Hooray for History Fans!

And I mean fans in the fangirl/fangent/otakuish sense. Hmm. I just realized something. I used "fangent" to mean a tangent indulged in by fans (a more random and less canonical relative of the fan theory) but when paired with fangirl, it could also be a gentleman who is a fan. This all makes me very happy.

BUT!

Not as happy as this web comic, which I stumbled across by way of Twitter (because random steampunk tidbits soothe my fevered brow better than actual sleep {my brow is fevered because I recently became a computer teacher, while keeping my part-time job at Barnes and Noble.})

It reminds me in a way of Five Fists of Science, but, dare I say(?) better. I feel that there should be a question mark in the previous sentence, so I put one in. And I do dare say it, because FFoS is pretty entertaining, but kind of meh. Any hoo, "The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage" is about Charles Babbage, creator of the first computer, and Ada Lovelace, creator of the first computer program. Apparently they fight crime? It's fantastic.

Even more fantastic (but actually less fantastic inasmuch as it's actually true) are all the links to Primary Source Documents by about the protagonists. I dare not start clicking on any more of them tonight or I really won't get any sleep. And then I won't be able to set up the computers for next week's classes. Maybe I should give the middle school kids a project later to research the history of computers on the interwebz. Whoever can go back the farthest gets a prize.

Of course, depending on how broadly one defines computers, there were even earlier examples of machines that used basic logic, but not to do math. So, since a computer ought to compute, the Difference Engine was the first one.

Diesel Punk. Meh.

I really don't know how I feel about diesel punk. I suppose all on it's own I like it. It's the future that steampunk becomes, followed by raygun gothic. I love the Rocketeer, and Tale Spin. I love heavier-than-air flying machines as much or more than aerostats. But something about it leaves me cold.

I think there are two things about it. The first one is that's it's 20th Century. Sometimes steampunk depresses me a little, because those people in their shiny goggles and lovely clothes and expressions of wonderment are going to have to get to the 20th Century eventually, with its WWI, and its International Style architecture. The 70s happen.... I'm not a fan of alternate history, so there's no help for it.

Still, I find WWI fascinating, and not just because of the aviators. Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan series is a really cool fictionalization/steam/dieselpunkification of it. It has a bunch of the bad stuff in it, but it still retains a sense of worth-whileness and optimism and honor that most WWI stories don't manage. It was a human endeavor, fought with new machines and on a huge scale (although, honestly, hasn't anyone ever heard of the Seven-Years-War? That was really the first World War). Poetry came out of WWI.

Then there were the 20s and 30s. The golden age of aviation, an amazing era of exploration and prosperity (well, the 20s) and just a pretty cool time in general, unless you lived in the Weimar Republic... Strangely, there's not a lot of diesel punk in this era (Talespin and Rocketeer being notable exceptions, although the Rocketeer edges into WWII)

Freaking WWII. Now, I also, find WWII terribly interesting, but overdone. The History Channel, back when they showed history programs, knew of no other wars, and neither do game designers. Or diesel punk fans. My other problem with diesel punk is the fans. They are far more nitpicky than your typical steampunk, going on and on about this and that uniform and tank and gun and whatever. That's all well and good (I will geek out about military hardware all day long) but they ought to be nice about it, like steampunks. Where a steampunk will say "Ooh! What's that? That's awesome! Did you make it up? It's REAL? To wikipedia!" a diesel punk will be more like "They didn't have that yet."



That's the whole point of whatever punk! You cram cool shiny things together and try to figure out how they would work. It's supposed to be fun.

With some very well-done exceptions (most of which are not WWII settings), it seems like a lot of diesel punk is just WWII with more metal, a darker setting O_O and less human spirit. Where steampunk magnifies the heroic and creative person in an era that stood a chance of overshadowing people, diesel punk grinds and mechanizes the individual, rather than telling their stories.

It's all this:



and none of this.

No climbing Pointe du Hoc, no Audie Murphy, no Battle of Britain. Just CG models of extra big tanks, guys in gas masks, and hot SS dominatrices. Now, I know the SS had the snazziest uniforms in the war, and we all know how I feel about jodhpurs, but come on! Poetry came out of WWII too, but I'll save that for later.

