Fire on Iron (The August Micholson Chronicles, #1)

What price redemption? Is martial honor worth the cost of one's soul?
Lieutenant Commander August Micholson lost his first ship, the wooden frigate USS Northport, in reckless battle against the ironclad ram CSS Virginia. However, Flag Officer Andrew Foote offers the disgraced young Micholson a chance to redeem himself: he can take the ironclad gunboat USS James B. Eads on an undercover mission to destroy a hidden rebel boat yard, where a fleet of powerful ironclads is being constructed which will allow the Confederate Navy to dominate the Mississippi.
But dangers far more sinister than rebel ironclads await Micholson and his crew. On the dark waters of the Yazoo River, deep within rebel territory, they become entangled in a plot devised by a slave and his master to summon African fire spirits to annihilate the Federal armies. Micholson must battle devils both internal and external to save the lives of his crew, sink the Confederate fleet, and foil the arcane conspiracy. Ultimately, Micholson is faced with a terrible choice — he can risk the lives of every inhabitant of America, both Union and Confederate, or destroy himself by merging with a demon and forever melding his own soul with that of his greatest enemy...
Book One of Midnight's Inferno: the August Micholson Chronicles
Watch for Book Two, Hellfire and Damnation, available April, 2014!

Andrew Fox was born in Miami Beach in 1964. He has been a fan of science fiction and horror since he saw Godzilla and friends romp through Destroy All Monsters at the drive-in theater at the age of three. In 1994, he joined award-winning science fiction author George Alec Effinger's monthly writing workshop group in New Orleans, where Andrew lived for more than two decades. Since 2009, he has lived in Northern Virginia with his wife and three boys, where he works for a federal law enforcement agency.
His first novel, Fat White Vampire Blues, published by Ballantine Books in 2003, was widely described as "Anne Rice meets A Confederacy of Dunces." It won the Ruthven Award for Best Vampire Fiction of 2003. Its sequel, Bride of the Fat White Vampire, was published in 2004. His third novel, The Good Humor Man, or, Calorie 3501, was published by Tachyon Publications in April, 2009. It was selected by Booklist as one of the Ten Best SF/Fantasy Novels of the Year and was first runner up for the Darrell Award, presented for best SF or fantasy novel written by a Mid-South author or set in the Mid-South. In 2006, he was one of the three winners of the Moment Magazine-Karma Foundation Short Fiction Award.
Andrew is an outspoken advocate for freedom of speech and thought in science fiction. MonstraCity Press is publishing two volumes of short fiction that, in the tradition of Harlan Ellison's groundbreaking anthologies Dangerous Visions and Again, Dangerous Visions, push the boundaries of what is considered taboo in science fiction. The first volume, Hazardous Imaginings: The Mondo Book of Politically Incorrect Science Fiction, includes two of Andrew's short novels and three of his stories. The second volume, Again, Hazardous Imaginings, features 14 stories by writers from all over the world. Science fiction is not a safe space!
MonstraCity Press has published Fire on Iron (Book One of Midnight's Inferno: the August Micholson Chronicles), a steampunk dark fantasy novel set aboard ironclad gunboats during the Civil War, and will publish the second book in the series, Hellfire and Damnation, in 2021. MonstraCity Press has also published the third book in the Fat White Vampire series, Fat White Vampire Otaku, and will publish the fourth book in the series, Hunt the Fat White Vampire, and the fifth book, Curse of the Fat White Vampire, both in 2021. Other projects forthcoming from this publisher in 2021 include The Bad Luck Spirits' Soc...