primed to enjoy the experience, happily suspending their disbelief from the first word; the audience is the writer’s to lose.
Airship Hunters, by Jim Beard and Duane Spurlock, lost me early on with the following passage: “Valiantine looked down at his civilian attire and fussed with it a bit, wondering for the hundredth time since he left his room over the extent of his ability to blend in with the locals. He’d chosen a plain brown suit with no ornamentation save for a straw hat and his watch and chain. He’d even eschewed spats for a solid pair of commonplace boots.” Why? Because, although a good description of the character’s clothes, the novel had given no description of the character himself. For the next few pages, I had an image in my head of a suit of clothes moving around without a human being in them, an image I’m sure the authors did not intend.
Small details. Huge importance.
It took a couple of chapters for me to get back into Airship Hunters, but I did because the story was intriguing. In post-Civil War America, military man Michael Valiantine is given the task of investigating sightings of strange, huge, impossible airships. Around the same time, Treasury Agent William Cabot is assigned a case of brutal murders, with bodies torn apart, because apparently counterfeit coins appeared at the crime scenes.Soon enough the two cases converge; Valiantine and Cabot are teamed up and given their own unit, called Aero Marshalls, to investigate these strange events.
The two authors are credited with writing alternate chapters, one told from Valiantine’s point of view, the other from Cabot’s. This could have been a recipe for disaster, with different writing styles clashing throughout the book; but, in fact, the chapters by the two authors are integrated very well, with a single authorial voice throughout the work.
At first, the characters seem somewhat cliched: Valiantine the grizzled military veteran and Cabot the hot-headed young investigator. However, there were occasional details that humanized and individuated the characters. Valiantine’s attention to detail, for example, struck me about halfway through the novel as being a form of OCD. Cabot’s reliance on investigative techniques taught to him by his mentor, Yankee Bligh (a real-life lawman), gave interesting insight into Cabot’s thoughts.
What really drew me back into Airship Hunters, though, were the bizarre details of the case. Appearances by the airships were often accompanied by the music of a full orchestra, for instance. Or, the murders appeared to be committed by eight foot tall monsters with the faces of human children. Or, the coins turned into metal blobs in police custody. Details like these made Airship Hunters feel like a steampunk X Files.
I also appreciated the fact that, although the novel is the first in a series, the authors took care to end this particular part of the story. The airship is destroyed, the antagonists dead (well, apparently, in any case), the case seems closed. To be sure, there are questions that suggest a much larger picture, such as where the people running the ship came from and why there seemed to be two factions of strangers working at cross-purposes. Still, the reader was given at least partial closure by the end of the novel, much like many episodes of the X Files, and can be satisfied with the book on its own.
Unfortunately, later chapters had problematic plot points that took me out of the novel again. The two heroes encounter President McKinley on a train, for example, but neither McKinley nor his retinue were described. This was a missed opportunity to paint a picture in my mind of what was happening; instead, I have only a vague vision of the scene.
Worse, in one scene the train has stopped on a bridge over a river, the airship hovering over it apparently intent on blowing it up. In the next scene, the train is chugging along the countryside, the airship gone. Now, although Valiantine had instructed the train conductor not to start it, I can buy that at some point between the scenes that order was countermanded and the train got going. However, the disappearance of the airship without destroying the train seems to me like a major plot hole: how did the train escape being blown up? A scene where the heroes fought off the airship seems to me necessary to answer this question.
Clearly, Airship Hunters is not perfect. Still, large parts of it are entertaining, so, if you like the genre, you may find it worth your time.
Originally published on the Amazing Stories Web site (amazingstoriesmag.com/2016/01/review-...) on January 8, 2016.
Fiction is such a delicate thing. If one small element is missing, or is inconsistent with a previous small element, or doesn’t jibe with their experience of the world, the reader can immediately be taken out of the narrative with a loud mental THUNK. Stories are made up of a series of small elements; when you think about it, a novel must contain hundreds, if not thousands, of details that must work in harmony for the book as a whole to succeed. This is a large part of the reason why I believe that finishing a novel – of any genre and regardless of literary “quality” – that works within the parameters set up by the author is nothing short of a minor miracle.