Here's the example of nitpicking that prompted this post, a comment on my Talespin AMV, which I had described offhandedly as "baby's first steampunk". The comment was this (caps in the original):

Talespin is DIESEL PUNK as its defined using 30s era equivalent technology, clothing, and terminology. Most notable are Internal Combustion engines and Vacuum tube based electronic technology.

Sure, technically that's true. But who cares? Apparently I do, since I was annoyed enough to write a whole post about it. Anyway, "baby's first diesel punk" doesn't sound as good, and is not as understandable to most people. Maybe that's why diesel punk fans have a chip on their shoulder. They want to get out from under a genre that is all mushy and vague and anything-goes.

While we're over analyzing a cartoon, I might point out that Don Karnage's airship is like the one in Master of the World, which is Jules Verne. At 0:18 in the video you can see the steam engines on the side propellers, and they never specify what powers the upward-pointing rotors. I always figured it was either a later edition he added using piston engines, or else they run off the steam engines too, either using an electric turbine, or a simple belt drive. In the show, the Iron Vulture doesn't even make a typical airship noise (droning propellers) but rather the chugging of a steam engine. Many of his crew also wear older clothes - top hats, for example. He's a bit of a throwback in the setting of the story. The awesome level of detail Disney put into the show means you actually can tell how the tech works, and the pirates, at least, are still a little steampunk.

Is that the point of my video? No. the point is that Talespin is awesome, and Abney Park is awesome.

Chap Hop! Ukuleles! WAR!

This is kind of weird.... so, I've meaning to write a post for a while about ukuleles. No, really. I find it is impossible to feel sad when someone is playing a ukulele, particularly if it is 20s-ish music. For example, this is a delightful song I stumbled across on youtube.

Then I was reading The Chap, one of my favorite magazines of all time (on their website), and they mentioned Mr B the Gentleman Rhymer, who is performing at this year's ball. I remembered him because of the Chap Manifesto, which he set to rap in honor of the publication's tenth birthday. Anyway, here is one of his videos:

I think his banjolele is quite catchy, but apparently there is already a king of chap hop, and he is Professor Elemental. Here is what he has to say:

And the response? I think it's a response....?

Apparently some of the fans are pretty die-hard, but I like them both. Although, Prof. E. does have an album called Indifference Engine, so that gets him brownie points. Anyway, there is one thing we can all agree on:

More fun with youtube

So I made another video. It's not exactly steampunk, but it is from 1906 (apparently). Someone stood on the front of a streetcar going down Market Street in San Francisco, and they filmed everything that went by. It's pretty crazy, particularly the lack of traffic laws.

There are a lot of videos that use this film, and also this one, which I like a lot, that juxtaposes the same film with one taken perhaps two weeks later, after the devastating earthquake. The speed in these videos seems to be the speed at which the film was digitized, and I think it looks eerily slow.

Not mine though. I sped it up to the right speed - as we all know, people walked about 25 percent faster back then. It's how the West was won, people! Or it could have had something to do with undercranking the camera and then playing it back at normal speed. Anyway, it's way funnier if you speed it up, and of course, pair it Vernian Process's incomparable version of the Maple Leaf Rag. I picked an arbitrary speed for the video, which then ended up shorter than the song, so I added some remixy parts to fit the music better.

What you end up with is a Where's Waldo of chaos and insanity. As you watch, try to spot the following:

• 2, possibly 3, newspaper boys
• 1 newspaper man
  
• 2 men nearly getting run over
• 2 women nearly getting run over (at the same time)
• 2 horse-drawn wagons nearly getting run over
• a car driving the wrong way
• a horse galloping very fast
• a wagon going the wrong way
• 4 cars cutting off the streetcar
• a guy in an apron chasing another guy in an apron
• 2 guys hanging onto a car
• a wagon with a skinny horse cutting off a car, and a streetcar

Let me know if I have miscounted, or missed any other funny things.

My heart exploded, I squealed, I fell over, and this is awesome!

Then I came back to life to post this:

It's the latest set in their series of collectible pins that appear in all the shops at Disneyland. There's more info here.

