My Steampunk News or Why I owe Suzanne Lazear a cupcake by Jeannie Lin

Today we welcome Jeannie Lin, who has awesome news to share with us. ~launches cupcake cannon~

JEANNIE LIN writes historical romances set in Tang Dynasty China. Her current release is The Sword Dancer, the first in a new series of romantic adventures involving the salt trade, corruption, and law and order in the 9^th century. Her September release, The Lotus Palace, is a romance with a murder mystery set in the infamous Tang Dynasty pleasure quarter. She looks forward to moving a thousand years into the future with the Gunpowder Chronicles to create new worlds and new adventures.  

 

My Steampunk News or “Why I owe Suzanne Lazear a cupcake”

by Jeannie Lin

I thought it only fitting that I make this official announcement on “Steamed” as pretty much it’s Suzanne’s fault.

Flashback to the Romantic Times convention 2011:

I was in the lounge, sipping a cocktail and hanging out with several authors. One of them was Suzanne, wearing a lovely steampunk outfit which I envied.

“We were talking about how there needs to be more multicultural steampunk,” she told me. “And we’ve decided you should write it.”

In case you don’t know her, Suzanne is really shy. She’s also very subtle.

“I wish I could,” I told her, laughing it off. “I just don’t think that way. I can’t even come up with a steampunk plot.”

Because I actually love reading steampunk. I love the worldbuilding and the aesthetic and the whole philosophy of it. I love how open and experimental the genre is. I just have a real hard time coming up with new story ideas. I think I may be the only writer I know who has this issue.

Later in my hotel room, I Googled the Victorian era, where the traditional steampunks tend to take place, and crossed-referenced it with what was happening in China at the time.

And suddenly I wasn’t laughing anymore.

The Victorian era and the age of colonialism coincide with a dark period in Chinese history. It parallels the Opium Wars, a time when European powers threatened China from the outside and rebellions threatened the empire from within. This period is hailed as the “beginning of modern China”, but also the fall of the imperial government.

It was the time when the Western world rediscovered China and became fascinated with Asian culture and art, creating their own interpretations and misinterpretations of it. The icons of that time are what people think of when they think of historical China: footbinding, mandarin collars, opium pipes and rickshaws.

It was the ultimate era of East meets West.

It was a time when steam technology allowed the British to crush the Chinese navy, which had dominated the seas for centuries.

I began to re-imagine this time through steampunk goggles and it didn’t seem so far-fetched. Technology, societal upheaval , dystopia – it was ALL already there.

Image and fashion were an important component of the emerging identity as cities like Shanghai and Canton struggled with being at once Chinese and foreign, ancient and modern.  The look that emerged was a dramatic one. My imagination ran wild.

Then I began to research technology. (In addition to being a history geek, I’m actually a big science and technology nerd.) How did a culture that was hailed as technologically superior a thousand years earlier get so blind-sided? And what did China and Japan do in response to this period to try to compete? Some believed that they needed to adopt Western technology. Others shunned it.

I could create a steampunk technology based on native Chinese developments.

I could challenge all the elements I had always found difficult about this period; the colonial oppression, the footbinding, an empire addicted to opium.

I had gone from thinking that there could be a story there…

To thinking this is something I might be able to do…

To “OMG, I HAVE TO WRITE THIS STORY, IT WAS MADE FOR ME!”

History. Science. Rebellion. Empire. Made for me.

I wrote the first couple of chapters and shipped them off to my agent, who was ecstatic about the story. She pitched it to her top choice for this project who also happened to be my dream editor for the story.

And now I can announce that the Gunpowder Chronicles (working title) have sold in a two book deal to Cindy Hwang at Berkley and is slated for their Intermix digital first imprint.

So thank you for planting the seed, Suzanne. I owe you a cupcake.

~Jeannie

http://www.jeannielin.com

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Women, Write On!

I’ve always been a reader, devouring anything and everything I could get my hands on. If my mom couldn’t find me, odds were, I had my nose in a book. For most of my life I’ve read books written by women with female protagonists, both by conscious choice and just being drawn to it naturally.  I read about Meg and Jo, started my own baby-sitter’s club, and tried to make my own butter like Laura and Mary.

Along the way I discovered Fantasy and SciFi. I vividly remember reading Susan Fletcheer’s Dragon’s Milk, Robin McKinley’s The Blue Sword, and Patricia Wrede’s Dealing with Dragons in Junior High, which led into the Menolly books, then all Anne McCaffrey’s books. Then I found Elizabeth Moon, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and Mercedes Lackey and others. (I have to admit, I didn’t discover Tamora Pierce until college.) I spent a lot of time in both the school library and my favorite indie bookstore.

By sophomore year of high school, I was only reading Fantasy and Sci-Fi (which is a story in itself).  Where I read a few male authors, like Piers Anthony, (Michael Swanwick’s The Iron Dragon’s Daughter was a huge influence) mostly I sought out book by women, with female leads. I chose the books I did because as a teen and a college student books by women about really awesome women and girls called to me.

These stories taught me that smart, strong women were awesome in a time where I was being told the power was in the pretty. They also showed me that I could do whatever I wanted, even when people said I couldn’t. Especially when people said I couldn’t. That even if I didn’t have psychic powers or a spaceship or a dragon, that I had my own magic inside me. I was mistress of my own fate. As an impressionable young woman, I really needed that.

Naturally, the first stories I wrote when I seriously started writing were high fantasies about sassy women with swords and space tales about more sassy women who chased space pirates.

Never, once, in all those years of reading did I choose a book  by a women because it was easy. Never did I ever think a book written by a women was lesser. In fact, they were more awesome than books by men and I went to great lengths to find new female authors.

Even now, I still read mostly female authors, from a variety of genres. They inspire me. They are my people. They are why I write what I do. They helped me become who I am. 

These books helped through times that were good and times that were not so good. Without the magnificent worlds these who knows where I might be. Probably not getting ready for my second book to come out in two months.

Women writers, write on, no matter what you write. You’re doing a very important thing–inspiring the women of tomorrow.

–

Suzanne Lazear is the author if the YA fairytale steampunk series the Aether Chronicles. INNOCENT DARKNESS is out now. CHARMED VENGEANCE releases 8-8-13. She builds fairy houses and makes rayguns to match her ballgowns.

 

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An Interview With James Blaylock + Giveaway!

Today is the final day of Steampunkapalloza. Thank you so much for helping us celebrate Steamed’s 4th birthday.  I can’t believe we’ve been running this for FOUR years–and we couldn’t do it without you.

Today I have a very special post, an interview with James Blaylock, one of the founding fathers of Steampunk.  His new steampunk release The Aylesford Skull is available from Titan Books as both a trade paperback and as a special, signed, first edition.

The great folks at Titan have given me a copy of The Aylesford Skull for one of you!!! One lucky person will win! (see below for details.)
Suzanne: Welcome to Steamed! Can you tell us what the story of your recent release is about?

James Blaylock: That’s a tough question, because the novel is full of plot turns, and I don’t want to give too much away.  Even the jacket copy is a spoiler, to some extent.  The main character, Professor Langdon St. Ives (featured in other novels, novellas, and stories that I’ve written over the past 35 years) has semi-retired from adventuring and is a gentleman farmer, growing hops in Aylesford, Kent.  Loathsome crimes occur in the area, however, and he begins to suspect that his old nemesis, Doctor Narbondo, is up to no good.  His new, comfortable life very shortly flies to pieces, and he and a cast of characters become embroiled in personal and world-threatening conflicts involving river pirates, dirigibles, grave robbery, magically altered skulls, kidnappings, swamps, Neolithic coal, paranormal chicanery, and so forth – heaps of things that the reader has been anxiously awaiting without, perhaps, being aware of it.

S: Where did you get the ideas for this story?

JB: I do a lot of research when I’m writing Steampunk, and I find myself abruptly influenced by odds and ends of things that I discover in the moment and that I knew nothing at all about two minutes earlier.  I’m also continually influenced by the books that lie around on my desk, and that I read over and over again for the pleasure of it.  I’m a fan, for instance, of the novels and stories of Patrick O’Brian and for the short stories of James Norman Hall in the collection titled Dr. Dogbody’s Leg.  I tend to reread The Pickwick Papers and whatever volume of Sherlock Holmes stories is closest at hand.  All these books are close at hand, in fact, in the “favorite books” bookshelves over the desk.  It’s often been the case that I run across throwaway ideas in the things that I read for pleasure: a mention of this or that, or a brief bit of intriguing setting detail.  When that happens, sometimes something useful will come into my mind, which I immediately clutch with both hands and hold onto.  Also, I’m crazy about old reference books that contain fascinating information that’s long out of fashion, one of my favorites being Wonders of the Universe, a Record of Things Wonderful and Marvelous in Nature, Science and Art (which has a very convincing chapter on plesiosaur sightings).  That one piqued my interest in Japanese magic mirrors, which set off a train of strange notions in my mind, resulting in the skull lamps featured in The Aylesford Skull.

