GUEST POST: The Rising Phoenix Takes Flight! Help Japan Fundraiser Update

Cross-posted with permission from Beyond Victoriana.

Click image to purchase from Button Me Up’s Etsy Store.

 

A week and a half into our fundraiser, and the steampunk community has really been out there pushing our cause. Thank you to everyone who’ve signal-boosted our fundraiser on their blog, Twitter, Livejournal, website, through word of mouth, etc. I also want to thank the good congoers of Nova Albion who opened their hearts and their wallets to buy a button for Japan when I visited California last weekend.

Wondering about our progress so far? See that nifty button on the left-hand corner with the golden Phoenix? That leads to our Rising Phoenix Circle page, which features a list of participants and the amount raised thus far.

Not only that, but I can start dropping some hints about the FREE STEAMPUNK GIVEAWAYS that are open to anyone who gets a button. Read on after the jump.


I’m very happy to announce that we will have THREE PRIZE PACKS that will be raffled off to a trio of lucky donors at the end of the fundraising period in September.

These gift packs will have some wicked cool stuff donated by these fine folks—

Jake von Slatt
Cherie Priest
Phil & Kaja Foglio
Paul Guinan & Anina Bennett
Gail Carriger
Scott Westerfeld
James Ng
Vernian Process

…and more to be announced later this summer!

So just remember, with every donation on Etsy or in-person, please let us know these two things:

1) Do you want to participate in the giveaway?

2) Do you want to have your name added to the Rising Phoenix Circle?

We are psyched that we have been incredibly successful so far, and we’re looking forward to seeing where this fundraiser will go in the next coming weeks!

And hint, hint, I will be selling buttons at The Anachronism at Webster Hall this Sunday. Be sure to find me at these two locations that day:

The Anachronism Literary Brunch!
Sunday, April 3rd at 11 AM – 1 PM
Le Pain Quotidien on Broadway and 11th
801 Broadway
NYC, NY 10003
Corner of Broadway & 11th Street

Webster Hall for The Anachronism!
Sunday, April 3rd at 3 PM – 11:30 PM

RSVP on Facebook

Click hear to read our initial announcement with direct links to Button Me Up.

BBC America Features Steampunks!!

A few weeks back, I was invited to attend Steampunk Stylin' in Brooklyn. Unfortunately, I couldn't get away in order to make it down to the wondrous City of New York. This disappointed me because it meant I couldn't hang out with awesome Steampunk pal Ay-leen the Peacemaker or any of the other NYC area Steampunks.

It's also bothersome because BBC America filmed a story on the event, which was all kinds of cool. I mean, I could've been on the same network that I watch Doctor Who on! Awesome right?

Anyway, I have to be content with watching this video on the story instead:


STEAMPUNKS 2011 from Andy Gallacher on Vimeo.

Call for Submissions: Cottonopolis: Steampunk Manchester

Matt's Note: I got alerted to this by Twitter friend @SheWolfManc, and said I'd post it here for you wonderful folks to see.

Call for Submissions: Cottonopolis: Steampunk Manchester

Submissions wanted for a new anthology of steampunk fiction set it Manchester. In the Age of Steam, Manchester ruled – the world’s first industrialized city; the first passenger railway station for new steam-powered transport; multi-millionaires pouring their money into Gothic libraries and trying to ignore the sprawling slums.

One 19th-century commentator wrote of Manchester:  “A thick black smoke covers the city. The sun appears like a disc without any rays. In this semi-daylight 300,000 people work ceaselessly. A thousand noises rise amidst this unending damp and dark labyrinth ...the footsteps of a busy crowd, the crunching wheels of machines, the shriek of steam from the boilers, the regular beat of looms, the heavy rumble of carts, these are the only noises from which you can never escape in these dark half-lit streets”

What if these days had not come to an end? What if Cottonpolis, the Warehouse City, had gone from strength to steam-powered strength? We’re looking for new and established writers to contribute dark fiction tales for a new collection of stories that imagines that this ‘damp and dark labyrinth’ really was ‘unending’.

Editor: Hannah Kate
Publisher: Hic Dragones

What we want: Edgy dark steampunk fiction set in a fictionalized future Manchester. Some familiarity with the city and its history is advisable. Any interpretation within these bounds is welcome. Queer, trans, cis, straight are all welcome. Pure Victoriana is discouraged, as we are looking for stories set in an imagined future. (And, I should warn you, we are unlikely to be publishing any celebrations of imperialism!)

Word Count: 3000-5000

Submission Guidelines: Electronic submissions as .doc, .docx, .rtf attachments only. 12pt font, 1.5 or double spaced. Please ensure name, title and email address are included on attachment.