Now, there are two big, glaring problems here. No, it's not that big bad corporate Disney is commercializing Steampunk (get a haircut, hippie). No. Worse. Where the heck is Launchpad?!? And have they never heard of the Disney Afternoon?

Oh well. As I'll be in Disneyland in a week and a half, I may have to look for some of these, since they're awesome. Aviatrix Daisy and Sheriff Goofy are particularly cute, but I'm once again reminded of how uncomfortable it must be for a duck to wear heels... I wonder if any of them hung out with Scrooge and Goldie in the Yukon during the gold rush.

Railroad Day!

Today I went to the Silver Spike Festival in Tucson, which commemorates the 130th anniversary of the railroad coming through Tucson, Arizona. The mayor, in proper mayor attire, seen here to the right of the lady in the white dress (just his top hat, really, but that's what I mean by "proper mayor attire"), proclaimed March 20th "Railroad Day" in Tucson, and there will be festivities every year from now on.

This is good news, because it was a really fun day. They put bunting on the train, which was restored and presented to the city in 1955, in honor of the 75th anniversary of the railroad. When I rule the world, all occasions of civic pride will have bunting.

The great grandson of Estevan Ochoa, an entrepreneur who presented the railroad with a silver spike in 1880, gave a speech, and it included part of Estevan's original words. He said "we must bend our shoulders to the oars of progress, and... become the shining star in the constellation of the United States". The actual silver spike is in the case in front of the train.

They read a lot of the speeches from back then, when people really had a way with words, remarking on how the iron horse, "with pounding, steel-flocked flanks" had linked Tucson with the civilized world, and how men "with their pluck, courage, and capital, brought the iron wheels of progress" etc etc. There were gunfights, and a cannon (fired quite unexpectedly by guys dressed like they were from the old Presidio in 1775), and tons of people in western outfits! Some of the dresses were really amazing, as were the hats:

There were a few steampunk people in the mix, as well - one of them gave me his card (I was dressed steampunk enough to stand out, I guess). Here are some more cool outfits, and a statue of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday, commemorating the time they killed Frank Stilwell in a gunfight at the train station in Tucson, in March of 1882. It was part of the Arizona War, which began with the famous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Stilwell may have killed Morgan Earp.

Mysteriously Steampunk Old Cartoons!

So I was looking up "Come Take a Trip in My Airship" on youtube, because it's an awesome song, and a picture on deviantArt reminded me of it. It was a popular song in 1904, and it's a very cute love song. I found a few videos of a singer named Billy Murray singing it on old phonographs (odd, because the song is from a girl's point of view), and I also stumbled upon this cartoon.

There's this one too, which has the whole song with the lyrics, and is on acid. At 2:48, the adorableness begins, but the whole cartoon is pretty awesome. I like that the second cartoon has it as a duet. Johnny Cash sang it too, but not all the verses. Who would have been a good singer to sing the woman's part with Johnny Cash?

Here's another video using the song, with some really great old airship clips!

Steampunk Quiz

I made this a while ago, and stuck it on the bottom of my blog, but the link is broken now. It never worked that great anyway. So here is the real link to my steampunk quiz. Put your results in the comments!

I forgot!

I was going to use another example in my last post, about technological optimism. I just got Spirit Tracks, the steampunk Legend of Zelda! It's so cute it made me fly away on a hot air balloon to the land of squee, although some people don't like it so much.

There's a temple in the middle of the map that's a roundhouse, and it turns when you unlock more tracks to new realms! As you explore and meet people, they ask you to do things for them (it is Zelda, after all). Said things involve driving them, their friends, and their groceries all over creation. And it's totally fun! All the townspeople are so excited that they are connected by rails now, and they can sell their cuccoos, and meet strange creatures, and see snow. People import goods from far away and start businesses, and all kinds of stuff.

See? Technological optimism. Seriously, it's an awesome game, for many reasons. Although I think I like Phantom Hourglass better. It was harder and had more Linebeck.

The Coming Thing!

...or, Steampunk and Technological Optimism.

