May’s always been a peak time for retrofuturistic adventuring, and there’s at least one event happening every weekend next month. Reporting about them is my pal Kevin Steil, the Airship Ambassador and our guest contributor S.J. Chambers, best known as the co-author of The Steampunk Bible with Jeff Vandermeer and co-propagator of its associated website, The Steampunk Bible 2.0.
For those interested in having your event listed as part of our round-up in the future, email me at attic.hermit@gmail.com. I’ll be accepting details for June events from now until May 19th. ‘Til then, get your steamer trunk packed and ready, and check out some fancy dress shindigs after the jump.
Spring is coming… and along with Easter bunnies, tax deadlines, and 
Fans of dragons and historical alternate history alike must know about Naomi Novik’s popular Temeraire series, where dragons and men battle during the Napoleonic Wars. Lively, uniquely-drawn characters and intriguing takes on history are two aspects I adore about these books, plus the international scope Novik brings to her storytelling. Though the war is raging through Europe, other non-European nations get slowly drawn into the mix, and Novik presents each society and their human-dragon relations in a nuanced manner. In China, for example, dragons and men are treated as equals. In England, dragons are considered widely as nothing more than working beasts capable of speech. African dragons, on the other hand, are respected as the reptilian reincarnation of deceased tribal elders.
Steampunks are a-gathering as the tail-end of the winter season arrives (and it’s still appropriate to wear all those layers!) Among other things this March, stop in for a pub quiz at The Way Station, celebrate Steampunk Ottawa’s 3rd anniversary, or have a picnic or three! Kevin Steil of 
Before Jules Verne and H.G. Wells came onto the literary scene with their scientific romances, another genius inventor took the stage: Frank Reade, the 19th century whiz kid who tackled the globe with his fleet of electronic-powered vehicles in a series of popular dime novels. Scholars like Jess Nevins argue that Frank Reade and other 
For every upcoming month, I’ll be spotlighting various steampunk events across the US and around the world (we’re a social bunch!) with the help of the 
The steampunk community is pretty open to all creative types, but for those who are looking for any basic how-to books in order to get those artistic juices flowing, they are of a limited sort. A few craft books exist for jewelry and sewing projects, and there are online resources popping out everyday too. Yet for an efficient all-in-one resource for basic prop-making, one book I’d recommend to inspire a steampunk-in-the-making is Thomas Willeford’s Steampunk Gear, Gadgets and Gizmos: A Maker’s Guide to Crafting Modern Artifacts. This book has already garnered some attention in sci-fi circles, and I had the opportunity to attain a copy myself for some project inspiration.
“I really wanted to write a pulp detective story and everything that it would entail, so I set in New York City,” Adam Christopher explained during his reading of Empire State at the Mid-Manhattan Library last Tuesday. Our reading location was in full view of the famous Library Lions of Fifth Avenue, which were draped in nighttime shadows as the faceless crowd, wrapped in their dark winter jackets, bustled by; looking at this atmospheric backdrop, I could understand how NYC can become a gritty inspiration to any outsider. But more than giving just a tip of the fedora to a classic American genre, Christopher talked about how superheroes, Prohibition, and alternate universes all play a role in his debut novel (read Tor’s 
As steampunk events go, the best ones create a space for a real meeting of creative minds. Oh, and good alcohol helps, too. Across the pond in London, at the bookstore Blackwell’s Charing Cross, the booksellers will be hosting a get-together on December 8th, packed with literary & artistic creativity.
Today, we tip our hats to another steampunk inspiration, Lady Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (but better known just as “Ada Lovelace”): mathematical genius, music-lover, and the daughter of Lord Byron. Her love of mathematics was instilled from a young age for surprising reasons; her math-loving mother was determined to squish any romantic fancies that her paternity might have bestowed upon her daughter. Thus, Ada was brought up to be a mathematician and a scientist, growing adept at the nineteenth-century STEM fields. While she always had a love for math and technological gadgets, she still retained a sense of imaginative soulfulness and once asked her mother whether she could have a “poetical science” of her own. This primarily came out in her fascination with music composition.
