Dogs of S.T.E.A.M.

For those of you following the Paws & Claws saga, you'll be glad (or chagrined) to learn that Dogs of S.T.E.A.M., fifth book in the series, is available, both in print and e-book formats. Rather than tell you about the story, I wanted to share something about how the book came into being.

The first four books

Back in 2012, I wrote Paws & Claws: A Three Dog Mystery, first book in what was to become a series. At the time, however, I had no real intention of writing more about Levi, Sunny, Yoda and the Three Dog Detective Agency. It was something I had discussed often with Levi, and something I had put off for one reason or another. After writing and, ultimately, publishing it, I decided I did not want to let it end there. As I often did with short stories, I sat down and wrote a dozen or so titles which I thought might lend themselves to stories. The first book was based on true events (yes, even the spider money), but my fidelity to real events decreased with each succeeding book. The second (Flight of Raptors) was more fact than not; the third (K-9 Blues) was maybe 50/50; and the fourth (The Death & Life of an American Dog) was quite a bit more fiction than fact, though I always included real places, real dogs and cats, and illustrated the books with photographs rather than drawings. With the fifth book, which because of the title had to include steampunk, Victorian London, time travel and alternate universes, I realized I would have to reply more on fiction than actual events. After all, my dogs have never traveled into the past, journeyed into alternate dimensions or saved the British Empire...as far as I know. They don't tell me everything. Be that as it may, I still wanted to illustrate the book with photos, use real Chula Vista-area locales, and include some of the animals that fans e-mailed me, a group I call "animals of character." I had four animals of character to work into the story to greater or lesser degrees. 

The first of these was June (r), a dog nominated by artist Jason Thompson. I was taken when I saw his picture of his little hunter up a tree. The only real change I had to make was to take out the leash which kept her from running after her heart's desire. It was a fairly easy matter. With Kelsey (l-front) and Sammy (l-rear), two Shih Tzu dogs nominated by Mike and Jenny Meyers, it was a little more complicated. I had two separate photos of the dogs which I needed to combine into a single photo. Since, within the plot, one of the Dogs of S.T.E.A.M. is drawn to their home because it resembles the dog's own Victorian Age, I took the two dogs and put them into a more appropriate setting. To make it look a little more authentic, I turned it into a sepia tone (for the e-book edition only) to give it the appearance of  being a daguerreotype. All in all, I think both photos work well in their own ways. The fourth dog was a Gordon Setter named Artemus Gordon (thanks to Lester Doyle), but because his appearance became much more than a cameo, and he was present at some of the events also represented by photos, I decided to forgo the usual photo of him.

This is the first book in the series where I used locales in addition to Chula Vista. I also included scenes set in South San Diego and in Otay, an unincorporated area a little south of Chula Vista. In addition to contemporary locations, however, some of the action took place in London of 1887, one of which was the London Gasworks, where the Dogs of S.T.E.A.M. raid one of the secret lairs of the sinister and nefarious Lord Cerberus, a dog like no other on Earth. For the photo above, I combined a photo of the Gasworks with two others, a full moon and a night sky. Using a graphics program called GIMP, I filled the canals with mist, painted moonlight on some portions of the complex, and deepened some of the shadows. Lastly, I gave it a sepia cast (e-book edition) to make it seem more like an actual period photo.

Kindle Edition

Print Edition

This was the first book in the series to have two different covers, one for print and one for Kindle. The print edition uses a photo manipulated in GIMP. I inserted two dogs (the one wearing goggles was itself edited) into a public domain photo of London. I liked the photo, except it had a big boat in the background, which was not only distracting but had nothing to do with the story. I took it out. Change the composite photo to sepia tone again, and Bob's your uncle. For Kindle edition, I used the same photo, but cropped it to a vertical format using a graphics program called Irfan. For the actual composition of the crop, I have to thank the Wife, who provided aesthetic advice. Recently I discovered a design website called Canva,com, a great resource if you are working on a book cover, an album cover, a poster or even a Facebook banner and have a working budget to $0.00. I used their layout tools to size the photo, then their typography section to add author, title and series number. It addition to a lot of free stuff, it has a learning curve that is mostly flat, and even has design education segments for those who need tutelage in the subject. I recently used the site to redo the cover of the short story The Dog Who Loved Sherlock Holmes. The original cover is on the left, the re-done one on the right. I think it a big improvement.