S: This is the next in a series, right? How did this series come to be?

JB: That’s a moderately long tale that goes back to 1977, when I wrote a short story titled “The Ape-box Affair” and sold it to Unearth magazine.  That was my second sale as a fledgling professional writer, and it became the first Steampunk story published in the U.S.  (Actually, K.W. Jeter and Tim Powers and I were all writing that sort of stuff in our own ways, but I lucked into print first.) I was on a Robert Louis Stevenson binge at the time and had recently read The New Arabian Nights and The Dynamiter, and it came into my mind to write a wrong-box story – several similar boxes abroad in London that get mixed up.  I was also crazy for P.G. Wodehouse, and my head was full of the sound of his prose and the voices of his goofy characters.  I had no idea at the time, but the characters I created in “The Ape-box Affair” would keep surfacing often enough in the following years that very soon they became series characters.  They’re more fully drawn now and far more active than they ever were in the past.

S: You’re one of the “founding fathers’ of Steampunk, can you tell us a little about how Steampunk came to be?

JB: K.W. Jeter, Tim Powers, and I were friends (still are) in the 1970s.  After we graduated from the university, we were young enough and idle enough to have time to hang around with each other during the day.  We were all new writers at the time.  I had published my first short story, and Tim and K.W. had sold novels.  I was enthusiastically working on an impossible novel, which I would figure out how to write several years later as The Digging Leviathan.  All of us were big on Victorian literature.  K.W., who had a degree (I seem to remember) in sociology, had read Henry Mayhew’s brilliant London Labour and the London Poor, and was regaling us with wild accounts of treasures and feral pigs in the London sewers and that sort of thing.  Tim was researching and writing the novel that would become The Drawing of the Dark, and K.W. was writing Morlock Night.  Much of our “research” went on at O’Hara’s Pub in downtown Orange, California, where I lived at the time and still do.  (I mean I live in Orange, not at O’Hara’s Pub.)  K.W. and Tim were living in a bohemian sort of neighborhood  in nearby Santa Ana, where Phil Dick was living at the time.  None of us had the idea of writing any particular sort of thing at all.  It simply seemed right and natural to set a story where the story seemed to want to be set, and all-things-Victorian were on our minds.  It was nearly a decade after “The Ape-Box Affair” and Morlock Night were published that K.W. would coin the term Steampunk, which abruptly gave shape to the whole thing.  Up until then we had no idea that these novels and stories formed any sort of science fiction subgenre.  We weren’t trying to achieve anything much beyond publishing stories and novels.  We might as easily have been writing pirate fantasies (which would come later for me, unsuccessfully, and for Powers, successfully) or vegetarian thrillers or protozoan stories like Twain’s “The Great Dark,” which I was also fond of at the time.  We might easily be Piratepunks or Vegetarianpunks or Pondwaterpunks now.

S: How have you seen Steampunk evolve from when you first started writing to now?

JB: It certainly has changed, largely by growth and the odd and interesting business of its having affected pretty much all the arts by now.  Whatever literary tastes a reader might have, he or she can find Steampunk examples of that thing in growing abundance.  As for my own writing, however, I’m doing the same thing today that I did 35 years ago when I wrote “The Ape-box Affair.”  If the writing has evolved, it has evolved in the sense that I’m a better writer now.  I bring 35 years worth of stuff to my writing that I couldn’t bring to it back then.  My ear for the language is better, I do more adequate research, I work harder to get rid of anachronism, etc.

S: Are you a plotter or a pantster? Can you tell us a little about your writing style/schedule?

JB: I’m an inveterate outliner, actually: I’m very nervous about promising a story or a novel to a publisher without having a fairly clear idea of what it will entail.  Over the years I’ve sold most of my books after showing the outlines to editors, and that was the case with The Aylesford Skull, my first novel to be published by Titan Books.  I was happy to provide evidence that I actually had a story to tell, and that Titan could safely advance money to me.  That being said, I’ve always hidden the outlines away in the drawer once I’ve finished them, and most of what develops in the novel is purely organic.  My best ideas come into my mind during the writing, when I’m not actively looking for them.  The outline abdicates once the writing starts, because if the outline is on my mind, then fresh ideas have a harder time finding their way in.  I wish I had a writing schedule, actually.  Currently I teach full time at Chapman University, and I also direct the Creative Writing Conservatory at the Orange County School of the Arts (where Tim Powers teaches poetry and novel writing).  So during the school year you can find me frantically driving around town, eating my peanut butter and jelly sandwich lunch while flying from one place to another.  I’m up at 5 a.m. and often put in 12-hour days, but there’s no time to write during most of them.  So I grab time during vacations and over the summer.  When I’m up against it, my weekends disappear into whatever I’m writing, and I take reference books and etc. along on vacations.  Like most writers, sitting down to write is a frustratingly wasted effort unless I have a several-hour block of time in a moderately quiet house – enough time to read something relevant for half an hour first to compose my mind.  The Aylesford Skull took two years to write.

S: What’s next? Can you share anything with us about any new projects (in any genre)?

JB: I’ve just turned in another Steampunk novel to Subterranean Press – a short novel that’s a companion to my two previous Sub Press productions: The Ebb Tide and The Affair of the Chalk Cliffs.  This new one is titled The Adventure of the Ring of Stones.  I’d chat about it here, but in many ways it beggars description.  I’m also working up a new novel for Titan Books, which (I’m fairly sure) will tie up a loose end in The Aylesford Skull, although the tying up is only a very small fraction of what the novel will be.  Also, a few months back I published a young adult novel titled Zeuglodon, the True Adventures of Kathleen Perkins, Cryptozoologist, and I’ve got the plot for a followup adventure in my mind.  That book really wants to be written.  In short, I’ve got too many writing projects vying for my time.

S: Anything else you want to tell everyone?

JB: Only that readers are my favorite people, and that if they read my books, I hope they enjoy them.  Also, and maybe more vitally, I read recently that a meteor is going to take out the earth in another 25 years.  It’s hurtling toward us as we speak, giving us the glad eye.  So whatever you really want to do, don’t put it off.

–Cheers, Jim Blaylock

http://jamespblaylock.com/

James Paul Blaylock  is noted for a distinctive, humorous style, as well as being one of the pioneers of the steampunk genre. Despite his close association with Steampunk, most of his work is contemporary, realistic fantasy set in southern California, typified by books like The Last Coin, The Rainy Season, and Knights of the Cornerstone. When he’s not teaching or writing, Jim spends his time going to the beach, gardening, working on the family home in Orange, California, traveling, and building sets for local community theaters.

 

To win The Aylesford Skull just leave a comment below. Open internationally. Contest closes May 7, 2013 at 11:59 pm PST. 

 

–

Suzanne Lazear is the author of the Aether Chronicles series. INNOCENT DARKNESS is out not, CHARMED VENGEANCE releases 8-8-13. Vist www.aetherchronicles.com for more info.

 

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I Prefer My Steam Punked by Jared Axelrod

Jared Axelrod is an author, an illustrator, a graphic designer, a sculptor, a costume designer, a podcaster and quite a few other things that he’s lost track of but will no doubt remember when the situation calls for it. He is a founding member of the daily flash-fiction website 365 TOMORROWS, and the writer and producer of two science-fiction podcasts, “The Voice Of Free Planet X” and the serial “Aliens You Will Meet.”

 

I Prefer My Steam Punked

by Jared Axelrod

Ashe, the protagonist on my graphic novel THE BATTLE OF BLOOD & INK is young, angry and poor. She spends half the book homeless. She spends the entirety of it trying to bring down an unjust government. Like the punk musicians and journalists of the last quarter of the 20^th Century, Ashe believes in the power of violent speech to change the culture. She’s going to be heard, even if that means speaking with the volume and power of an explosion.

Ashe is a punk, or in the parlance of her world, a clouddog. She’s the rabble the upper crust dismisses, and her journey to be heard is the main thrust of the book.

Steampunk exists in a weird place. There is a lot to recommend it. The outfits are sexy, the DIY underpinning is marvelous, and the 19^th  Century itself was a time of exploration and discovery the world over. All of this makes for a fantastic fictional setting. But it also takes an overwhelming amount of inspiration from an increasingly narrow cultural conceit. The use of “Victorian” and “Edwardian” to describe steampunk is especially problematic. Not only because countries other than Great Brittan  had a 19th century, but because tying the genre to white European royalty is exclusionary on both a racial and class level. I’m sure people who refer to steampunk as “Victorian Science-Fiction,” don’t mean to exclude people, but sadly the language does it for them.

