Fiction has a special role in the way we relate to each other. Fiction can take us outside of our own experience and give us a small hint of what it's like to be someone else. Speculative fiction - including steampunk - has always been a metaphorical mirror to our own society, allowing us to see ourselves and our behaviors from the outside in ways that we otherwise couldn't. It's not magic. It's the interworking of dozens of finely machined gears. It's the craftswoman adjusting the tension on a spring so it doesn't break. It's the stoker making sure the furnace fires stay burning. It's the conductor collecting tickets, the passengers watching the landscape roll by, the excited child standing next to the engineer who gets to pull the cord and hear the train's steam whistle. It might not be magic, but it's still amazing. Especially with a project like Steampunk Universe, making an anthology of steampunk stories that feature diverse characters who are disabled or aneurotypical. Join editor Sarah Hans, our cover artist James Ng, and contributors Ken Liu, Jody Lynn Nye, Maurice Broaddus, Malon Edwards, Emily Cataneo, Pip Ballantine and nine others today.