Of course, the real question about Dogs of S.T.E.A.M. is:

"How did you come up with such a wild story? How did you plot a tale about some canine detectives from Chula Vista getting involved with a group of steampunk dogs from Victorian London, who then battle Lord Cerberus and his herald Lilith, not only for the fate of London and the British Empire, but for the destiny of myriad timelines, including ours?"

Actually, that was the easy part. I just wrote down everything the characters did and said. Yep, easy.

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Will the Real Vulcan Please Stand Up

The second book in the interplanetary steampunk
adventures of Capt Robert Folkestone and Sgt
Felix Hand is available in print and Kindle editions

A common saying among writers and editors is that it is easier to write a first novel than a second one. When it came to writing my Great American (Steampunk) Novel, however, it was just the opposite. From idea and first words typed to publication, it took about six years for Shadows Against the Empire to come to fruition. Of course, a great deal happened in those six years, including a life-and-death struggle with a work-weasel, innumerable bouts of writers' block, several medical crises, the acquiring and firing of  a literary agent, multiple false starts, character and plot changes beyond count, and the abyss of retirement (which is not easy to adjust to after a lifetime of work). Eventually I escaped the razor-sharp teeth of the weasel, banished my inner demons (most of them), came to an uneasy peace with the people in my book, coped with retirement, and wrote the story. In contrast, the second book, Amidst Dark Satanic Mills, took about five months from idea to final draft. Personal crises aside, the main difference in the writing of the two books was that I knew my characters much better than I did on that first outing. Whenever I write a novel, I start with a character sheet on which I have mini-biographies of each person. A biography is great for consistency, such as making sure an eye-patch does not suddenly change eyes in the midst of a story or that a mechanical arm does not become a mechanical leg, but it does not really give you any clues about their personalities. In the first book, the characters grew into their roles through their dialogue, actions and reactions. By the time I reached the end of the first book, my characters were old friends. So, when it came to their second adventure, it was a reunion rather than a first date. They still surprised me from time to time, but even the best of friends can be challenging. There was a complication in writing the story, but it had nothing to do with the characters or the plot. No, it had to do with Star Trek.

Professor Lewis Swift--Astronomer & Searcher for Vulcan

While the previous book had been set mostly on Mars, Venus and Earth (London & Constantinople), I wanted the second novel to explore a bit more of my Victorian-inspired solar system, so after getting the action started on Mars and Earth (Paris), I expanded it to the Asteroid Belt and Mercury. I also wanted to take the story to a planet that had long fascinated me--Vulcan. No, not that Vulcan, the other Vulcan. What Vulcan would that be, you ask? The planet in our solar system orbiting between the Sun and Mercury. What? You can't find it? Okay, I admit it--it's not there, and maybe never was, but back in the Nineteenth Century many astronomers looked for it and a few claimed to have found it. One of the most prominent astronomers was the American Lewis Swift, whom I included as a character in the story. Professor Swift was supposed to make a cameo appearance, just enough to set Folkestone and Hand on the way to the mysterious secret headquarters of the nefarious MEDUSA organization. Well, that was the plan, but Professor Swift was so enthusiastic about discovering and naming the planet that I could hardly leave him behind on Mercury. The theoretical planet had always been called Vulcan, from the early 1800s on, but say "Vulcan" to anyone now and all they can think of is pointy ears.

Vulcan from the pulps.

Thanks a lot, Star Trek! I thought about bowing to tradition and calling the planet in the story Vulcan--let confusion reign! But I did not want the name to overshadow the plot, to, in effect, be a show stopper. Yes, I agonized over the issue. It seems silly to be so overwrought about such a small point, but, hey, that's what writers do best. Then I thought, Well, if Professor Swift wants to come along for the ride, then he can pay his way by providing a subplot which will not only uncomplicate the planet's name, but provide a little humor along the way. As it, turns out, Professor Swift was also known for naming more comets than any other astronomer at the time. In this alternate timeline, he is used to having his way in choosing the names of his comets. He feels he should have the same freedom in choosing the name of his planet, and he is not enamored with the tradition followed by the British Astronomical Society, mandating the use of Roman names for all planetary bodies. He wants to use the Greek equivalent Hephaestus instead. With a little help from Sergeant Hand (that cheeky Martian devil is always up for a bit of mischief) I was able to use the staid Professor Swift as a foil for taking jabs at tradition, officialdom and Star Trek. Having monkeyed with Planet Vulcan, I could not leave the Vulcans untouched. No pointy ears. No cool 60s hairdos. No raised eyebrows, superior smirks or vapid LLAP. Instead we have giant faceless fiery worms who drink lava and manipulate arcane energies. Take that, Star Trek!

A Journey Into the Realm of Steam...and Goggles...and Stuff

Gaslight Gathering 4 Poster

Last weekend (May 2-4, 2014) I attended Gaslight Gathering 4, a steampunk convention. I was invited to give a 2-hour presentation on the continuing adventures of Sherlock Holmes and how he fitted into the steampunk universe on Friday, to participate in a panel on the genre of steampunk literature on Saturday, and to autograph copies of my books for an hour in the Vendor Hall. Wait, oh, you have a question, do you? Okay, well, what is it? Quickly now, out with it. After all, we have a blog to get into, so if you have any questions let's get them out of the way. Speak up, I can barely hear you. All right, that's better. What is what? What is steampunk? What do you mean, 'What is steampunk?'" Oh, very well, but you had better take notes since there will be a quiz later.

A simple answer is that steampunk is a form of science fiction based on alternate history (think Star Trek's Mirror Universe or Philip K Dick's The Man in the High Castle), heavily influenced by the literature on the Victorian and Edwardian eras and the technology of those periods. The real answer is a bit more elusive in that it depends on what aspect of steampunk you're talking about. As Diana Vick, longtime veteran of the Seattle steampunk scene, explained, there are three basic aspects of steampunk: 1) Literature 2) Sub-culture and 3) Aesthetic. The literature aspect is pretty much as I explained it above, and includes films like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Wild Wild West, and  20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The sub-culture is a bit harder to explain, but includes costuming, music, art, imagineering, crafting, role playing, gaming and tea dueling. For many people costuming is both their gateway into the sub-culture and the avenue of their expression. Here are a few photos taken by Ed Cavanaugh during the convention...

As you can see, the Victorian Era echoes through all these creations, and yet there is something more. For, as Diana pointed out, if everyone were just going to wear Victorian clothing, it would be nothing more than a historical reenactment group and we would all just sit down to a nice cuppa. But if you have additions like goggles and weapons, as well as accouterments from other cultures such as Japan and China, Native American tribes and France, the Wild West and Germany, not to mention vampires, zombies, super heroes and ghosts, as well as incursions from other literary genres, such as mystery, spy thriller, pulp fiction and romance, you have something more than just an afternoon stroll through Victorian London. As to the "aesthetics" of steampunk, that's more a matter of form than function, a sense of style and design. Cars, coffee makers, jewelry, washing machines, slide projectors, and houses can all be designed with a steampunk aesthetic, and really have nothing (or not much) to do with the literature or sub-culture of steampunk. And, actually, steampunk literature need not have anymore to do with steampunk sub-culture than a modern day Goth would with a Gothic novel. For more insights on the sub-culture of steampunk, please see Diana Vick's essay on the Seven Fallacies of Steampunk.

Much of how those involved with steampunk see it depends on the gateway through which they entered. I came first through literature, then by film and finally music. Long before the term steampunk was coined, I read everything written by Jules Verne, HG Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs, three authors who constantly inspire modern steampunk authors. Additionally there were Arthur Conan Doyle (whose Sherlock Holmes and Professor Challenger fit solidly into, respectively, the Victorian and Edwardian eras) and American writer HP Lovecraft, who wrote with a Victorian sensibility even though his stories were often set in the 1920s. And then there is Edgar Allen Poe, who wrote one of the very first works claimed by the steampunk community, "The Balloon Hoax," published in 1844. Books that also pulled me in were Michael Moorcock's Warlord of the Air (1971), Phil Farmer's The Other Log of Phileas Fogg (1973) and Tim Powers' The Anubis Gates (1983). I was attracted to those books, not because they were steampunk (there was no such term at that point) but because they dealt with alternate history themes, the idea there were worlds where history had followed different paths, a genre that has always fascinated me. Like merging roads, my interests in alternate worlds, Sherlock Holmes, Barsoom and the technological terrors of HG Wells came together in the world of steampunk.