I often wonder, though, if perhaps the biggest issue is that the exclusionary element IS part of the appeal of steampunk. I’m not saying that people get into steampunk because they want to be exclusionary. But it’s easy to fall into a focus on the upper class, and allow the dress and mannerisms of a wealthy Victorian to be celebrated. Even the scientists and explorer characters fit with in this umbrella, as those were the occupations of people of privilege.

This is understandable. Who doesn’t want to be part of a ruling class, even if only for afternoon? Or in time it takes to read a novel or short story? There’s no fun in dying of cholera, either, the end result of many a 19th century rabble rouser.

But  there is so much to mine beyond wealthy Brits sipping tea and wielding rayguns. There’s one hundred years of history full of punk concepts! Things like cholera riots, gold rushes, suffrage  wars abroad and at home, and the fight for the right of entire subsets of humanity to be treated as people. The status quo was challenged often in the 19th century, and often violently, and those challenges gave us the world we live in today.

Ashe’s flying city home of Amperstam is a fantastical place, set above a fantasy world. But within it is the grit and grime of police brutality, child-labor, kidnapping, torture, assassinations and everything else that kept an Industrial-Age city alive. And she’s fighting against, the only way she knows how. By making sure she’s heard.

I got a brand-spanking new paperback copy of THE BATTLE OF BLOOD & INK. Leave a comment with your favorite punk character in steampunk fiction, and I’ll pick on at random and send you a copy!

 –Jared

http://www.fablesoftheflyingcity.com/

http://www.jaredaxelrod.com

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The Finish Line by Caitlin Kittredge

 

Caitlin Kittredge writes both YA and adult books including The Iron Codex series. She is the proud owner of an English degree, two cats, a morbid imagination, a taste for black clothing, punk rock, and comic books. Visit her website at www.caitlinkittredge.com to learn more.

 

The Finish Line

by Caitlin Kittredge

I read a lot about starting a steampunk story—how to worldbuild, how to create compelling characters, how to mix up timelines and history to make a unique, compelling universe—but I don’t see much about endings.

The last book in my Iron Codex trilogy was released in February  and while I’m sad to have the journey end—as any writer would be—I never intended the series to be more than three books. I always had an end in mind, a destination for the journey. I don’t think that’s necessary—some of the best writers I know start with no end in sight and figure it out as they go. But I knew these characters and their world had a single story to tell, and then I’d exit gracefully.

Yet, as I drew to the end of writing The Mirrored Shard, I found myself leaving little things open. Aoife, Dean and Cal get their endings—some happy, some not so happy—and the plot that carried me for three books wrapped up, but I left more ends open than I anticipated. Was I just being wistful? Maybe. But I think it’s a sign that maybe I didn’t say quite all I had to say about the world of the Iron Codex. Maybe there’s a short story, or a novella in my future. I can’t say!

I like little openings for future stories scattered here and there in the natural arc of the story I’m actually telling. I don’t like ambiguous endings. I blame a childhood of serial stories, mostly in comic book form, that led me to be the sort of writer who has to leave a few trails of breadcrumbs here and there for alternate storylines.

I tried to strike a good balance in Mirrored Shard—all the major threads ending where I’d always intended them to. But there’s still one large element left without resolution at the end of Mirrored Shard, and that’s absolutely on purpose. In another time, with another set of characters, this could absolutely be its own series. I’ve only ended one series before the Iron Codex, and since those stories were serial, not really connected, it was very different. The heroine got her ending, the plot wrapped up, and everyone could pretty much go home happy (except the bad guys, of course.) This time, I like to think I was smarter, and left myself with another story to tell, a small door left open to sneak back into this world I’ve devoted close to half a decade to writing in, imagining, dreaming about.

Like I said, maybe I’m just wistful. I love steampunk and Victoriana, so I know I’m definitely nostalgic!  But maybe in the future I’ll get another chance to go back to the start with a new set of characters and revisit Aoife’s world, explore that last thread left loose. Loose threads, after all, beg to be pulled and they exist in all of my favorite books. Tantalizing possibilities that, once explored, can lead to brave new worlds of their own.

~Caitlin

http://www.caitlinkittredge.com/

 

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Pet Peeves of a Steampunk Editor

Today we welcome Mandy Brown, who’s going to share with us some submission do’s and don’t from an editor’s POV.

Mandy Brown is the former Managing Editor for eSteampunk, an e-magazine and Amazon bestseller.

Pet Peeves from a Steampunk Editor: Some Dos and Don’ts

By Mandy Brown

I was a writer long before being hired as the Managing Editor for eSteampunk, and what I wanted the most then was some kind of direction on how to submit my work. How do you write a cover letter? What does it mean when it says that multiple submissions aren’t allowed but simultaneous ones are? I had so many questions, and the publishing world became a mystery to me just as the my writing path started to become more clear. Now I’m also on the other side of things, evaluating submissions and sending responses, and managing eSteampunk’s daily workings and needs. As its editor, I’ve developed a better understanding for how editors see submissions, and I’ve developed some pet peeves. Hopefully they’ll give you the insight I didn’t have and help you on your road to publication!

1) Cover Letter Crutch

A big mistake I see when reading submissions is that writers feel the need to tell me more than necessary about their piece. Cover letters are meant to introduce you to the editor. It’s your first impression. When you spend time to tell them about the characters’ personal histories and deep desires, you’re watering down your piece, and often I find I don’t want to read the piece after the cover letter tells me so much. When you explain your piece in the letter, you’re giving me the impression that you don’t think your piece will stand well by itself and using the cover letter as a crutch. If you don’t have confidence in your work, why should we?

Greet the Editor-in-Chief or the Managing Editor in your salutation line. Name the piece you are submitting and provide a word count (for prose) or line count (for poetry). State whether or not the submission has been previously published and if it is also being sent to other places. And write a bio if the guidelines asks for one. But that’s all you really need.

2) The Ignored Revision Request

It’s been my experience that revision requests tend to be rare, which may explain why writers see “needs more work” and assume it’s a rejection letter. I send revision requests out from eSteampunk when I believe in a piece but also believe that it needs to shine a little more, needs a little polish. It’s always difficult for me to send a revision request out because I’m never sure if I’m going to see it again, and (lean in close as I whisper a secret) I really want to see it again! It’s hard to let a piece that shows so much promise go back to the writer, and it’s even more disappointing when I never hear back.

If you get a revision request, respond one way or another. A good editor will respect your decision either way, but an editor who takes the time to send a revision request, deserves a moment of your time in response.

3) The Burned Writer

I hate sending out rejections as much as I hate getting them. Every time eSteampunk gets a new submission, I get butterflies and hope it’s the next piece we accept. The unfortunate truth is we can’t accept everything that comes our way.

Believe it or not, editors receive scalding emails from rejected (and even revision requested) authors. It’s absolutely okay to write such emails, but don’t hit the send button. You can get your name blacklisted with that publisher, and editors of different magazines talk to each and know each other. It would be a shame to let a brilliant piece of writing later on be overshadowed in a moment of rejection pain.

It’s sometimes okay to ask for feedback. I try to provide that for writers who submit for eSteampunk, but I usually withhold the comments until a writer asks for them. Be careful not to ask for such feedback while you’re still bruised. It can be easy to take offense online.

Above all keep writing and submitting! I remember the names of people who persevere and send more work to us, even after getting rejected multiple times. (Another secret, I’m rooting for them!)

So there you have it, some of my biggest pet peeves as an editor. I hope they’ve given you some insight on how an editor might view your submission. It’s important to think about how you and your writing come across when you submit work, but it’s also just as important to see editors as human beings rather than robots just ready to hit the rejection button. Life of a writer can be hard, but it’s well worth it. Press onward! There are more cheering you on than you probably know, myself included.

~Mandy

https://www.facebook.com/efictionsteampunk

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The Circus is in Town

(photo from http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/)

The circus was a big part of British life in the mid-1800s. Much like the one run by Belinda’s great-uncle, traveling troupes featured side shows, trick riding, acrobats, clowns, and animal taming, along with early carnival rides. Some traveled by train, others by caravan, and my imagination has applied the steampunk elements. For a good article on Victorian circus, you can go here, to an article from the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Here’s a tiny taste of what Connor and Belinda find when they go undercover in the circus: (excerpt ©2013 by Cindy Spencer Pape)

The morning of the circus opening was hectic, but Connor couldn’t help a sense of exhilaration. A crowd of people crowded around the fence watched anxiously as Nicky Smith, the owner’s nephew and mechanical army survivor, stoked the calliope, and performers scurried back and forth getting ready. The scents of animals and roasting peanuts filled the air.

