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Blogging in the name of Steampunk. Guest bloggers weekly. "In Steampunk Voices Only" |
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From May 2017 entries are entered into "The Bard's Hall Contest"  From May 2017 entries are entered into "Invalid Item" Blogging in the Name Of ... Steampunk. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Guest Bloggers by week. All steampunk, all the time.
  AS WAY OF INTRODUCTION “Steampunk is a genre and a subculture that's all about a past that wasn't. We feel free to reinvent that past however we see fit.” - Nick Ottens, Gatehouse Gazette. Blogging is an outlet for writing and self expression. Many of us blog while holding down full time jobs. Many of us blog while living full and interesting lives. Many of us blog about how boring our lives have become. Steampunk is a form of speculative fiction that deals primarily in anachronism and alternative universes. It’s roots lie in adventure, romance, and re-imaginitive technology. Blogging on Writing.com is more then the documenting of the pedantica in our everyday lives, it is about utilising our innate curiousity and ,yes, our creativity to express ourselves about our lives whether they are big or small. Blogging on WDC has become as much about the poetry and the prose as it has about the pedantica. The purpose of this blog is as simple as it is exciting: let's reimagine our lives as only those on Writing.com can. THE NITTY GRITTY To be a featured SteamPunk Blogger you MUST be a member of the SteamPunk Authors Guild and you must be prepared to blog as if you live in a Steampunk World. There will be a link in "The Steampunk Boiler Room" with more details including, importantly, a roster and any (sparse) rules or suggestions. I do suggest that Steampunk Bloggers utilise the many blog prompts and challenges here on Writing.Com as a source of inspiration.Donations are welcome and will be used to promote the blog only, and perhaps pay the authors. If I get enough donations I will set up a fund, otherwise just donate to the "Welcome to the Steampunk Authors' Guild" . THE ROSTER As the Blimp Pilot of this Incorrigible Dirrigible herein known as Blimpy McBlimpy, I will from time to time post pertinent news about all things Steampunk and all things Steampunk Authors Guild. If you have a Steampunk item, event or hankering let me know and I will endeavour to accomodate you as all good Blimp Pilot's should. Now, about manning levels. First cab off the rank is yours truly, to get the sails set as they might say. Then Kate - Writing & Reading   will be taking the wheel. And then there will be ... others. This section of the page will be a permanent record of those partaking on this wondrous flight.  [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] |
| STEAMPUNK STORY TEASER Editor's Note: If you'd like your STEAM PUNK story featured here (with a read more link to the item in your portfolio) then all you have to do is REVIEW a STEAM PUNK story that has been featured on this blog and post the review ID as a comment on this entry. I will then feature the STEAMPUNK story of your choice (from your portfolio). I will also be featuring (legal) snippets from published STEAMPUNK authors for your benefit. Have a favourite STEAMPUNK novel? Leave a comment here and I will feature it and then we can all have a GASBAG about it. Donations are welcome and will be used to promote the blog only, and perhaps pay the authors. If I get enough donations I will set up a fund, otherwise just donate to the "Welcome to the Steampunk Authors' Guild" .Ellie Claven was in trouble again. One of the constables had caught her trying to get into the tunnels under the city and had dragged her, kicking and fighting, back home. It was just her bad luck too; the constable happened to walk by the alley just as she was removing the loose boards from the sealed-up access door. If he had passed by thirty seconds earlier or later, she would be exploring the under-city labyrinth right now. Lately, the tunnels were the only place she felt free. Ever since Vernon Rourk had taken control of the city with his Constructs, life hadn't been the same. Governor Rourk was a brilliant man who had convinced the city to create a security force of mechanized soldiers, which he then promptly used to overthrow the Governing Council and install himself as the city's sole authoritarian leader. His title may say Governor, but everyone in Capitol City new Dictator would have been more appropriate. Ellie struggled against the constable's iron grip on her shirt collar as they walked toward her house. She lived with her parents in the two-room apartment