“Our power is not in gold or great clockwork machines. We are not sayyidi. Our power is in our souls that burn hot, in fierce hearts, and in minds sharp as blades.”

ARC launch: Oct 13

Book launch: Nov 16

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A release date, a final cover design and an ARC application form.

First the cover, hand painted and designed by myself of course (I’m a designer and artist by trade).

Sip some tea. Take a minute to absorb this labour of love. Maybe shed a tear or two?

And now for the dates:

ARC Release Date: Oct 16 2026

Novel Launch Date: Nov 13 2026

ARC APPLICATION FORM:

Of Soul and Steam (ARC APPLICATION FORM)
(This is the application google form, click to access).

Steampunk does NOT need to be Victorian.

My steampunk is Baghdadi.

Here be thunder, fury and mighty Djinn.
Here be rolling dunes and darkest sin.
Here be warrior poets upon clockwork steeds.
And magic scrolls of ancient creed.

This is the world of Soul and Steam.
And there’s a talking rock.

The pressure has nowhere to go but outward.
Once again, the world falls apart in a confused cacophony of cleanly cut earth and stone. It is art, art without a soul, but art nonetheless.

I grit my teeth. He’s strong.

My heart beats against the muted chaos, a steady drum against the medley outside the perfect circle of peace that I have created.

I take a step forward, and suddenly there is quiet. The ground freezes in place, mid-ripple. An enraged shriek pierces the air, sharp as the tip of a curved saif.

Afzal’s eyes are wide and crazed; his skin is pale and blotched with bruising. His body cannot take much more. His mind, however, is focused. Focused on me.

How terrifying.

My face is a picture of perfect composure. I cannot spare the creativity of expression, not now. My forehead is beaded with sweat, tinged with the pale moonlight.

I need to concentrate. He is much stronger than me. But he doesn’t know it.

Strength rarely matters in the face of skill.

His mad black eyes dance around the field. What little hair he has left on his head clings to his pasty skull in greasy strings. He is once a fine man, tall and lean, with long dark hair of raven black that curls slightly at the tips. But now his soul has finally cracked its vessel. He dances in a mad circle; his movements have little grace, but a strange rhythm nonetheless.

Around me, the threads that hold the world together start to snap. The grass disintegrates in a flurry of green mist, speckled with dots of white from the outcast daisies. They forget their purpose and rush around the field like wasps. Afzal screams in frustration, waving his arms around his head as his own works fly into his face. I allow a small smile. There is little joy behind it. Always so predictable.

It is easy to destroy. And so, he is stronger than me. The true trick of the game is to rebind the purpose of things, not cut them off completely. And so, I am more delicate than him. I am the fine weaving of a tapestry, and he is the frantic stab of a beggar’s blade, devoid of purpose and cutting all from purpose around him.

But nothing stays purposeless for long, and things anger quickly when they become lost. The anger I can use. The things will betray him more readily than me.

I take another tentative step, feeling the story of the hot earth beneath the soles of my bare feet. What a clever name. There is a reason they are called soles.

I suck in the air sharply between my teeth. The cool sharp sensation in my mouth clears my mind, allowing me to visualise a story for the heat. I take out my needle and string the story. The heat hums forward, leaving the earth cool and tempered, collecting into a sharp point so small that it looks like a firefly.

It is now white. White-hot and burning bright.
Like an angel. Yes, that is it. An angel of death.
The air around it starts to drip with plasma. Such things should not stay real for long.

And so, I release it.

I release it, and my heart shakes. I fall to my knees and wail, the porcelain, emotionless mask of my face cracking as I release my tears like the shattering of a dam. My grief, oh, my grief. I fear that I cannot live with this grief, deep and vast as the ocean.

Please forgive him. He did not mean to. Please forgive him.

The angel of death flies forth with barely a sound. It knows it should not exist, and so it flies towards solace, the coldest place it can find to quench its burning thirst.

Straight into Afzal’s chest.

Salaam, good news travellers. I’m FINALLY on the editing stage for Of Soul and Steam. Thank you so much for sticking with me on this journey, it means the absolute world to me. Onward!

Some sketches of a few characters.

“ Verily, in the body is a piece of flesh which, if sound, the entire body is sound, and if corrupt, the entire body is corrupt. Truly, it is the heart. “

By the one whose hand holds my soul.
Khadija groaned, rising shakily to her knees. It was true, she couldn’t die. Doesn’t stop the pain. Who would have thought that not dying would be so painful. She looked to her left.

Ah, that doesn’t look healthy.
Her arm was hanging at an odd angle. The pain was excruciating, so much so that Khadija could barely feel it. The pain was good, it meant that she was still alive. It was also bad, because it was pain.

It’s fine, It’s fine, I can’t die, It’s fine.
Her blood felt frozen in her veins, no matter how hard she tried, warmth escaped her. It made sense, in a twisted sort of way. Life runs hot, the soul keeps moving until it burns away the body. Khadijas soul was frozen in place, it did not burn and so she was cold. Even when she was hot, the coldness ached in the deep places of her body. The bark of a nearby tree stared at her, the grooves in its trunk twisting together into a strange face. It looked amused.