Connor, in his role as assistant ringmaster, was meant to patrol the grounds, nominally overseeing all the workers, but mostly watching the crowd for their adversaries. Today’s goal was to establish that the magick in the circus as real and make sure it was impressive enough that word would spread. He’d spoke to Merrick and Fergus about the Builders’ Guild and the Architecture and Arts Association the night before, and Merrick would look into those today while the circus was busy here.

About half an hour before the gates opened, Connor ducked into the fortune-teller’s tent to make sure Belinda was ready to go. Rowan’s tail thumped as Connor walked in and the dog stuck his big head up for Connor’s scratch. Connor rubbed a wiry ear, but he only had eyes for Belinda. He’d grown used to her simple gypsy clothing of bright skirts and a peasant blouse during the last few days, but today she’d added to it, with brassy bangles on both wrists, big hoops in her ears and a red scarf covering the top of her head, while her dark curls spilled out from underneath. Even in layers of mismatched styles and colors, she still looked good enough to eat as she smiled up at him, her grandmother’s tarot cards in her hands.

“All set?” Willow and Rowan, sprawled on either side of her, shifted to make room for Connor.

Belinda nodded. “I remember my lessons on how to fake a reading in the crystal ball, and I’ve memorized what the various lines on a palm are supposed to mean. I practiced this week on most of our co-conspirators, so I think I’m ready.”

He slid into the chair opposite hers. “Show me.”

Belinda lifted an eyebrow. “You want me to read your fortune?”

“Exactly.” He winked.

“Very well, most honored sir.” She slipped into the persona he’d seen her practicing all week. “Would milord prefer the cards, to have his palm read or to plumb the mysteries of the crystal ball?”

“Oh, the crystal ball, by all means.” He settled into his seat, enjoying the show.

Her dark eyes twinkled up at him. “For the spirits to come, you must honor them with silver. Five shillings, if you please.” She held out her palm.

Connor handed her a five-shilling coin.

“You are most gracious, sir, as well as handsome.” Belinda laid both hands on the large quartz globe on a silver-plated stand in front of her and peered into it. “Think of a question, concentrate on the answers you wish the spirits to provide.”

“Very well.” He grinned back. “I have my question.”

He could feel her gaze dart to him when she wasn’t looking into the ball. “I see an image beginning to form,” she said. “A man? No, ’tis a woman. Her hair is dark, ah yes, but it isn’t your wife, no…she’s younger. A sister, perhaps? I see. Her eyes are just like yours—no, not in color, but the expression, the intelligence and humor, those are the same, are they not?”

“Give over,” Connor said, impressed by her acumen. “How did you know I was thinking of Melody?”

*****

Contest: In conjunction with the release of Cards & Caravans, Cindy is running a contest for a $25.00 gift card to the e-book distributor of your choice, plus the chance to name a character in the next Gaslight Chronicles story. To enter, visit the “Contact Cindy” page on her website and send her a note. Mention which blog you saw this on and some little detail about the post. One entry per person per blog post. The complete rules and a list of post locations and dates are available on the “Contest” page on Cindy’s site.

 *****

 About the Book: Cards & Caravans is book 5 in the Gaslight Chronicles steampunk romance series, and releases from Carina Press on March 18. Find out more here.

Blurb: Belinda Danvers isn’t a witch. But that won’t stop them burning her at the stake…

Connor McKay can tell at a glance that Belinda’s magickal powers are minimal at best. She can’t be guilty of murdering village children. There’s something suspicious about her arrest and lightning-quick sentence. Unfortunately, telling anyone how he knows would mean revealing his own powers. He’s been sent by the Order of the Round Table to help and he can’t just let her die.

Escaping from jail and running from vindictive villagers in her grandfather’s steam-powered caravan is more excitement than Belinda’s had in years. And despite the danger–or maybe because of it–she loves the time spent with her sexy rescuer. But there’s more to his magick than he’s letting on…

There’s something going on that’s bigger than the two of them. It’s time for good to make a stand.

Review: 4 Stars from Romantic Times: “All the trappings of a good steampunk novel are here..but most enchanting of all is the love that develops between the hero and heroine.

*****

About the Author: Cindy Spencer Pape firmly believes in happily-ever-after and brings that to her writing. Award-winning author of 16 novels and more than 30 shorter works, Cindy lives in southeast Michigan with her husband, two sons and a houseful of pets. When not hard at work writing she can be found dressing up for steampunk parties and Renaissance fairs, or with her nose buried in a book. Catch her online at:

Website: http://www.cindyspencerpape.com

Blog: http://cindyspencerpape.blogspot.com/

Newsletter group: http://yhoo.it/ni7PHo

Twitter: http://twitter.com/CindySPape

Facebook: http://on.fb.me/gjbLLC

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Steamfunk

A reenactor and educator, Ray Dean has delved into many eras of the past, but Steampunk speaks to her in a retroactive futurism that opens so many possibilities. Her blog, My Ethereality(http://raydean.net), explores history, culture, war and love in eras and countries that might influence a Steampunk world.

STEAMFUNK

by Ray Dean

There was something in the air at Anachrocon… or maybe it was in the rhythm running through the ground beneath their feet. Perhaps it was the rush of air as a new door opened in Steampunk… a widening stretch of ideas that seemed to dawn over the assembled group. An anthology had it’s own birthday at the Con… a Steampunk anthology dedicated and inspired by African Culture and characters.

Milton Davis and Balogun Ojetade, editors and creative forces behind the STEAMFUNK! Anthology gave me a little insight into the behind the scenes work of putting together this book. `

Ray: What was the creative spark that brought about this anthology?

Milton:  The idea for the anthology came up during a discussion about steampunk and the lack of stories involving people of color.

Balogun: During a discussion on the Black Science Fiction Society site, we were discussing what Steampunk is and the lack of Black representation in it. Someone said “We should do an anthology of Steampunk stories with Black people as the heroes.” Everyone agreed we should and Milton Davis said he’d publish it. When someone asked what we should call the anthology, Maurice Broaddus said “I call what I write ‘Steamfunk’.” We decided we would roll with Steamfunk as the title.

Raye: When you were reading through the submissions, were there any stories that stretched your own definition of Steampunk/Steamfunk? What avenues/horizons did they open for you?

Milton: The story that stands out to me is Geoffrey Thorne’s The Tunnel at the End of the Light. I’m fairly new to Steampunk, so I wasn’t very familiar with the aether concept. I loved the story but was ready to reject it until Balogun explained to me that aether was very much a Steampunk trope.

Balogun: I believe my definition is just that – MY definition. It is MY approach to Steamfunk; how I express it. Others may express it differently and that is fine. As long as retrofuturistic, steam technology and / or aether technology is featured, it is Steamfunk. The setting…the era…whether it’s science fiction or fantasy does not matter much in Steamfunk. What all the stories did for me was show me just how limitless and fluid Steamfunk can be. The stories are so diverse, yet each one was exciting and thought-provoking. I am so happy to be a part of this rule breaking, history-making, world shaking anthology!

Ray: As you were ordering the stories within the anthology, what were some of your considerations? What themes/through-lines started to form?

Milton: We really didn’t have any particular expectation, at least I didn’t. I just wanted good stories that incorporated African and African American history into steampunk. The result is an excellent and varied collection of tales with a strong African American historical slant. There are stories where the main character just happens to be black and stories where the characters culture is essential. I think Steamfunk is a good effort at answering the absence our history and culture in Steampunk.

Balogun: At first, the idea was to ensure similar stories were separate from each other. However, the stories are so diverse…so unique, that wasn’t even an issue. Even the two John Henry stories are so different from each other and so brilliantly crafted they could be placed back-to-back and people would STILL enjoy the hell out of them both. So, we decided to order the book so that from the first page, through each section of the book, the reader will be drawn onward, pulled from story to story. There will never be any point at which the reader’s mind will wander. And even though this anthology is HUGE, I wager that most readers will get to the last page and wish there was more to read!

~Ray

Ray Dean’s own story, A Will of Iron, appears in the STEAMFUNK! Anthology

See the STEAMFUNK! book trailer

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O. M. Grey: Revisited, Revitalized, and Revamped

Happy Valentines Day!

Today we welcome back author O.M. Grey!

O. M. Grey: Revisited, Revitalized, and Revamped

I’m so very thrilled to be back here with the Lovely Lolitas of STEAMED! They have always been so supportive of my work, as has their readers, so thank you all for welcoming me back. I first visited STEAMED! in 2010, after the initial release of Avalon Revisited, which went on to become an Amazon Gothic Romance Bestselling novel. Then, life threw me a curve ball or two (or three), rendering it impossible for me to finish another novel after I had written The Zombies of Mesmer in the summer of 2010. Throughout 2011, the only thing I could write was short stories and blog posts, so that’s what I did. Due to personal challenges, my focus was just not what it was; still, I wrote what I can, and now so many of those short stories I wrote between 2010 and 2012 are coming to fruition! I’ve had short stories and poetry published all over cyberspace as well as in several eZines, journals, and anthologies.