The withdrawal of the reader’s suspension of disbelief because of problematic details in a narrative is unfortunate because most readers come to a novel looking to be entertained. They’re primed to enjoy the experience, happily suspending their disbelief from the first word; the audience is the writer’s to lose.
Airship Hunters, by Jim Beard and Duane Spurlock, lost me early on with the following passage: “Valiantine looked down at his civilian attire and fussed with it a bit, wondering for the hundredth time since he left his room over the extent of his ability to blend in with the locals. He’d chosen a plain brown suit with no ornamentation save for a straw hat and his watch and chain. He’d even eschewed spats for a solid pair of commonplace boots.” Why? Because, although a good description of the character’s clothes, the novel had given no description of the character himself. For the next few pages, I had an image in my head of a suit of clothes moving around without a human being in them, an image I’m sure the authors did not intend.
Small details. Huge importance.
It took a couple of chapters for me to get back into Airship Hunters, but I did because the story was intriguing. In post-Civil War America, military man Michael Valiantine is given the task of investigating sightings of strange, huge, impossible airships. Around the same time, Treasury Agent William Cabot is assigned a case of brutal murders, with bodies torn apart, because apparently counterfeit coins appeared at the crime scenes.Soon enough the two cases converge; Valiantine and Cabot are teamed up and given their own unit, called Aero Marshalls, to investigate these strange events.
The two authors are credited with writing alternate chapters, one told from Valiantine’s point of view, the other from Cabot’s. This could have been a recipe for disaster, with different writing styles clashing throughout the book; but, in fact, the chapters by the two authors are integrated very well, with a single authorial voice throughout the work.
At first, the characters seem somewhat cliched: Valiantine the grizzled military veteran and Cabot the hot-headed young investigator. However, there were occasional details that humanized and individuated the characters. Valiantine’s attention to detail, for example, struck me about halfway through the novel as being a form of OCD. Cabot’s reliance on investigative techniques taught to him by his mentor, Yankee Bligh (a real-life lawman), gave interesting insight into Cabot’s thoughts.
What really drew me back into Airship Hunters, though, were the bizarre details of the case. Appearances by the airships were often accompanied by the music of a full orchestra, for instance. Or, the murders appeared to be committed by eight foot tall monsters with the faces of human children. Or, the coins turned into metal blobs in police custody. Details like these made Airship Hunters feel like a steampunk X Files.
I also appreciated the fact that, although the novel is the first in a series, the authors took care to end this particular part of the story. The airship is destroyed, the antagonists dead (well, apparently, in any case), the case seems closed. To be sure, there are questions that suggest a much larger picture, such as where the people running the ship came from and why there seemed to be two factions of strangers working at cross-purposes. Still, the reader was given at least partial closure by the end of the novel, much like many episodes of the X Files, and can be satisfied with the book on its own.
Unfortunately, later chapters had problematic plot points that took me out of the novel again. The two heroes encounter President McKinley on a train, for example, but neither McKinley nor his retinue were described. This was a missed opportunity to paint a picture in my mind of what was happening; instead, I have only a vague vision of the scene.
Worse, in one scene the train has stopped on a bridge over a river, the airship hovering over it apparently intent on blowing it up. In the next scene, the train is chugging along the countryside, the airship gone. Now, although Valiantine had instructed the train conductor not to start it, I can buy that at some point between the scenes that order was countermanded and the train got going. However, the disappearance of the airship without destroying the train seems to me like a major plot hole: how did the train escape being blown up? A scene where the heroes fought off the airship seems to me necessary to answer this question.
Clearly, Airship Hunters is not perfect. Still, large parts of it are entertaining, so, if you like the genre, you may find it worth your time.
Originally published on the Amazing Stories Web site (amazingstoriesmag.com/2016/01/review-...) on January 8, 2016.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 13, 2016
Loved the narrative structure of each part being written by the two different authors and each author writing their character as the point of view for that part.
