TOR Dot Com didn’t do a full month of Steampunk this year, but they are doing a Steampunk Fortnight. Besides the many articles they have posted in the 42 or so hours since they started, they have also posted two excellent stories: Clockwork Fairies by Cat Rambo, and The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack by Mark Hodder. And if you can’t get enough Steampunk there, consider becoming a part of the project to Build the Charles Babbage Analytical Engine, as posted by the BBC. As someone who has ranted about Ada and Charlie, inventor of computer programming and the computer respectively back in the 1830’s, you probably already know I am supporting this one!
It has been a while since I have posted about reading, mostly because all the flashy visuals kick me into “Shiny, Pretty…” mode, and I get distracted. But two of my favorite authors, Rudy Rucker and Bruce Sterling, have written a story together that you can read online: Good Night Moon. This is a tasty little story that the two of them obviously had a good time writing, and they do poke more than a little fun at themselves in the course of it. Thanks to the authors and to TOR books for making it a free online read.
A book series I have been enjoying recently is the Parasol Protectorate, a Steampunk treat that has a field day turning the classic Victorian era Gothic novel on its ear, and presenting us with a world that should have been. The creation of Gail Carriger, I tend to think of them as the Less group, since the titles are Soulless, Changeless, and Blameless, with Heartless and Timeless coming soon. The writing is wonderful, the humor is intense, and the attitude is spot on. The description I have read that fits the best to me: They are either Jane Austen doing urban fantasy, or PG Wodehouse doing steampunk. The first novel in the series, Soulless, has already been turned into an Audio Book (you can listen to the first chapter here), and is now in production to become a graphic novel. I would love to see this become a miniseries in the UK; I have seen what they have done with Terry Pratchett, I know they would do these stories justice. You can find out more at Gail’s Blog, or at any of her many online interviews.
Not exactly two words I thought I would have been putting together in the Title area, but true none the less. So lets check out a few small but intense examples… and the fact that they are from radically different parts of the world tells you this is an art form that is well appreciated. These are the best examples I have found to date.
Abney Park is one of my favorite Steampunk bands, as I have mentioned here before. They have a new CD coming out soon, The End Of Days, so I am using that as my excuse to post about their music once again. The first video is their lead singer, Captain Robert, taking a joyride over Seattle in the Airship Eureaka. I am sure it will be no surprise that the audio backing is one of their own songs. The second video is a live version of their signature song, Airship Pirates. Following that, we have The Death of the Cog, a song from another band called The Cog is Dead, singing against the invention of the digital watch which killed Clockpunk. The final band, Sunday Drivers, I could not find a decent video of in their Steampunk style, so I had to make do with an interview clip. To pull it all together, we have the Song vs. Song vs. Song initial presentation from Changing Habit; he may not be able to dance, but he does have a unique appreciation for nonstandard (i.e., non-boring) music.
Coming up on September 5th at Dragon Con is the Steampunk Exhibition, which looks like it will be a hoot with the best and the brightest of Steampunk engineers and artificers from around the world. On top of that, they are going for a Guinness world record for the largest Steampunk photograph (they better be using an authentic Steampunk photography system). And yes, Steampunk is what happens when Goths discover brown. Of course, there will be a gazillion other things going on at DragonCon, so you might want to consider attending next year (I am pretty sure this year, like most of the last decade, is completely sold out).
This one looks very interesting; from October 10th to the 24th this year the USA Science & Engineering Festival will take place in the Washington, D.C. area. Billing itself as the the country’s first national science festival, it already has over 500 organizations signed up to participate, and will end with a two day Expo in the nation’s capital according to their official blog. This event will give science & engineering groups the opportunity to present themselves to the public with hands-on science activities to inspire the next generation of researchers and developers. The teams involved are wide ranging, and include such diverse outfits and events as the 4H National Youth Science Day, the You Can Do The Cube competition, a presentation from Hollywood Movie Physics, and the Versatile Mr. Freeze from FermiLabs, to name but a few. And yes, you can follow them on a boatload of social media tools, including Twitter.