On the other side of darkness, as I come back into the light, I finished another novel, a sequel of sorts, to Avalon Revisited called Avalon Revamped. I started the first draft at the beginning of 2013, and even with another personal tragedy, my husband suffering a serious accident and the untimely death of my dog due to trusting the wrong people to care for him while I was at the hospital with my husband for a week, I finished the 85,000 word first draft on my self-imposed deadline of 1/31/13. I will be doing revisions in March, after it gets back from some Beta Readers, but until then, I have plenty to keep me busy! After all, I have three years worth of books to write.

Through all of life’s downs, it is bearable because it is also sprinkled with the ups. And, despite the accident, which I’m thrilled to say my husband will make a full recovery, and the loss of my buddy boy, 2013 has already had a lot of ups! Avalon Revisited has been revitalized through RIverdale Ave Books! They loved the story and voice so much, that they re-released it both in eBook and paperback formats in January, complete with a teaser chapter for Avalon Revamped at the end. My publisher calls Avalon Revisited the “best vampire Steampunk EVER” and recalls when my agent, Louise Fury, ran into her office “breathless and told [her] she had found a masterpiece.” She, as so many, was hooked after the first chapter and says she read it straight through the night. So many NY Publisher’s loved it, but they said they couldn’t sell it with the Male 1st POV. For those of you who have read Avalon Revisited, you know that Arthur’s voice is what makes the book. As my publisher says, “Arthur Tudor is as memorable a vampire son-of-a-bitch at the Vampire Lestat.” If you haven’t yet read Avalon Revisited, now is the time! It contains 20,000 more words than the original 2010 release plus a teaser chapter for Avalon Revamped.

Now, Arthur and Avalon have new life, and Riverdale Ave Books hopes to make it the best-seller it should be. My agent called it Fifty Shades of Grey with vampires and murder in Steampunk London. Avalon Revamped is every darker and edgier than Revisited, with a ruthless anti-antagonist who will make you cheer for her brand of punishment the way you do for Dexter. Constance dishes out what those Lotharios deserve.

Additionally, several short stories have also been released in January, and more are planned in the coming months. My fabulous new publisher, Lori Perkins of Riverdale Ave Books, loved “A Kiss in the Rain” so much she released that as well for only $0.99.

About “A Kiss in the Rain“

A gothic erotic ghost story from another era, A Kiss in the Rain is the tale of Eliot, a professor and inventor, and his unbearable grief over the loss of his dead wife. Though an expert in the new invention of electricity, it seems that even modern science cannot bring her back, but maybe there is a force even more powerful?

 

Here’s what one reviewer said about “A Kiss in the Rain”: 

“If you’re looking for a compelling short read that combines eroticism and the gothic, “A Kiss in the Rain” is an excellent choice. The author provides a tantalizing and mysterious context of a Victorian scientist’s heartbreak distracting him during his work. What happens next in the macabre setting of a nighttime graveyard blurs genre lines of horror, romance, and fantasy. A perfect lunch break read for those with a love of the sinister.”

The inspiration behind “A Kiss in the Rain” came from the same source as my horror short story “Twenty Minutes” and award-winning, hall-of-fame poem “New York Rain,” both published several times over the past year. Currently, “Twenty Minutes,” as well as my dark poem “Look Into My Eyes,” both first seen in SNM Horror Mag, will be a part of The Sirens Call ”Women in Horror Month” eZine. “New York Rain,” my most popular poem, has been a part of the Bar None Group’s Hall of Fame since it first appeared there in 2011. It has since won a library award and is currently featured at The Rusty Nail along with another short story “Final Word.”

For a complete list of my published works and where you can read them, often for free, please visit my blog Caught in the Cogs at http://omgrey.wordpress.com, also a place to keep up with my fiction writing and nonfiction discussions on the dark side of love and romance. Subscribe today!

Thank you all so much for your support over the years. Now that I’m back in that proverbial saddle, I hope to be contributing to STEAMED! as a visiting Lolita more often, perhaps book reviews as I had once done years ago. In the mean time, please read some of my work, as there is much available for free, and if you like it, leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads, then consider supporting my work by purchasing “A Kiss in the Rain” and Avalon Revisited. Stay in touch by commenting on my blog, as I answer every single one, or just follow along silently, and you’ll be the first to know when a new dark treat from the cobwebbed corners of my mind is available to be devoured.

For now, leave me a comment here and ask a question to win your very own copy of “A Kiss in the Rain” PDF. Comments accepted through 11:59pm CST Saturday, February 16th. I’ll chose a winner on February 17th. Be sure to leave your email address so that I might notify you of your good fortune.

May you all find peace.

~O. M. Grey

http://omgrey.wordpress.com

http://twitter.com/omgrey

“A Kiss in the Rain” http://goo.gl/1wGqw

Avalon Revisited:

eBook: http://t.co/96ECerwM

Paperback: http://goo.gl/YSSKa

About AVALON REVISITED

Arthur Tudor has made his existence as a vampire bearable for over three hundred years by immersing himself in blood and debauchery. Aboard an airship gala, he meets Avalon, an aspiring vampire slayer who sparks fire into Arthur’s shriveled heart. Together they try to solve the mystery of several horrendous murders on the dark streets of London. Cultures clash and pressures rise in this sexy Steampunk Romance.

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Is this period?

At an SF con a while ago, I bought a T-shirt that says, “Steampunk means never having to ask ‘Is this period’?” That’s always a big choice when you’re writing alternate history of any variety. How much to keep the same and how much to change? It can be a fine line, trying to give your world that historical flair without simply writing a period novel with some incongruous touches. To quote my agent, “You can’t start out with Downton Abbey and then turn it into Jules Verne.” Well, I guess you could, but it probably wouldn’t work very well. As a former scientist, I tend to want a little order to my fantasy. Yeah, I get the irony.

I try to set my world up with “butterfly effect” differences. In the Gaslight Chronicles, magick (sic) exists and so do paranormal monsters. Therefore, the Order of the Round Table still exists, devoted to protecting England from those threats. After all, who better to organize such a force than Merlin, and who better than Lancelot to head it?  In my version of the 1850s, their descendents are still fighting the good fight. It’s a change from reality, but it’s got a logic to it.

The same goes for technology. In my world a man called Charles Babbage invented the first computers in the 1840s. (He really did, it just never got built. That’s the key change for a lot of steampunk.) In my world, he was also ennobled, and is known as Lord Babbage. From there, technology boomed, and along with it, pollution and other sciences, and women’s rights. Since the code for the Analytical Engine was written by Ada, Lady Lovelace (daughter of the famous poet, Lord Byron), it was proven that women could stand alongside men in intellectual pursuits. And then she founded a college for women in the sciences at Oxford University, which a few of my heroines have attended. (Wink from Moonlight & Mechanicals and Geneva from Kilts & Kraken for starters.) Again, there’s a logic, a cause-and-effect to things.

Is my steampunk realistic? Not in the least. There are vampyres and robot dogs and all kinds of other creatures and creations. But does the world make sense in of itself? A little. At least to me.

Have a wonderful Valentine’s Day!

In non-steampunk news, Nailed, one of my older erotic romances is being re-released today. Find out more from Resplendence Publishing.

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Clockwork Mafia Cover Reveal

Today we’re happy to host the cover reveal for CLOCKWORK MAFIA
by Seleste Delaney, the sequel to BADLANDS

Inventor Henrietta Mason is retiring from airships and adventuring to return home to Philadelphia. Determined to erase all trails leading to her late father’s duplicity, she dismantles his lab and removes all records of the Badlands gold. While in the city, she can’t resist the lure of a charity gala but winds up regretting the whole experience. Well, everything except a heart-racing dance with a certain U.S. Marshal.

His career and vengeance on the line, Carson Alexander must prove a connection between Senator Mason and the mafia. He lucked out happening across Mason’s strikingly beautiful daughter, only to have her slip through his fingers. On a desperate hunt to track her down, he never expects his search to take him into the brutal Badlands.

With a mechanically enhanced enforcer after them, only Carson knows the extent of the danger they face. He’ll have to win over Henrietta’s trust, and her heart, before it’s too late…

CLOCKWORK MAFIA by Seleste Delaney, available April 29, 2013 from Carina Press

Pre-order:

Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/clockwork-mafia-seleste-delaney/1114057581

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Clockwork-Mafia-ebook/dp/B00APEYBBU

 

 

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6 Scrumptious Steampunk Romance Heroes

Today we welcome the Steampunk Romance Tour.