There are a couple of reasons I like steampunk more than other subcultures, particularly the ones that are based on aesthetics, music and clothing (music was actually a late comer to mainstream steampunk, if there is such a thing, but now with Abney Park and some other bands, there is definitely that force in the subculture). Also, as far as trends based on literature are concerned, it's less horrifying than most. The first is just the cool style and the fun of it, obviously, the fun coming largely from going "hm, how would you power that with steam?"The other is the optimism. Steampunk takes place in a past with a bright future.

In the nineteenth century, there was the feeling that science would ease the labor of mankind, and free us up for pursuits of art and intellect. We will forget for now that the intellectual movements in the nineteenth century led to slaughter on a scale never before imagined. Anyway, that was the feeling, as demonstrated in the Universal Expositions and Worlds Fairs. Good steampunk reflects this - technology makes the world better, not worse. Our ability to imagine and create is a great strength. New worlds of discovery were being opened up all the time. Even though the technology in steampunk is primitive by today's standards, because it is alternate history, it is forward-looking, and it also keeps alive the idea that the things we make should be beautiful (look at an iPod and try to stay awake). Besides, the stories are usually more about people than machines, which is another nice thing about the genre. Not all steampunk is optimistic, however, and I think it suffers.

Some examples of both types:

The original steampunk (no, not Difference Engine, which I haven't read) - I mean, of course, Jules Verne! As a good science fiction writer, he dreamed up all kinds of new technology, as well as better and more useful versions of existing tech, and portrayed them as wondrous. He also had a number of mad scientist characters. Consider "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea". Captain Nemo is crazy! He's kind of a bad dude! It's interesting that he is a pacifist and believes that society must be controlled through force to protect all the stupid, dangerous people - did Verne recognize something about 19th c. society and science that others, like Wells, did not? Hold that thought. Anyway, the Nautilus itself, and the underwater paradise that Nemo would like to retreat to when he's not terrorizing the seas, is marvelous and good, and who wouldn't want one? It's how Nemo uses it that's wrong, not the science itself. I think, though this is sort of a generalization, that the technological advancements in the 19th c. were good for the world, while the social science was disastrous. Science can't perfect society, or people, but it is worth pursuing . . . FOR SCIENCE!!!

For another, ultimately frustrating, take on that, let's consider "Steamboy". Now, this film is cool-looking. It has some really neat steam machines, and cool action sequences. The animation is very smooth and expensive. It's fun to watch, for the first half of it. The story is just lame. Basically, this kid's father and grandfather are scientists. They invent a magic steam valve that apparently can concentrate steam at low temperatures . . .or something? Anyway, the experiment blows up in the dad's face, boiling him alive and leaving only a damp skeleton covered in pulp- I mean, causing mild skin irritation. They secretly send the valve to the kid and bad guys come after it, until he gets it back to them at the Crystal Palace Exposition. . . and hilarity ensues. Really boring eye-rolling hilarity, until the explosions start. And don't stop. For like an hour. It is Katsuhiro Otomo, after all.

There's some rubbish about what science should be used for, and the characters, who are just stand-ins for cliched concepts, talk about it for ages. On the one hand, science should never, ever, ever be used for war. On the other hand, when dewy-eyed scientists try to use it for peace, the government, or actually the military, will corrupt it for war. But on the other hand, or C, it's kinda fun, for amusement park rides, and barrel organs, and other sundries. And that's pretty much the conclusion we're left with. Science as an amusing sideshow!?!? What kind of steampunk is this?

I think the steampunk work that best sums up the spirit of the times is Brisco County Junior, from which the title of this post is taken. Brisco is a bounty hunter, drifting around the west, looking for the Coming Thing. He doesn't know what it is, but he can feel it. After all, it's almost a new century. Throughout the show, he and his friends discover many coming things, clever, often hilarious, steampunk versions of all kinds of modern items. Sometimes they are devices the bad guys are using, other times they are made by the good guys and help our heroes out. Usually though, they are just the hard work of regular people that Brisco encounters. He's pleased to see what their dreams are, and how the future is being made. It's the spirit of the west. It's a pretty Shonen Jump-like philosophy for a show that's really just meant to be fun, and is certainly not scientifically rigorous. I guess you could say it's steam-pulp.