Email to submissions [at] hic-dragones [dot] co [dot] uk.

Submissions are welcome from anywhere, but must be in English.

Submission Deadline: Monday 6th June 2011



Their website: http://www.hic-dragones.co.uk/#/publishing/4546989763

The Roots of Steampunk Research Project

If you've been following my writings here for awhile, you'll remember the Roots of Steampunk series that I put together in April of last year going through the development of the genre from the early 1800s to roughly the 1930s. Those blog posts turned into an academic research article, which also turned into a 90-minute presentation given at Upstate Steampunk in South Carolina.

The article I wrote, by the way, is going to be published in a forthcoming anthology from Cambridge Scholars Press, an academic press based in England. No idea when the antho is coming out, but believe me you'll hear about it.

Anyway, I tell you all this because my research into the literary roots of Steampunk is going through yet another expansion. This time, my intention is to craft an entire book examining the roots of the Steampunk subgenre, including both literature and film as part of the mix.

This presents a new problem for me though: I only know of a limited list of works that constitute the roots of Steampunk. And that is where you all come in. Leave me your suggestion for a book, author, or film that you'd like me to examine as part of my research and I will make certain I consider it.

This is your chance to be part of a research project. How about it?

GUEST POST: You can Steampunk Revolution, but Revolution will Never be Steampunk

Cross-posted, with author Jaymee Goh's permission, from Silver Goggles.

That will be tonight's #steampunkchat topic: steampunk and revolution.

Let me explain this title. 

Revolutions and rebellions are, by their nature, painful things. They come about from oppressive environments. They are started with discontent people who band together to overthrow their conditions. 

Wikipedia defines revolutions as "a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time," which I don't have to tell you is an incredibly flawed perspective. Revolutions turn power structures upside-down, but often, it means a replacement of one elite with another elite. 

But revolutions must occur, because the alternative is to be silent and sit still while an oppressive regime erodes the rights of the community. 

Steampunk as technofantasy, steampunk as retrofuturism, steampunk as eco-critical position, steampunk as alternate history, steampunk as roleplaying subculture -- could never truly encompass all that revolution entails. 

Right now there are revolutions happening all over the place. I'm not entirely keen on discussing revolution, particularly with relation to steampunk, because I'm not interested in applying a Western gaze to the revolutions happening now in Tunisia and Egypt (if steampunk isn't Eurocentric, then Beyond Victoriana and this blog wouldn't exist). You are wholly encouraged to educate yourself and keep abreast of the happenings.

In steampunk literature, however, there can be an undercurrent of discontent and unrest, in terms of class, if not also race. Sterling and Gibson's Difference Engine, for example, has an atmosphere for political unrest (which I'm not going to claim to understand). Westerfeld's Leviathan illustrates how the Serbs were scapegoats for starting WWI, building off the unrest that was building between the governments of Europe at the time, and in Behemoth shows the protagonists working with revolutionaries in Turkey (referencing the unrest with the Ottoman Empire that, in real life, manifested in the Young Turks Revolution). 

Perhaps on a more familiar ground, Stephen Hunt's Court of the Air depicts a revolution of Carlists, paralleling Marxism-inspired movements, overthrowing the Jackellian government. The Carlist movement, however, proceeds to re-create the citizens, "equalizing" them forcibly -- an example of how revolutions, even with the best goals, re-create the same oppressive conditions that the previous hierarchy enforced. 

What does revolution look like in a steampunk setting, in which industrialization has begun? Why would revolutions happen then? How would such a revolution differ from the revolutions we have seen happen in the past? How would accelerated technology be harnessed, either by governments suppressing revolts or the masses pushing back against oppressive regimes? 

Terms for Discussion:

This is not the space to ask "how can we steampunk revolution?" without asking the accompanying questions of, who's revolting? Why? What are the systems in place? 

This is not the space to draw real-world parallels without critically engaging the importance of their happening, their significances to today's geo-political landscape, and their effects on the real people that lived then.

This is also not the space to play conflict resolutions officer. Show some respect for real events and tread with care. 

What's happening right now in Egypt and Tunisia is important, because it behooves us, as writers and consumers of steampunk cultural product, to be mindful of how large-scale changes in just a few aspects of life can affect whole societies. It is imperative that we not create a spectator sport of painful events that are borne out of oppression, even as we speculate on how we might reproduce such events.

See you all tonight.

Victorian Era Recycling

The men and women of Victorian England were one of the most sustainable generations in British history.

Surprising statement, huh? Especially because we equate the Victorian Era with choking smog and dank city streets rife with poverty and waste. Or at least that's what much popular media has shown us of the Victorian Age in Britain.