6 Scrumptious Steampunk Romance HeroesSteampunk romance heroes have a few traits in common—courage, strength, and smarts—but beyond that, the sky’s the limit. Authors have been creating yummy heroes in this subgenre so I decided to round up a few notable ones for you.

Christopher Redmond, a Man O’ War from Zoe Archer’s Skies of Fire

Special “telumium” implants make Captain Redmond a bigger, stronger, and faster soldier in a war that spans continents. Plus, the telumium works in a symbiotic nature with his airship. He can’t be away from the ship for long, so his superhuman abilities come at a price. There are other implications as well—what will he do for a living when the war ends? A real thinking woman’s hero!

Rhys Trahaearn, the titular character from Meljean Brook’s The Iron Duke. 

This hero has bones of iron. ‘Nuff said.

Wellington Books from Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris’ The Janus Affair

Books is the head archivist at the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences. He’s more suited to his desk job than investigations and field work, but don’t let his mild mannered appearance fool you. This endearing nerd of a hero has a few intriguing secrets that will make you sigh with pleasure.

Jack Hawkins from Nico Rosso’s Nights of Steel

When I first saw the cover for Nights of Steel, I was excited to encounter a person of color as the hero in a steampunk romance. Jack’s prosthetic arm is pretty impressive, too! As if that weren’t enough, he’s a bounty hunter and the setting is an alternate history American Old West. Sweet.

Phineas Hamilton from Nathalie Gray’s Full Steam Ahead 

Phineas is captain of the airship Brass Baron in an alternate universe. Check. He’s a too-cool-for-school anime style pirate hero (that hair!). Double check. He’s also a man of wisdom—he joins forces with the heroine despite her resemblance to an enemy race. Triple check!

Tucker Gentry from Beth Ciotta’s Her Sky Cowboy

This one’s a no-brainer. Check out this hero’s curriculum vitae: ex-Air Marshal; dime novel hero; he’s an outlaw who goes by the handle “Sky Cowboy;” he’s a rogue with a heart of gold *and* a ragtag crew of misfits; his airship is called the Maverick; and he has a dark secret.

Now that’s what I call a feast! Do you have a favorite steampunk/steampunk romance hero?

Giveaway time!

Leave a comment for this post and you’ll be entered for a chance to win the following ebooks (two winners will be picked at random):

Skies of Fire – Zoe Archer (winner’s choice PDF, ePUB, or .mobi)

Nights of Fire – Nico Rosso (winner’s choice PDF, ePUB, or .mobi)

And there’s more! Everyone who leaves a comment at any of the stops on The Great Steampunk Romance Airship Tour will be entered for a chance to win the Grand Prize:

$100 e-gift card (winner’s choice Amazon or B&N)

75$ e-gift certificate to Clockwork Couture

1 digital copy of IRON GUNS, BLAZING HEARTS (winner’s choice PDF, ePub, or .mobi)

Please include your email address. The deadline to enter all of the giveaways will be midnight PST on February 14. On Friday, February 15, check back here to see if you’ve won an ebook prize.

The grand prize winner will be announced on February 15 at The Galaxy Express.

About the author

Heather Massey is a lifelong fan of science fiction romance. She searches for sci-fi romance adventures aboard her blog, The Galaxy Express. She’s also an author in the subgenre. To learn more about her published work, visit heathermassey.com.

Iron Guns, Blazing Hearts  

(February 2013; Lyrical Press)

The West just got a whole lot wilder.

A woman on a mission… Scientific achievement isn’t enough for Violet Whitcomb. Life working alongside her renowned scientist father is filled with intellectual challenges, but what she truly craves is love and adventure. She’s resigned to a fate of academic pursuits–until a fateful trip across the American frontier changes everything. A rogue inventor known as the Iron Scorpion kidnaps Violet’s father and she alone is left to plan his rescue.

A man with a secret… Logan McCoy knows firsthand going up against the Iron Scorpion is suicide, but he can’t let Violet waltz into the villain’s lair alone. She may be a stranger, but she’s also the most compelling woman he’s ever known.

A perilous quest… Their attraction is undeniable, but their alliance turns contentious when Violet insists on including a third partner on their mission: her father’s latest invention and the world’s most advanced automaton, Arthur. The reason for Logan’s resistance isn’t clear until Violet comes face-to-face with the Iron Scorpion’s diabolical devices, and by then, it’s far too late.

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Conquistadors In Outer Space – New Release

Announcing my new Steampunk/Romance, Conquistadors In Outer Space, coming this Friday, February 1st. The subtitle is Ana’s Interplanetary Conquest.

Henri de Montaut, from De la terre à la lune (From the earth to the moon), by Jules Verne, Paris (Hetzel), 18??

In an alternate history of 1610 AD, the King of Spain commissions the creation of giant cannons, fashioned from Leonardo Da Vinci’s design, for the purpose of blowing the island of England to the bottom of the ocean. Since that country separated from papal authority, Spain has the approval of the church to separate England from the rest of Europe. Then, after an interrogation by priests with the inquisition, Galileo sees a faraway dot in the night sky with his new telescope. He shows the pope planet X, an actual New World Spain can claim and all the inhabitants can be converted to Christianity. Also all the gold and riches discovered there will belong to Spain alone. So they find a way to use the cannons to that end instead.

Thrown off the Spanish estate she worked at all her life, Ana, a milkmaid, seeks a new life. Disguised as a rich widow, she boards a rocket, to be blasted out of a huge cannon, and targeted for the newly discovered planet, X.  Sparks fly when she finds Ramon, the only man she ever loved, heir of the estate she worked on, is flying to Planet X as well. As the Spanish governor of Plant X searches for gold, the treasure Ramon seeks is Ana. His conquest is challenging, though he swears to protect and love her, as a noble he cannot marry a peasant. Ana cannot deny her desire for Ramon, but she will not be his mistress. Will his conquest of her heart succeed or will Ana make a life for herself alone amid the wonders and dangers of Planet X.

Excerpt:

In an instant the loudest boom and ka-chung noises he ever heard rattled his ears as the metal projectile shook violently. He clenched his teeth as every muscle in his body quaked with the blast.

“It is the Estrella. It is hurdling through space to planet X.”

He recognized the voice of the priest who strapped him in. Ana’s ship, De Nunez had told him. “Is all well,” he yelled out. “Did they lift off safely?”

Now that he had found her again, he needed to protect her. Once they arrived on planet X, he would seize this second chance to win her heart for she’d stolen his long ago.

“Si.” The priest’s tone held a tinge of awe. “In a blaze of light they blasted through the heavens. They are in God’s hands now.”

Ramon let out a long breath of relief. Ana was safe, shooting through space. The Estrella had cast off and the Juanita would soon follow. When his rocket blasted off in an explosion of light and fire, he wouldn’t hear anything.

He felt his mind loose itself in drowsiness. He shut his eyes under the power of this death like sleep and prayed in twenty years he would wake. When he did, he’d be on Planet X with the woman he’d always loved. He knew for the next twenty years of the voyage, he would dream of Ana.

Contest: Comment below to enter my new release contest to win a PDF Ebook of Conquistadors In Outer Space.

Maeve Alpin, Steampunk Romance Author

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Steam Beast in Art – Songs For A Machine Age

I, Maeve Alpin, stand on the dock of the airship, clutching my purple hat, as my hair streams in the blustering wind. Thrilled to meet Steampunk author, Heather McDougal and discover more about the intriguing contest she devised to celebrate the release of her new Steampunk novel, Songs For A Machine Age.

Her contests entrants created works of art depicting the Steam Beast, a mechanical character from Songs For A Machine Age. She opened the contest to various mediums, whatever the entrants were best at: sculptures, computer created, hand drawn, painted or mix-media. The artist sent in high-quality digital images one for 2-D work and 3 for 3-D work. The deadline fell on October 28, 2012.

“Welcome, Heather.” I shove my hat on my head and take her arm in mine. “Watch your step.” We stretch our legs in a long stride across the wide gap between the dock and the airship, to board. I lead her into the parlor.

Heather McDoural gracefully lowers herself onto the crimson settee, featuring elaborately carved lion head legs and claw feet.

I sink into the chenille upholstered armchair and lean forward. “I am fascinated by an art based contest. How did you come up with that idea?”

“Well, I  come from an art background with an MFA in sculpture.  Writing was something I wanted to do as a young person, I got distracted by other skills for a long time. I earned a degree in fashion design and worked in the garment industry for several years, and then went back to school to study textiles. Once you’re in the art department, it’s pretty hard not to try all kinds of things, so I ended up learning to blow glass and weld and so on, and finally ended up with this sculpture degree. However, my thesis won me extreme praise where my sculpture had only been reasonably good, and this made me revisit writing.