They also have the Orb, a magically powerful device that can do many things to advance the plot. It's also kind of like science, and in fact at one point is described simply as "potential". When the bad guys get ahold of it, it is terribly dangerous, and ultimately self-destructive, but it helps the good guys a lot, while tempting and leading astray some of the minor characters. It's not actually deep, per se, it's just a handy plot device, used to reveal things about the characters.

That's my lengthy two cents.

Baby's First Steampunk, Revisited

Today, I had the pleasure of working in the children's section at Barnes and Noble. It's my favorite part of my job, actually, because the kids are so into all these stories, and most of them are really cute. Plus, a lot of kids' books now have a little steampunk flavor. I also like that we can wear interesting clothes and visible tattoos at work, like this steampunkish ensemble I had on today:

Anyway, I suddenly realized, in my previous discussion of what might be a child's first introduction to steampunk-type notions, assuming he didn't have steampunk parents, I only thought of Talespin, which I still think is Baby's First Steampunk, and Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel. But I left out something huge! Thomas the Tank Engine! I didn't think of it because it wasn't on when I was a kid, but there were several kids in the the store today who knew all kinds of stuff about steam engines! We have a big train set in the children's section, with the little wooden Thomas trains on it. One of the kids, who was probably about three, was telling his mom all about how the engine was thirsty, and he was getting a drink under the water tower, and what a roundhouse was, and what the caboose did. There was also a girl who made all the engines drive around and get water, and use their brakes down the hill, and wait for the signals to get into the roundhouse. A couple of other kids played games that were similarly detailed about how trains worked. I just think it's cool how kids are still learning about a lifestyle and technology from a bygone age.

So Thomas the Tank Engine gets points for the coveted title, Baby's First Steampunk.

Steampunk is pretty famous...

... or at least famous enough to rate its own endcap at Barnes and Noble, where I work as a purveyor of fine reading material. Imagine my surprise, upon clocking in, to turn around and discover a display called Steampunk Fiction! There were a handful of the latest offerings in the genre, and I thought it was a little odd. My colleagues had, with the exception of one or two people, not heard of steampunk, except from me, but I guess someone in the company back east had.

What I found odd specifically, aside from the very existence of such an endcap, was the selection of titles. There is actually some entertaining steampunk out there right now, but they missed some of the good ones, like Affinity Bridge, and included, of all things, Golden Compass. I think there is a fine line. Golden Compass looks steampunk, which, really, I suppose, is enough, since steampunk is a visual style. But the story had nothing to do with steam machines or Victorian science, and really only touches on any kind of science tangentially. I know this seems awfully stubborn, but the mere presence of airships doesn't make something steampunk. Is the alternative universe in Doctor Who where Rose gets stuck, and Mickey turns into a badass, steampunk? No.

I just don't think Golden Compass is steampunk, but if you watch the movie and fast-forward through the boring parts, it sure is pretty. Stardust is more steampunk, with the coolest airship in any movie, probably.

Another couple of books that looked good, but which I haven't read are Boneshaker (it's not about a bicycle, but that was why it caught my eye, along with the shiny goggles on the cover), and Grand Tour, which looks adorable and fun. They also had Leviathan, by Scott Westerfield, which is a totally epic steampunk version of World War I, for teeneagers! It has great illustrations and good characters, and better still, a journal that matches it. I saw the cover, and totally wanted one, but not enough to spend money on it. But then I looked inside, and discovered.... the pages aren't lined!!! What they called a journal was, in fact, a sketchbook, the holy grail of little books that fit in your purse! It has lovely, cream-colored paper with just enough weight and texture to get a nice line, and it doesn't smudge. I bought two.

But I digress. What book do you think was not on that endcap? Something that really should have been. Difference Engine! William Gibson's Difference Engine was not on the steampunk endcap, and woe to humble book grunts who try and change the required title lists handed down to us. Now, I personally could not get through the first couple of chapters of that book, and I find it really dull, since it doesn't feel, to me, like the characters fit in that time period. It's really more cyberpunk with fancier clothes. That being said, if you are a bookstore, and you are taking it upon yourself to introduce a genre to the nation, shouldn't you include that genre's seminal work?