October 13, 2022
I have, on occasion, enjoyed a little diversion into steampunk fiction and this book falls well enough into that category to meet my needs. The story follows a recovering detective who suffered a notable enough wound to be sidelined for a year and a treasury officer who are thrown together to solve a crime. As some have noted, this is a little bit X-Files but has just a smattering of an unlikely detective pairing that could be a nod toward Sir Arthur Conan Doyle . Here there are air ships that seems to be too fast traveling and are causing concerns, so our unlikely pair are elevated to a new form of service and must solve the origins of these strange objects before their final plan, whatever it may be, is implemented.
Adventure stories like this may be common enough, but Beard hits us with just enough intrigue and character that we begin to wonder how this will all resolve. Like the joyous cliffhangers of the old serial, we as readers want to know what comes next and it propels us on. It is not a flawless or life changing story to me, but I appreciated it all the more for the blending of genres and the way it drove forward its world buildings. It struck me as being somewhere between the feelings of the works of H.G. Wells and a smattering of Edgar Allan Poe and his character of Dupin mixed liberally with a Saturday afternoon adventure film.
It is, thus, a fun adventure and, at the very least, a worthy distraction - which is what I hoped for in a read on a weekend. If you want the same, consider this your steampunk detective getaway for an afternoon of reading.
Adventure stories like this may be common enough, but Beard hits us with just enough intrigue and character that we begin to wonder how this will all resolve. Like the joyous cliffhangers of the old serial, we as readers want to know what comes next and it propels us on. It is not a flawless or life changing story to me, but I appreciated it all the more for the blending of genres and the way it drove forward its world buildings. It struck me as being somewhere between the feelings of the works of H.G. Wells and a smattering of Edgar Allan Poe and his character of Dupin mixed liberally with a Saturday afternoon adventure film.
It is, thus, a fun adventure and, at the very least, a worthy distraction - which is what I hoped for in a read on a weekend. If you want the same, consider this your steampunk detective getaway for an afternoon of reading.
March 3, 2018
TITLE: “Airship Hunters” discover an enigma
Like today’s Unidentified Flying Objects, strange airships were reported over the western and mid-western United States during the 1890’s. “Airship Hunters” is a well-written fictional examination of those reports that will intrigue and mystify the reader.
It is a fresh look at territory someplace between “The X-Files” and “Wild, Wild, West”.
In “Airship Hunters” co-authors Jim Beard and Duane Spurlock reveal an enigma that gets more complex as their protagonists unravel it. Every answer begs more questions.
Reports of strange airships, violent creatures, missing persons, bodies torn apart, and disappearing gold coins come to the attention of the U.S. Government. A Federal department is established, two aero-marshals are appointed and the investigation begins. It is summer of 1897, William McKinley is president, and still six years until the Wright Brothers flight at Kitty Hawk.
The only man-made thing that should be seen in the sky is the rare hot air balloon.
The mystery deepens as Aero-Marshalls Valiantine and Cabot investigate reports from Kentucky to Indiana to Kansas uncovering a secret plot that includes a cow with “bad” milk, a “deleterious” vapor, and men ready to kill. Meanwhile, the Spanish-American War looms in the distance.
A technique used effectively here is for each author to focus on a specific Aero-Marshall and to alternate writing the chapters. This tag-team approach is so smooth the reader does not notice the transition.
While two protagonists do provide different points of view they are routinely in agreement on the events they observe so that each can corroborate the other's report. This is good considering the odd events they encounter.
Each protagonist is a distinct person with unique characteristics. Michael Valiantine is an Army lieutenant with extensive experience in covert operations. Agent Cabot is an all-business Treasury agent who offers timely quotes from his mentor “Yankee” Bligh.
Allan Pinkerton with Delos T. “Yankee” Bligh pursued the Jesse James – Cole Younger gang across Missouri in the 1870’s. “Yankee” Bligh does not appear in this book, but the frequent references to his philosophy provide a connection to history that offers guidance to our heroes. Some examples:
> “When you don’t know what you’re looking for, don’t think just look.”
> “If you can’t control the meeting control your answers.”
> “If you know where someone’s been, you can maybe figure out where he’s going.”