Also, this book is all about a culture of makers. Three hundred years before the narrative, they  were in the middle of an industrial revolution and someone invented a truly horrific manufacturing technology. I won’t tell you more about it, except that it was the catalyst for a revolution in which all machinery was banned, with the exception of handmade devices with purely aesthetic value. So as a result, skill in making things has become a highly-prized commodity.

It seemed appropriate, then, to  bring art-making into the promotion of Songs.”

The engine purrs and the blue willow teacups shake on the coffee table causing a clinking, rattling sound as the airship lifts off. “With your varied but strong artistic background, I can see why you were inspired to write a book with this wonderful premise of ‘all machinery was banned, with the exception of handmade devices with purely aesthetic value.’ Speaking of machinery, the subject of the contest is the Steam Beast, a mysterious, mechanical character. Tell us a little bit about him.”

“He was created by Pelle Vidersen, a woman who lived around the time of the Revolution, who had the unusual skill of being able to create Devices that have sentience, have life. This is a dangerous skill and she wasn’t supposed to use it, or even have the skill – and there were grave consequences. But that’s all in the prequel, which I’m halfway through writing. Suffice to say, you see a great deal more of him there, and get to know him pretty well. In Songs For A Machine Age, he is seen as much less of a person, more of a strange Device that no one could possibly recreate.” Heather grabs the settee with one hand as the airship rises.

“I can’t wait to read about him in the book.” Since the china cups ceased rattling, I picked up the tea pot and poured my guest and myself a cup of Earl Grey. Wisps of steam rose up rom the blue willow cups.“How did you come up with the Steam Beast? Did something particular inspire you to create him?”

“Interestingly, I came up with the name first! The world of songs first appeared in a project I started called Neddeth’s Bed, an experiment in blog storytelling. In it, the protagonist goes to sleep most nights and dreams she is in the body of someone else, someone who is writing on a machine. So she tells her story to that person, who writes it down (as a blog). It’s an exercise in world-building and in dual storytelling — you begin to understand the person she is occupying as the tale unfolds.

This is where the Steam Beast first shows up, as a sort of one-off device in the Midsummer Festival.  Somehow, he caught my attention, and when I started this book, he wouldn’t go away.  I grew more and more interested in him, wondering about his back-story, until I found myself writing the prequel, just to get him out of my system.” Heather reaches her slender fingers between the plate of fresh lemon slices and the cream pitcher. She picks up a white cube from the sugar bowl and plunks it into her tea.

“It’s interesting that once these characters latch onto our minds,they won’t leave us until we write their stories.” I hooked my fingers in the handle of my teacup and lifted it off the delicate saucer. “You sent the contest entrants a never before seen segment from the prequel to Songs For A Machine Age, in which the Steam Beast is worked on by its creator.Can you share that segment with us? Please! We’d love to read it.”

Rhea Ewing’s winning Steam Beast

“Of course! Here you go.”

“Pinzen,” said Pelle, “It’s time to grow.”

Pinzen came out from its nest among the plants in the corner, moving gracefully.  It was definitely ready for more synapses.  She squinted at it carefully, thinking that perhaps its carapace needed to be larger, after all.  She wasn’t sure how much longer she’d be around to keep wrapping its brain, so this installment might need to be a larger one than usual.  It was good she’d planned ahead and had the new carapace already.

She moved across to one of the boxes under the work-counter.  Lifting the lid, she inspected the contents carefully.  She’d been saving this material for years, since the days when she worked in the automaton factory and smuggled the threads out, piece by piece, in her shirt.

“Hello, Pelle.  Did you see my toy?  I fixed it,” said Pinzen.  “I took two toys and made a new one.”

“Hmm?” said Pelle.  “Good for you.”  She was inspecting the threads in the box, laying them out in careful skeins on a clean part of the counter.  It was essential that she keep them absolutely dust-free and straight or they could cause crossed connections, which could lead to insanity.  She had built Pinzen with great care, and was proud of how sane it was.

Pinzen moved its claws, impatiently.  “Pelle, did you see it?”

There was a long silence while Pelle went on examining the threads carefully, pulling out the occasional one.

“Pelle!”

“What?  What is it, Pinzen?”  The machine was acting strange, shuffling its limbs.  Pelle frowned, distracted by the task ahead of her.

“Did you see my new toy?”

“New toy?”  Pelle turned around.  “What do you mean?”

“I took apart two of the toys and made a new one.  And I’m working on that one over there,” its claw lifted to indicate an intricate sprawl of wheels and cogs on a sheet of paper in the corner behind the door.

The thing he’d made was completely unlike anything she’d seen before.  She pulled over a stool and sat down to look at it.  The fluted columns gleamed, and there were several keys or levers clustered together on one side.  She reached out and pressed one of the keys, and leaned away with an “Ah!” of surprise and pleasure when the steam-letter rose into the dimness of the room and hovered for a moment before wafting away.

“How did you know what shapes to make?” she asked, pressing another key.  Another letter came out, and she marveled at their perfection.

“I made them to look like the shapes in that package,” it said, pointing to a book that she had left on the counter.  “I noticed they repeated themselves, so I counted how many kinds of shapes there were, and made one of each.”

“It’s lovely,” Pelle said, fascinated.  She pressed several keys in a row and a floating nonsense-word hung in the air between her knees.  How did he do it?

“Did you use my tools?” she asked, suddenly.
The machine went very still, and there was a silence.  “I did use one tool, Pelle,” it said.  “I am sorry.”

She shook her head.  “It’s all right, Pinzen.  I am amazed at what you’ve done.  I should have explained to you why you weren’t allowed to touch my tools.  You see, they are very old, and if they break I won’t be able to replace them, ever.  So I need to be very careful with them, do you understand?”

“I understand, Pelle.”

“You clearly have a talent for making things.  If I could get more materials, I would let you make many more wonderful things.  However, I am old, and I can only get a few things, very slowly.  So you’ll have to keep yourself busy some other way unless I can find things for you to use.”

“May I use the same tool to reconfigure my other toys?”

“It depends.  Which tool was it?”

“The long thin one, with the green handle.”

“Yes, you can use that one.  If it breaks, I can get others.  But now, Pinzen, you’ll need to sleep, so I can help you grow.  All right?”

“Yes, Pelle,” it said, and went completely still.  After a few moments she put her hand on its carapace and felt it: it was growing slightly cooler.  Good.

She got the new carapace from its shelf and took it outside to wash it.  The trouble with this new society, she thought to herself, as she rinsed the dust away and dried it with a soft cloth, was the imprecision of everything.  It was so hard to make precise machinery when there were mice getting into everything and the water went unfiltered and there were no factories, making parts.  Everything had to be done from scratch, including, at times, the actual foundry-work of heating and mixing the metals.  You had to be truly dedicated to make anything.

Then she shook her head.  It didn’t matter now; they didn’t need the ability to make precise machinery. Those days were gone. Nobody wanted machines anymore, no matter how brilliant. It was only her own silly need to go on making things that got foiled.

Back inside, she wiped Pinzen down carefully, then spread out a clean sheet and laid the machine on it. It was completely cool by now, and she set to work opening its carapace and setting aside the pieces. The connections between the brain and the limbs were kept intact, and in the center of it all the power source remained, obscured by the network of brain all around it.  She disconnected the limbs and put in extenders, sealing the connection tightly so it would last as close to forever as she could make it. Slowly, carefully, she began laying the intelligence threads around and around, sheaf after sheaf of them, matching ends, tying and making careful selective clipping; layer by layer, its brain grew bigger like a ball of yarn.  As it grew she said the words which bound it all together, made it whole. It was dangerous, doing this.  She had not dared to speak over a machine other than Pinzen for many, many years.\

When she had used up the last sheaf of threads, she covered the whole thing with a fine gold filigreed network like a hair-net, snapping its two halves over the ball to hold it all in place.

Then there was a last round of clipping – creating the synapse points – all around the outside, through the holes in the filligree.

Now it was time for the carapace.  Would it fit?  With tired, shaking old hands she drew the pieces of the new carapace toward her and tried to fit it all together.  The limb-connections had moved a bit, and she had an exhausting fiddle trying to get them to come out in the right places; but eventually, worn out, she put in the last few bolts and the new Pinzen lay before her, much larger than before.  And hopefully more intelligent, too.

She shook off the fear she may have made a mistake and he would wake up insane.  It was too exhausting to contemplate.  Shakily, she got up from the stool and went out to get a cup of cha.” Heather picked up a demure spoon from the coffee table and dipping it into her teacup, she swished it side to side, taking care to not touch the sides.

“It must have been amazing to look at all these different depictions of a character you created in your mind? Did they capture what you imagined? Were some extremely different? Tell us a bit about that experience.”  I pinched a slice of lemon, picking it up, I breathed in the invigorating citurs fragrance as I squeezed a few droplets into my tea.

“Well, the first thing I found was a lot of the artists who heard about the contest simply sent me a picture of some previously-created artwork on the off chance that they’d win. A sort of “what can I lose?” attitude. I can understand that attitude, because a lot of artists don’t get much money or recognition for what they do; however, it really wasn’t what I wanted.” With a soft clink, Heather set the teaspoon behind her cup on the saucer. “I had to sift through those people, sometimes checking the portfolios on their websites, before I could get too excited. But then, some things would come in and it was clear the person had created it specifically for the contest. That was amazing. And when Rhea’s picture showed up it was very clear, hands down, she would be the winner. I waited until the deadline, of course, but I just didn’t see anything else that so perfectly captured that moment in the book.

Of course now that I’ve gone through the process, I can see things I would have done differently. For example, early on I would have posted the contest information in art departments in universities and art schools all around the San Francisco Bay Area, which is where I live. Art students are always looking for some money. They have time and they have talent, or at least most of them do. It would have been a good way to get a bunch more original entries!

Also, I would have started earlier, researching places to let people know about the contest. I think it would have been useful to get some personal contacts in those communities beforehand. Simply writing to places that seemed appropriate wasn’t enough; there was little response, and I suspect they couldn’t really vouch for the fact that I really would give the winner $200. If I had had the idea earlier, I could have spent some time getting to know them, so they would hear me when the time came.

Still, it felt truly marvelous to be able to give back to the art community. There was such a wide variety of entries, and the feedback was exciting – people who had never really read anything remotely resembling Steampunk or Clockpunk before, or who were trying new techniques. And Rhea was so excited to win, it really made my week! I still feel good, thinking about that.

Best of all, I think I reached an audience that maybe wouldn’t have heard about my book otherwise.”

I lift my teacup and breathe in the subtle, aromatic scent of the steamy tea. “So Rhea Ewing is your winner. Congratulations to her. What medium was the work in?”

“Rhea Ewing created a  2-D piece, my guess would be charcoal and  pastel. You can see more of her amazing work on her website.”Heather picked up her dainty cup from the blue willow saucer.

I brought my teacup to my lips and took a sip. “Can we see the winning piece?”

“Yes!” Heather tilted her teacup to her lips and drew in a long sip, then set it on her saucer with a melodic clink.  “Here is the winning piece.”

I placed my cup back on its saucer and leaned toward Heather. “I know the winner received $200.00 and a signed copy of Songs For A Machine Age. What a wonderful prize. But you didn’t stop there, you picked three runner ups who received a signed copy of Songs For A Machine Age. Who are your runner ups? Can you describe their art submissions or can we see them?”

“One is a pen-and-ink drawing by Joanne Roberts,

Joanne Roberts’ whimsical drawing

another is a blueprint by Simon Forster,

Simon Forster’s Blueprint

and the last one is a small sculpture by

Ken Bessemer.

Ken Bessemer’s sculpture

I feel lucky to have such a variety!”

As I’m perusing the art of the runner ups, I hear rattling and clinking. I glance at the coffee table. “I see the teacups are shaking. I know what that means, the airship is landing. I have time for just a few more questions. Since this contest is about Songs For A Machine Age, what is the back cover blurb?”

“There is a place where fabulous clockwork devices fill festival streets with color and sound.

Where the Gear Tourniers, in their places of high learning, keep alive the memory of the cruel horrors of an industrial past, now overthrown.

Where skill of the hand and grace of the body are markers of true belief…

Elena Alkeson has been on the run for six years. Wanted by the fanatical Duke of Melifax for witchcraft, nowhere in Devien is safe, as her gift for sensing impending disaster comes with a price: she can’t keep her mouth shut.

…Until she meets Fen, who shares a similar gift: the gift of seeing inside mechanisms and knowing what they do. Elena and Fen must flee for their lives, going to the capital City of Helseve to seek asylum, and, perhaps, a life in which their gifts can be used for good. Amidst the machinery and brilliance of the Autumn Festival, Fen and Elena find friendship, danger, and some powerful allies.

But Melifax and his sect, the dour Browns, are determined to bring the people of Devien into a new age, an age of moralism, conformity and mass production, ensuring that the beauty and pageantry of Devien and its Devices will be lost forever.

I find most blurbs to be a bit over the top by nature, but this one’s not too bad.  I’ve also had a friend describe Songs as ‘A capital ‘R’ Romantic Clockpunk adventure, in the spirit of Dumas or the Scarlet Pimpernel, full of personal and political intrigue.’

Publisher’s Weekly said this about it: “Disagreement over technological progress drives social, religious, and political disorder in McDougal’s fantasy debut. Elena Alkeson is on the run from the Duke of Melifax’s followers, the Browns, after her talent for spotting the weak points in structures got her branded a witch. She finds kindred spirits in the Findswather family; the eldest Findswather son, Fen, has the ability to ‘see the workings of a thing.’ Browns support the Duke’s migraine-vision–fueled belief that people should work together in assembly lines to create larger works. Elena, Fen, and others fear this would bring back the awful
‘production-slavery’ of the Ancients as well as the loss of art, independence, and real craftsmanship. While Elena and Fen try to help the Gear-Tourniers and the Curator, a mysterious figure in charge of historic machines, the Browns, plot to bring down the rebels. A large cast of characters and complex world-building fuel the intrigue and action in this intricately plotted fantasy.”

“What a wonderful review.” I flashed Heather a broad smile. “I have to compliment you on the cover. I understand you actually created the cover art yourself.”

“Yes, since graphics is something I do for a living. I asked the publisher if I could submit a cover, and he said ‘Sure, but we might not use it.’ But he liked it so much he did use it, and in  fact I’ve done some other covers for him since then.” Heather holds on tight to the arm of the settee, bracing for the shaky landing.

“We’ll we’ve landed but before you go, please share your calling cards with us.”

“Here is the link to my longtime essay blog, filled with all kinds of things Steampunk and otherwise and my website.You can also find me on Facebook.Find the book on Amazon.One might also be able to order the book from one’s local bookstore’s website. I encourage people to try it.”

With the airship Steamed landed, Heather and I exchange goodbyes, but please comment or ask questions below.
~ ~
Maeve Alpin is the author or three Steampunk books, her forth, CONQUISTADORS IN OUTER SPACE, is coming Februay 1, 2013.

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Don’t Cross the Streams by Steve DeWinter

Today we welcome author Steve DeWinter.

Steve DeWinter is an American born adventure/thriller author whose evil twin writes science fiction under the pseudonym S.D. Stuart. His latest novel The Wizard of OZ: A Steampunk Adventure will be available January 8th, 2013 in Kindle and Trade Paperback.

Don’t Cross the Streams

by Steve DeWinter

If you are as old as I am (or have an older friend who has shared this wonderful movie with you) then you know what I am talking about.

If not, I do not want to spoil the movie for you, but the general idea is that the device the Ghostbusters used to capture ghosts could destabilize the entire universe if they crossed streams with another of the devices. The idea behind this was that each device’s stream alone was powerful, but if mixed with another device’s stream, the results would be disastrous.

So, lesson learned.

Don’t cross the streams.

Writing teachers (and other established authors too) give this same advice to young writers just starting out. Write what you know. Use the genre you already read and write in that. Don’t cross the genres. Don’t write in a genre you know nothing about. The list goes on and on for what writers should and should not do when choosing what to write.

I, however, ignore this advice on a daily basis with my writing. I am a cross the genres author. I have two primary genres of books that I love to read. Science Fiction and Thrillers. When I write, I mix in the best of both genres. I “cross the streams” in my writing.

Have I destabilized the universe of storytelling? I do not think so.

As I entered into the steampunk fiction realm for the first time to write The Wizard of OZ: A Steampunk Adventure, I knew going in I was going to “cross the genres” once again and create a rip-roaring science fiction adventure with a thriller quality villain in a steam-powered turn of the century world. Oh, and there had to be robots (or automatons as they were affectionately called in the late 1800’s), lots and lots of robots.

While Amazon categorizes my books for a specific audience for the purposes of searchable lists, I pull on the resources and story methods from multiple genres to create stories that entertain and thrill readers.

And if you have never seen Ghostbusters, go do something about that today!

–Steve DeWinter

www.stevedw.com

The Wizard of OZ: A Steampunk Adventure

Kindle E-Book Edition
http://amzn.to/TGJBhO

Trade Paperback Edition
http://amzn.to/RCcwDP

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