Not including Difference Engine, and including Golden Compass, shows their understanding of steampunk to be purely based on style, and not based on the philosophy or themes that make it a defined genre of science fiction, however fanciful it gets. The sheer variety and creativity is a big part of what makes steampunk so appealing, but a nod to the canon would be nice. I myself would have included some Jules Verne for good measure, even though, obviously, he was just writing science fiction in his time, steampunk not yet being a twinkle in his eye.

Still, I'm glad people are reading steampunk books, and writing steampunk books, and that the new ones seem pretty good. Perhaps there will be a market clamoring for more when I eventually crank mine out...

Steampunk Easter Eggs

Happy fifth Monday of Easter, gentle reader(s)! I love that liturgical seasons last so much longer than the one day - it makes my occasional holiday posts almost seem timely. . .

But enough about that. This Easter, I decided to do steampunk themed eggs. Then I took pictures of them. You might say I got carried away. I also made a cute chubby bumble bee, but I ate it. So, without further ado...

“Why are airships always white?” Drystan mused.

“Come again?” said Will, looking up at the ship too.

“They’re always painted the same whitish-silver. I’ve never seen one that was another color.”

“What color would you paint it?” Will asked.

“Saffron,” came the immediate response. Will raised his eyebrow so Drystan continued. “An airship made of saffron silk would look exquisite against the sky. And at sunset. . ." he waved his arms rhapsodically. “Think of it! I’ve always thought airships should be the color of saffron.”

Will smiled. Drystan probably had always thought that, for who knew how long. That was the kind of thing he thought about.

“But on a cloudy day,” Will said, “wouldn’t it look sort of bilious?” He continued along the walkway, leaving Drystan lapsed into a rare thoughtful silence.

It turns out it looks rather good in the clouds, although if it were completely overcast, it would indeed look bilious. Of course another type of airship that looks rather striking is a pirate ship. Dun dun DUUUUUUUN!!!

By the way, the above conversation is from a story I'm working on, with a situation very much like this, except the airships aren't quite as adorable, and the saffron-colored one is, sadly, white. Read on for two more steampunk Easter egg adventures.

Genuinely Old and Steampunk!

Greetings and salutations, everyone. I've decided to occasionally write a series on here about steampunk clothing that I have. Ideally, I'd like to focus on items that are genuinely old, from the age of steam, but that would make it a very short series, as I have only two such items. So I'll pad it with other random things from my growing collection. Who knows, if I get a real job and eBay fortune smiles on me, I may soon have more actually old steampunky goodness.

For this first installment in the series, I would like to present . . . Cinder Goggles! (circa 1850)

These are the oldest things I have in my house, being older even than my Edison phonograph cylinders! They come from a time when trains did not have windows on all the cars, and they prevented hot cinders from blowing into your eyes. Believe me, when that happens, it is not pleasant. To try it out, take the Durango-Silverton or Cumbres-Toltec railroads, or any of the steam railroads that are scattered around still. It's a truly steampunk experience.

But I digress. I like these goggles because they are small and ladylike. They even came in a handy tin case to slip in your purse. However, they also have a distinct mad science look to

them, as seen here. I want to play with the lighting to get both lenses to glow, but I already love the way the old glass creates a nice even shine with no details like an actual reflection. Out of all the goggles I have, these are my favorites, and the only ones I am not going to modify in any way, except maybe clean up the ends of the string.

Stayed tuned for an article on jodhpurs, the official trousers of adventure!

"Steam Airships (Real Ones)" or "They said it couldn't be done!"

So, while I'm writing a steampunk story, I've been getting all these gloomy nay-sayers telling me you couldn't really have steam-powered airships. Now, obviously, the water tank would be pretty heavy, and you'd have to have a really good condenser so you don't boil all your water out into the atmosphere, but those are just details. What is even cooler, as this page shows, is that you can actually use steam as your lift gas!

This eliminates the danger of running a coal fire under a giant bag of hydrogen (anyone who's ever ridden on a steam train can tell you about the burning cinders blowing around). Also, it is a much cheaper option for pirate crews and the like. Your balloon and its boiler could be their own closed system, with the steam trap pipes dumping the condensed steam back into the boiler. A pressure valve would turn the steam off to prevent the balloon from bursting, and turn it back on as you gain altitude and the temperature drop condenses the steam at a faster rate. You could combine steam and other lift gases perhaps, in separate envelopes, since you would need a pretty big balloon to displace the weight of the boiler, the water tank, the coal or oil, your crew, and all your weapons, and a bigger steam balloon would necessitate a bigger water tank and more weight.