Like many other people, I was a fan of The Wild Wild West, the CBS television show that ran 1965 - 1969, with made-for-television films in 1979 and 1980. In a sense, that show was steampunk before steampunk was steampunk. Creator Michael Garrison pitched it as "James Bond on horseback," which could easily be a description of a modern spy-themed steampunk novel, though these days the horse might be steam-powered. The steampunk sensibilities of the series were fully developed in the 1999 film version, where we have a steam-powered bicycle, a steam-powered tank, and a giant steam-powered spider striding across the landscape. Before that, though, there was 1958's The Fabulous World of Jules Verne, and 1961's Master of the World. Also on television, we had Q.E.D. (1982), the much-missed Adventures of Brisco County Jr (1993), and the even-more-missed Legend (1995) where Richard Dean Anderson played a writer of Victorian western adventures and John de Lancie an avatar of inventor Nikola Tesla.

All those books and films softened me up, so to speak, for the sub-culture of steampunk. Actually, I was quite surprised by the existence of the sub-culture. It never really occurred to me that people might dress up and live out the lives depicted in my reading material. I probably should not have been surprised, for I had known a long time about science fiction and fantasy conventions where costumes were worn, not to mention Comic-Con, where costuming was even more important. But surprised I was, and enchanted. And then I discovered steampunk-influenced music, first through the works of my friend Paul Roland, then by others like Professor Elemental, Abney Park, Steam-Powered Giraffe and Vernian Process. As you know, I've also written a steampunk novel and a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories with steampunk overtones, and am working on another of each, so it does not look as if I will escape the clutches of steampunk anytime soon. I don't know if I'll be invited to Gaslight Gathering 5 in the fall of 2015, and I don't know if I'll attend other steampunk conventions (I'm not the lone wolf type) before then, but I do know that I had a lot of fun, enjoyed meeting like-minded people, was astounded by the costumes and gadgets, and loved autographing books and participating in panels. I end with just a few of the many photos I took at the convention.

An elegant mode of travel

Boston Metaphysical Society

The Brass Wardrobe

Where are that steam-dog's goggles?

Handsome couple with handsome fezzes
celebrating Fez Friday

An airship captain, but his parrot
seems to have...tentacles?

Adam Green: "Put up your dukes, mate!"

Parasol decorating

Steam-powered skateboard

Weapons from 1873 Expedition to Mars

Rapper Poplock Holmes

Tea dueling gents

Tea dueling at its unruffled best...

Tea dueling intimidation

I don't know what it does, but it looks cool.

Old Bill

Poplock Holmes on a Pennyfarthing

Time Machine

Professor Elemental

Keep Calm and Full Steampunk Ahead

Shadows Against the Empire
An Interplanetary Steampunk Adventure

Sometimes things just do not work out according to plan. That's true for everyone, of course, but I think writers run into that maxim head-on every time they try to bring anything from the realm of ideas into material form. A case in point is my newest novel, Shadows Against the Empire. I developed the idea for the story (which was initially Darkness Against the Empire) about five years ago. As with so many of my projects, it started with a theme (steampunk) and a title, then an image -- a Martian slinking through the ruins of Old Cydonia intent upon ousting the British rulers of Mars; from that image, I developed a basic plot heavily influenced by the role-playing game Space 1889, then an outline and a list of characters good and bad with their traits. And I figured it would take me four - five months to write it.