What's closer to the truth is that social historians have a hard time finding examples of Victorian clothing because the fine dress of an upper class British woman might be passed down to the maid when the lady was done with it. Then the maid wore it for awhile, and then sell the dress at a second-hand shop or pass it down to her daughter. The next level would then use the dress until it fell to pieces. Then they'd either convert the dress into a duster or sell it to a rag-and-bone man who might sell it to a paper-maker to turn into paper.

Take a look at a piece of good quality paper from the Victorian Era and you can probably still see the ink in perfect condition. Paper made from rags doesn't shrivel and decompose the same way paper made from wood pulp does. But of course the contemporary way of making paper is a whole heckuva lot cheaper than making paper from rag content was. Especially because you needed a consistent supply of rags in order to make the paper.

Rags were also used as backing for rugs, or even to make the rugs themselves according to a Birmingham Post article from 2008. The Post interviewed Traci Dix-Williams, manager of the Blists Hill Victorian Town in Ironbridge, Telford. To say the least, Ms. Dix-Williams enumerated a whole mess of ways the Victorians reused materials. Here's a smattering:

“Items made of glass and metals were returned to merchants and ash was turned into building material.”

"... a Victorian kettle with a leak would be resealed, thinning bedsheets would be sides-to-middled, worn collars and cuffs turned, and old coats and trousers which were threadbare transformed into rag rugs.

“People would go to bakers and brewers, begging for old sacks to form the backing for the rugs, which were made from short inch-wide strips of material.

“The brewers in turn would buy old clothes and wool which they dug into hop fields to improve the quality of the beer.”

And we think the 21st Century is the age of recycling!

Henry Mayhew, who writes about the Dustmen of London in his work London Labour and the London Poor, talks about the collection of chimney ash and the dust swept out from homes across the city. According to Mayhew:

The dust thus collected is used for two purposes, (1) as a manure for land of a peculiar quality; and (2) for making bricks. The fine portion of the house-dust called "soil," and separated from the "brieze," or coarser portion, by sifting, is found to be peculiarly fitted for what is called breaking up a marshy heathy soil at its first cultivation, owing not only to the dry nature of the dust, but to its possessing in an eminent degree a highly separating quality, almost, if not quite, equal to sand...The finer dust is also used to mix with the clay for making bricks, and barge-loads are continually shipped off for this purpose.

Ms. Dix-Williams had also mentioned in the Birmingham Post article that a layer of dust would be put between the inner sole and outer sole of a boot so as to make it more comfortable. So there you have at least two industries that need dust -- cobblers and brick-makers.

Thrift was a way of life in Victorian England, and one that the Victorians became quite good at. They had to, seeing as the average Victorian man's salary barely covered rent and food. They had nothing even approaching a disposable income or the types of credit cards that the Western republics exist on today. If you lived in Victorian England, then you made darn sure you used what you had until it fell apart. Now that's a recycling program.

Dark Days in Bright City, Part Five

All right faithful readers, I am proud to present to you the final installment of "Dark Days in Bright City." Enjoy!

Swallow of Butcher is loud in room. Fear shines in eyes when I step back. Gun hammer clicks twice. Cacophony of gunshot vibrates air; smoke fills space between. I wave smoke away. Butcher is slumped in chair, bullet hole in forehead leaking blood. I step close to inspect wound. Brain matter decorates floor in spray pattern from force of shot. I lift head of Butcher and look in dead eyes.

“May soul burn in Appolyon’s mouth.” I spit in face of dead man. Eyes open and staring in shock forever. Butcher did not expect arrival of death. Now I dispose of body. Is not good to leave evidence of vengeance.

Warehouse door explodes inward. I roll away from body and come to feet running. Shouts of Gendarmes carry from front of building, but I do not stop. Only stupid man engages superior numbers when no advantage is had. I slam through back door into alley.

Footsteps clatter against cobblestones. Engines roar to life somewhere nearby. I run three blocks before turn. Second door down alleyway is open, precisely as I left. I slam door shut on moonlit night. Place is hidden well from Gendarmes. Now I wait for cease of pursuit.

Warmth blooms in me at memory of fear in dead eyes of Butcher. Plea in his voice was symphony. Face of Sonya rises in memory, and sadness grows in heart. Death of Butcher important, but does not bring back love of life. No more will I hear laugh, or name called in lilting voice. Darkness sits over grief; satisfaction is not forthcoming like I expect. I caress rough edge of poison pill with tongue again. Perhaps I will see Sonya again if I bite. Idea has merit. I cannot say how much.

THE END

Parts One to Four can be found over at this handy link. Remember this story originally appeared in Fissure Magazine's November issue (available for sale through Shadow Archer Press). Hope you liked the story!