Having a good time are we?
She dragged herself through the lush silent undergrowth towards the tree and used a rock to scrap a frown onto the imaginary face. See how you like that. There were no animals on this island. Humidity clung to her skin. Feels like I’m being boiled alive. And yet I’m still cold. Like a fever. Hunger gnawed at her stomach; she couldn’t ignore it for long. One time she had collapsed from hunger and was too weak to move for weeks, she couldn’t pass on to the Ghaib and so she lay in place until she was able to regain strength by gnawing on roots. She quickly developed a taste for whatever she could find after that.

I didn’t ask for this.
The lie was sweeter than a date fruit, it eased the guilt and gave her something to blame. Something to be angry at. There was nobody else on the island but her. Her and the beast. Some days she felt that she had imagined it. Somedays she was so certain of its existence that she had to hide in her cave for days. She had only seen it once.

Once is more than enough.
It was terrifying, indescribable, like nothing in the world Khadija had ever seen. But its voice was beautiful, like a dream that could never be, or a promise that could never be kept. A thing that drives men mad, that drives men to kill. There was a reason it was chained to this island. But not for long, Khadija could see the corrosion on its chains. Sins would free it soon. Some stories didn’t portray it as evil, merely a harbinger, a messenger. Others wrote it as a monster that would eat the world.

That’s what you get for talking to it.
The guilt at admitting her mistake was more painful than her broken body. Ugh, it’s not like I knew what would happen.

Liar.
Another delicious lie, a focus for her helplessness. The beast was terrifying yes, but it always granted a person what they wanted. It had whispered of past gifts, gifts of knowledge that had led men to master the waves, gifts of foresight that led women to snippets of prophecy. Those men had spread like a plague, plundering all that they could find, despised and feared. Those women had consorted with devils to once again taste prophecy, both maddened and addicted. All had lived long enough to see their gift change the world.

Stupid woman, shouldn’t have done it.
If she hadn’t fetched fruit for the creature, it wouldn’t have spoken to her, and if it had not spoken to her, then she could have died in peace months ago. But that’s not what I want.

I don’t want to die. I want it all.
She crawled into her little cave, the moss bedding had started to rot, it needed cleaning and the musty smell clung to her worse than the sweat. She paused, letting her heart settle before running her good hand thought the moss. It brushed against something smooth, hard, like the engraved handle of a polearm, only thinner, and hollow. Her thin clever fingers found there way to the hard handle, the shape was strange, its long nose curved like the muzzle of a hound. It was warm, despite being buried in the moss - warm with life, but the life was not of its own. The life was taken, again and again. Or at least that was its promise. Its purpose.

Just throw it away, throw it away and die in peace.
She knew she should just be done with the thing and fling it into the ocean so that it would never harm anyone. Once her Qad disconnected from the thing then she would be free.

Not yet.
But it was also power, the power to rip apart even the strongest of men. To pierce even the greatest of shields, one didn’t need strength to wield it, only cunning.

And I have enough cunning to put a silver Jackal to shame.
It was her prayer, and it would break the world.

So, I haven’t cleaned it up yet, but I thought my wonderful shroomans deserved a little update on the process - and a small explanation of why I decided on these changes.

A key focus of the story is the super-phenomena (the Qa’waat). All I can reveal for now is that they often appear as abstract, spiral-like patterns that, more often than not, try to annihilate anyone unlucky enough to be caught inside them. Within these storms, Je’en manifest - beings that usually feed on a person’s field (the soul), which allows them to take on physical form within the chaos.

But their story is far more complex than just being “the monsters” of this tale. I

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Peace and love, my peeps.

Here’s the full story behind the cover design for Of Soul and Steam:
I spent three full nights - from 7 PM to 11 PM - mood-boarding, sketching, painting, and piecing it all together.

P.S. This is the final design... but I won’t release it officially for a while. Enjoy!

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Salaam my people, this is an un-edited chapter of The Ruh: Of Soul and Steam. Feel free to leave any reviews/feedback in the comments section. Enjoy :)

“They say that between the thundering rage and deafening silence, there lies peace. The thunder, the rage, the unending yearning - this is the body.”

“And the silence, oh the silence, endlessly stretching, moving, re-shaping, re-making never stopping, always seeking - this is the mind.”

“They say that to leap into the heart of a great storm, a Qa’waat, is to find the peace, the calm, the Ruh. For the Qa’waat, the great chaos, is rage without end - the endless seeker.”

Steampunk doesn't have to be Victorian.
Fantasy doesn't have to be European.
Magic doesn't need to come from Merlin.

Welcome to Aerde, a sea of endless rolling dunes and disastrous storms.
Here, fate dances with fortune as their rhythm is written in the sands.

Here, upon those very sands, ride clockwork-powered ships, pulled and pushed by the twin moons Yad and Yah.

And here… there be a talking rock.

Salaam (peace) fellow nerds! I hope you enjoyed the sneak peek into “Of Soul and Steam”.

When I dream, I dream of stories - of composing symphonies that allow you (the reader) to live those dreams, those stories.

As a Muslim fantasy writer (weird combination I know - but bear with me) my writing doesn’t just fulfil a dream. It’s also a way for me to fulfil my purpose: to spread peace, love and inspiration.

And so as I create, craft and weave this world into existence, I hope for you - my beautiful readers - to discover those very ideas within my work.