Great care is given in describing the communities visited in this story. For example, while in Kentucky, Louisville landmarks e.g. River Road, Corn Island, and the delight of Kentucky Bourbon are described with detail and accuracy.
Even though all locations visited are in the United States, a map would have been useful. While the cover does provide some visuals a few interior illustrations would have further enhanced the story.
As the story unfolds and the plot thickens the story intensifies with mystery and possibilities.
So much occurs here the characters' "debriefing" proves essential to make sense of it all, draw conclusions and bring closure to the story. However, the groundwork is now laid and the reader is left hungering for more adventures with the "Airship Hunters". Highly recommend!
Like today’s Unidentified Flying Objects, strange airships were reported over the western and mid-western United States during the 1890’s. “Airship Hunters” is a well-written fictional examination of those reports that will intrigue and mystify the reader.
It is a fresh look at territory someplace between “The X-Files” and “Wild, Wild, West”.
In “Airship Hunters” co-authors Jim Beard and Duane Spurlock reveal an enigma that gets more complex as their protagonists unravel it. Every answer begs more questions.
Reports of strange airships, violent creatures, missing persons, bodies torn apart, and disappearing gold coins come to the attention of the U.S. Government. A Federal department is established, two aero-marshals are appointed and the investigation begins. It is summer of 1897, William McKinley is president, and still six years until the Wright Brothers flight at Kitty Hawk.
The only man-made thing that should be seen in the sky is the rare hot air balloon.
The mystery deepens as Aero-Marshalls Valiantine and Cabot investigate reports from Kentucky to Indiana to Kansas uncovering a secret plot that includes a cow with “bad” milk, a “deleterious” vapor, and men ready to kill. Meanwhile, the Spanish-American War looms in the distance.
A technique used effectively here is for each author to focus on a specific Aero-Marshall and to alternate writing the chapters. This tag-team approach is so smooth the reader does not notice the transition.
While two protagonists do provide different points of view they are routinely in agreement on the events they observe so that each can corroborate the other's report. This is good considering the odd events they encounter.
Each protagonist is a distinct person with unique characteristics. Michael Valiantine is an Army lieutenant with extensive experience in covert operations. Agent Cabot is an all-business Treasury agent who offers timely quotes from his mentor “Yankee” Bligh.
Allan Pinkerton with Delos T. “Yankee” Bligh pursued the Jesse James – Cole Younger gang across Missouri in the 1870’s. “Yankee” Bligh does not appear in this book, but the frequent references to his philosophy provide a connection to history that offers guidance to our heroes. Some examples:
> “When you don’t know what you’re looking for, don’t think just look.”
> “If you can’t control the meeting control your answers.”
> “If you know where someone’s been, you can maybe figure out where he’s going.”
Great care is given in describing the communities visited in this story. For example, while in Kentucky, Louisville landmarks e.g. River Road, Corn Island, and the delight of Kentucky Bourbon are described with detail and accuracy.
Even though all locations visited are in the United States, a map would have been useful. While the cover does provide some visuals a few interior illustrations would have further enhanced the story.
As the story unfolds and the plot thickens the story intensifies with mystery and possibilities.
So much occurs here the characters' "debriefing" proves essential to make sense of it all, draw conclusions and bring closure to the story. However, the groundwork is now laid and the reader is left hungering for more adventures with the "Airship Hunters". Highly recommend!
November 1, 2021
More speculative fiction and sci-fi than anything else, you’ll be reminded of X-Files as federal agents search for the truth behind strange lights and airships seen in the Midwest in the late 1890s.
Pulp fiction at its finest, fans will be yearning for more adventures for the federal agents, especially Valiantine.
For a review of the gripping audio performance, see AudioFile Magazine http://www.audiofilemagazine.com
Pulp fiction at its finest, fans will be yearning for more adventures for the federal agents, especially Valiantine.
For a review of the gripping audio performance, see AudioFile Magazine http://www.audiofilemagazine.com
October 25, 2019
Would make a good graphic novel. Lots of action. Was hoping for more facts mixed with the fiction, but it was an ok read.
May 13, 2023
A fast-paced fun read. Can't wait for the sequel!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews