
by Robert Bo Forehand
Gear Up and Get Punky A humorous, coming-of-age novel on how the best of intentions can sometimes leave the largest of craters. "This book changed my life." —The Paper Formerly Known as Tree Colonel Cantankerous Von Puffingnub the Thirteenth is what Adelaide Wakefield calls her amputated arm nub, but only when it's itchy. Her best friend is the mechanical arm she built for herself, mainly because it tends to flatulate at the fancy dinner parties her parents force her to attend. After all, the loose rubber seal she installed on the exit pipe that makes the exhaust go "phlbbbttthhh" is completely necessary. Or, at least, that's what Adelaide tells all the highfalutin toots that give her the stink eye. When the Wakefields throw an elaborate housewarming party for themselves upon arriving to Parson's City, Adelaide unmasks a sassy thief who steals her most precious possession: an empty jewelry box with legs. Adelaide chases her through the clockwork city and winds up surrounded by the brigand’s gang, who are really just a runaway band of orphaned misfits. Dubbed the Punks of the Steam Tunnels, they introduce Adelaide to a life of freedom filled with train surfing, spring-loaded bookstores, mechanical foxes, criminally-colorful gangs, and fried rats on sticks. Determined to make their lives better, Adelaide builds new inventions for them. Some of which even work. Others, not so much. When the up-and-coming engineer creates a new kind of generator, she discovers that it doesn't generate power so much as earthquakes. Whoops. (May contain unnecessary footnotes and stupendous witticisms.No A.I. was used, only O.I. [Organic Intelligence, aka my Noggin']. {That includes all of the artwork.} |Sidenote: brackets are fun.| \Extra sidenote: these aren't brackets/ !Triple stampy sidenote: I know, I was just being silly# ) Praise for Steampunks: The Earthquake Machine: "The funniest, most heartwarming book I've ever read."—My Mom, who is highly prone to exaggeration "A book so good, it'll make your brain explode!"—Guy whose brain exploded "Who are you people, and why are you in my house?"—Person interviewed at wrong address "The most wonderful novel I've ever read."—Terry Pratchett's sister's cousin's brother's former roommate's lady she might have met once at the grocery store This Novel has been rated PG-12 by the Author and his nonsense committee due to: Mild Violence, Semi-Mature Themes, Childish Language, Lack of Propriety, and Excessive Silliness. [Warning: some material may not be suitable for children (or certain breeds of cats).] Per Amazon's guidelines, this is all I can post here while still having it on Kindle Unlimited, but the novel is fully finished! If you would like an ebook or print version, it's available on Amazon here. (Can also find extras and merch on my website.) I also plan on running some free promotions if you still wanted to read the story, and I'm also looking in to how to put it up on various Library services. Until then, I hope you enjoyed the story so far and will continue reading up on Adelaide's adventures!
No streak history
One state-enhanced oracle order, filtered by each list. Observed Royal Road ranks remain separate ground truth.
Rank updated 2 Oct 2026, 08:28 UTC
Entry forecast updated 2 Oct 2026, 08:28 UTC
Ranking model: rs-public-oracle-state-v1
Forecast model: rs-model-entry-v1
Chart history contains only this ranking model's runs; legacy points are not spliced in.
Not enough recent follower history to estimate a shadow rank yet.
beats 92% of similar stories
not enough data yet
needs about a week of observations
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 2–4 chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views lifetime.