above her father's workshop in one of the forgotten corners of Capitol City's commercial districts. He made his modest living as a machinist, fixing or replacing broken parts in other people's gadgets and gizmos. "Ellington!" Mrs. Claven exclaimed with an exasperated sigh when she opened the door to find Ellie standing there with the constable. "Where have you been?" "Caught her trying to sneak into the tunnels, ma'am." "Of course you did," Mrs. Claven said, glaring at her daughter. "How many times do we have to tell you to stay out of there? It's not allowed!" The look on Mrs. Claven's face was enough to cause both Ellie and the constable to avert their gazes to the floor. The constable took a step back toward the door, figuring that Mrs. Claven's punishment was likely to be far more severe than the mere citation that he could issue for trespassing. "Well, it seems that you have everything in order here. Please make sure that she doesn't go down in the tunnels again. I can only let her off with a warning once." "Thank you, constable." Mrs. Claven said, and dragged her daughter inside. Ellie spent the remainder of the evening being lectured by her parents. Mrs. Claven spent the better part of an hour laying into her, extolling the importance of following the rules and not getting into trouble. Then Mr. Claven came upstairs after closing the shop and the lecturing began anew. Ellie knew they weren't bad parents, but she hated the way they always insisted on doing everything by the book. If there was a rule to be followed, it was followed to the letter in the Claven household. What made everything particularly intolerable was Governor Rourk was forever coming up with new and ridiculous laws and regulations. First it was a sunset curfew for everyone with a birthday in June; then a monthly tithing from all industrial workers; and, just last week, a mandate that strawberries were the only berries allowed within the city limits. Mr. and Mrs. Claven immediately complied with all of these demands without question. When she couldn't escape to the tunnels, Ellie instead escaped into the world of fantasy. She read pulp novels, which were traded among her friends at school. Her favorites featured a soldier of fortune named Josiah Jessup, who was supposedly a real vigilante in Capitol City. When the Constructs helped Rourk take over, the first thing they did was kill everyone on the Governing Council, including their staff and security forces. Jessup was the only one to survive the massacre, but just barely escaped from their fortified Citadel with his life. Since then, he has devoted his life to hunting down the Constructs and destroying them, one by one, and looking for a way to get to Rourk inside the Citadel. Most of her friends dismissed Josiah Jessup stories as sensational fiction; after all, no one could really take on the Constructs and defeat them. They were made of assembled machine parts – old pieces of clocks and appliances and factory machinery – which made them effectively invincible. Bullets, knives, fists, poisons... all useless. The only two effective means that rebels had found, according to rumor, was nitroglycerin and cannons. A cannonball was big and blunt enough to smash a Construct to pieces, and nitro could blow them to bits, but neither one was a practical weapon to use in the city streets without serious risk to other people and their homes and businesses. Still, Ellie liked to imagine that Josiah Jessup was out there somewhere, fighting the good fight and trying to defeat Governor Rourk. That afternoon, school was dismissed early on account of one of her classmates had brought a homemade rocket to school and accidentally set it off in the boys' bathroom while showing it to some friends. Two toilets and a sink exploded, as did a good chunk of the school's main water pipeline, flooding the building and forcing everyone home for the day while it was repaired. Rather than sit at home for an extra two hours, Ellie used the opportunity to sneak off to the tunnels. She loved the tunnels and their labyrinthine complexity. They were off limits because most people got hopelessly lost down there, but Ellie had spent so much time in them, that she knew them all by heart. If you dropped her in the tunnels and gave her a destination anywhere in the city, she could get there with nary a wrong turn. This time, she made sure that the coast was clear before prying off the boards on the access door. She slipped inside and descended the stairs into the tunnels. She always stuck to the upper tunnels; the lower tunnels were used for drainage and you never could tell when a passage would be unexpectedly flooded with dirty water, or