The theme stayed, though as I went along things became more steamy, less punky and more infused with humor. The title was changed. I still have the image of hate-filled Thoza-Joran slinking through the ancient ruins, but now he's in chapter one rather than starting off the story in the prologue, and though he's still up to villainy, he's much less the villain and more a tragic victim of his own hatred. Plot and outline are intertwined for me, so what started as a simple incident-driven plot became more complex and character-driven as I interacted with my characters, and who, to tell you the truth, often refused to follow my orders and speak my dialogue -- characters are as bad as actors sometimes. As for Space 1889, the inspiration is still there, but as the characters found their own voices, so did the story, and many of the aspects of the game that I had thought to bring in no longer seemed to fit. The outline starts off clean, but page after page becomes more and more annotated; same with the character list, as some people changed, others forced their way in, and some even told me they did not like the names I had given them. As for the deadline I imposed...it took me five years to write the first 20,000 words, then two months to write the next 70,000. Funny that.

One of the major changes was in the nature of the British Empire itself. I had planned for a slightly dystopian setting. The characters would, of course, be courageous and brave, but they would be working for the often-less-than-perfect Empire, something along the lines taken by Joseph Conrad in some of his fiction, as in Heart of Darkness, my favorite story. But as I eavesdropped on my characters and observed their interactions with others, I realized that changing history had changed the Empire. The discovery of space travel had two effects on history -- the Earth was no longer the only target for the colonial powers, and the countries that would have become colonies had access to technology they could develop along their own lines (as opposed to the way we "help" people now) and thus meet would-be colonizers on a better footing. And on the planets and inhabited moons, the colonial powers of Earth met people who had been around a long time, so in most cases (especially with the British) it became less a colonial conquest and more an economic and/or political partnership. Of course, it's not perfect -- what is? -- and if the British Empire is still sowing the seeds of its own destruction, perhaps it's at least doing so more slowly. One can hope.

The Solar System of the novel is much different than our own, but more interesting for it. To create it, I looked at astronomical knowledge of the Nineteenth Century, as well as what was theorized by space scientists (not to mention me and Carlos Carrion in the high school library) through the mid-1960s. I also extensively read early science fiction stories as well as the science fantasy planetary stories so popular in the pulps. I wrote here earlier about what we used to believe about the Solar System, and here's what I came up with for the book.

• Mercury -- It rotates in such a way to keep one face turned toward the Sun, so we have a Torrid Zone, a Nightside and an inhabited Twilight (or Temperate) Zone.
• Venus -- Jungles, an extensive riparian network and seas filled with great beasts; it also has two races, the reptilian Nagas who live in jungles, forests and swamps, and a tall pale humanoid race who live in about a dozen very ancient stone cities.
• Earth -- The main difference is that my Earth has some intelligent life on it.
• Luna -- The Moon does not really appear in the book, but I think it will be inhabited. I suppose they could live underground, but if they did, how could someone exclaim "Cities on the Moon, Dad!" as I am looking through a telescope one night.
• Mars -- Ancient and inhabited by at least two races, the yellowish and taller lowlanders, and the shorter and darker highlanders. A world very much haunted by its past.
• The Outer Planets -- They did not make an appearance this time around, except for some casual references, but the planets and the moons are inhabited, and there is probably trouble brewing out there as well.

The technology of the times is steam based, and as the steam engine has made great strides in efficiency since first being discovered by Hero of Alexandria, it is unlikely the gas engine will ever appear except as an oddity. Atmospheric travel is usually with airships, but in Mars' thinner atmosphere air travel is mostly dominated by steam-fliers, though the canals are extensively used for trade. Space travel is based upon "repulsors," a type of levitation technology inspired by some of the ideas floated by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and upon engines that interact with the aether. The Aether was one of the mainstays of Nineteenth Century science, an undetectable substance that filled space and spaces between matter. It was an outgrowth of Aristotelian physics, the fifth form of matter, in addition to air, fire, water and earth; despite its antiquity and unprovability, it was used by Sir Isaac Newton to formulate the Theory of Gravity as well as Albert Einstein in Special Relativity. Even now, some physicists find it easier to explain aspects of the universe by assuming the existence of the Aether than without it.

So, that's a bit of the story behind the story of Shadows Against the Empire: An Interplanetary Steampunk Adventure. As to the story itself...well, you'll have to read the book for that. Hope you like it.