The next question I would try to answer is whether you ought to use normal steam or "dry" or superheated steam. Dry steam can perform an enormous amount of work, but is it lighter? It's hotter, so it's probably less dense. You just need to send the steam back through a separate section of the boiler to get it hotter. Jay Leno explains a bit about a compact version of this technology in his video about the amazing Doble Steam car. If you were going to use steam power to run your propellers as well, you certain would like to have a superheater.

So, I would just like to say, "They said it couldn't be done! But I'll show them all! Mwahahahaaaa!" (fires lightning cannon from airship)

The best steam car ever made!

Jay Leno's got a little steampunk in him it seems. Here's his Doble steam car. The video is long, but totally worth it.

update: 5/25/11 The video disappeared so I updated the link. Now you have to watch commercials before the video plays, but it's still very cool.

Steampunk games!

This being National Novel(a) Writing Month, I am writing a steampunk adventure story. Naturally that means I am spending an inordinate amount of time playing video games (as well as looking at airship videos on youtube, reading comics, looking at old photos and other "research"). So I thought it would be time well spent to write about a couple of steampunk games. One of them actually inspires me a great deal when I write my book (it's about flying, you see, among other things) and that is Skygunner for the PS2. Just the opening video for this game makes you feel like you are actually flying! It's just a beautiful game. The story is fair, and the cutscenes are a little flat, but it has wonderful, lovely airships, nice lighting, and very pretty dogfighting. Speaking of dogfighting, this game has a really nice feel to it. Now I am horrible at dogfighting games. This one has a simplified system that some die-hard flying game fans might find boring, but you can also choose a harder, more technical setup. The game has 3 characters with 3 levels of difficulty, and other characters are unlockable. (Actually the 3rd character must be unlocked, but you just have to beat the game with either character and you can play him) It starts out easy and rapidly becomes more difficult, keeping you on your toes. I am still trying to unlock my favorite character, but he's impossible! A nice touch for this game is you can choose English or Japanese.

The other steampunk game I like is Steambot Chronicle, also for PS2. It takes place at the dawn of the electric age, and it is a sandbox style game. It has a pretty good plot, with various endings and such, and you can run around and do all kinds of stuff and customize your robot. I spend a LOT of time painting my robot and putting an umbrella on top and taking the girl characters on picnics. It's also very pretty, particularly the lighting for certain times of day. Just a word of warning, you cannot pick the language on this game - there is only English or Off. Choose Off, because the dub causes internal bleeding and brain damage. It will make you embarrassed to be playing this game, even when no one is there. There is a sequel that looks soooo pretty, but I don't know if it's coming out here. . . .

Halloween costume.

This Halloween I went as a steampunk vampire hunter. There are more pictures here. I still want to stain the box part so it mathces the round barrel on top. It hangs a little low, but it's kind of heavy. I like how the gun turned out, and the little pipe parts on the side. Now I just need to sharpen some spikes, load up the gattling gun, and start slaying the undead!

This took aout 3 weeks to make, not including the clothing, most of which I already had. I love thrift stores and used building supply yards. It consists mostly of a shoebox, an ice bucket, and a Nerf gun. I took apart a clock, and that provided the dome of plastic, and almost all the small brass bits. It has some sink handles, some soda bottles, and lots of paint. I gotta say, I love Mighty Putty! It is worth the price - I glued a piece of metal to a piece of glass! The next most expensive thing was the spray paint.

The whole idea came from some raffia garlic I found at Michaels. I make Victorian top hats, most of which are very fancy, in all different colors. As soon as I saw the garlic, I thought it should it should go on a hat, and the hat should go on a vampire hunter. If I was avampire hunter in a steampunk setting, I would use holy water in my boilers. Then if vampires tried to climb on my robot (atmomaton) or sneak up on me, I would poof out some steam, and they would get burned twice (once from hot steam and once from the holy water)