worse, sewage. No, she stuck to the upper tunnels, which were once used as a traveling method for servants and couriers, who could travel and transport things all over the city without getting in the way of the aristocracy who, in that day, wanted the streets kept clear of commoners and tradesmen. When the Citadel was constructed, however, the rest of the city was opened up to the commoners and tradesmen. The Citadel was a high-walled oasis where the Governing Council and other important city officials could live, sheltered from the common folk that lived in the city. Once the Citadel was finished, the tunnels were boarded up and the streets were used by everyone, although Ellie suspected there was another reason why they were off limits; she could get into the Citadel through the tunnels. There were a few branches of a few older tunnels that ran right under the Citadel itself, and Ellie had used them before to sneak inside and steal trinkets and memorabilia, which she kept locked up tight at the bottom of the chest at the foot of her bed. The tunnels themselves were carved into the bedrock a dozen feet below street level. The walls were mostly rough and uneven, with only the minimal amount of arches, support beams and other stone and woodwork to keep them from collapsing. The floors were loose gravel and dirt, packed firm from years of travel. Ellie would use her portable oil lantern when she was down here; by far the best gift her parents had ever given her. It was a clear, cylindrical tube about the size of a flashlight, with a reserve of kerosene. You lit the wick of the candle and closed it up inside the aerated canister, which then amplified the light through the magnified glass walls; it was easily capable of illuminating a fifty-foot length of passageway. She loved it. .... READ MORE The story continues in Jeff  portfolio. Be sure to finish reading about Ellie and her steampunk world at
And, don't forget to leave a review! --- SteamPunk Newsletter Out Now!
--- Johny Thundersbeard Editor, Mentor & Member. "The Steampunk Authors' Guild " --- WDC Author of the Month May 2012 30DBC Administrator, Judge & Rejigger 2012. Forum Master "Invalid Item" 2016. |
Featured Steam Punk Story & Author:
Slowly, the Swift picked himself up from the gravel-coated tar-paper roof where he had been forced down. He glanced quickly around for immediate danger, and seeing none, checked himself for injury. His tough gloves were scuffed but undamaged; on his right knee, just above his black Wellington boot, the thick material of his slate-gray jodhpurs was torn, but the joint itself had escaped harm. Next, he checked the slender, aluminum struts of his wings. The fact that he had folded them before impact had saved them from being snapped in the tumble, but one of the three fingers of the left wing was bent out of alignment. He gripped the incredibly expensive metal on either side of the kink and, straining, was able to straighten it to an approximation of its former position. The slick material of the membranes, at least, was untorn. Breathing a sigh of relief, he adjusted the complicated web of leather straps that held the experimental rig to his back and checked the pressure gauge mounted next to his wrist chronometer. The boiler was working perfectly. The fuel pellets he had developed should be enough to keep a steady supply of steam to power the thruster unit for another hour or so. He hoped that would be enough, because the slowly rising buzz that filled the audio enhancement cups mounted in his helmet’s earflaps warned that the drone was coming around for another run at him. A quick glance southward showed the dirigible dwindling beyond the Statue of Liberty as Professor Delirium Tremens made his escape with the Kilimanjaro Ruby. And with Harriet. --- Continue This Featured Steam Punk Story in author CeruleanSon  portfolio,
--- Editor's Note: If you'd like your STEAM PUNK story featured here (with a read more link to the item in your portfolio) then all you have to do is REVIEW a STEAM PUNK story that has been featured on this blog and post the review ID as a comment on this entry. I will then feature the STEAMPUNK story of your choice (from your portfolio). I will also be featuring (legal) snippets from published STEAMPUNK authors for your benefit. Have a favourite STEAMPUNK novel? Leave a comment here and I will feature it and then we can all have a GASBAG about it. SteamPunk Newsletter Out Now!
--- Johny Thundersbeard Editor, Mentor & Member. "The Steampunk Authors' Guild " --- WDC Author of the Month May 2012 30DBC Administrator, Judge & Rejigger 2012. Forum Master "Invalid Item" 2016. |
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