Now updated! Apparently the demand is such that they’ve pushed the deadline back a day, just for Brass Goggles readers.

Quickly! Do you want a collection of of Steampunk tales from some of the best authors in the business? Do you seek tales of metal men, corsets aplenty and more cogs than you can shake a tesla-cane at? Perhaps you’d like it discounted and personally ‘blimped’ by the editors, Ann and Jeff Vandermeer? Then you want a copy of the Steampunk Anthology!

Then haste ye to to your aethermail and Paypal those hard working souls (vanderworld at hotmail.com) or email them (to reserve it) and then send a cheque to the address at their site. Until tomorrow Friday, it will set you back $12 in the US (with shipping), and various other reasonable sounding prices for Canada, Australia and Europe. Apparently they are working their fingers to the bone personalising every book ordered up to the 15th 16th of May with a little airship/zeppelin/blimp picture, just for you. If you don’t make it in time for the deadline, it’s still only $14.95 and there abouts.

Now, in a parrallel dimension somewhere, Steampunk ladies and gentlemen of sufficient wealth and meager instincts of self-preservation know that when you just have to have something disintegrated – only Doctor Grordborts rayguns will do.

Of course, as much as we might like it to be, disintegration is not for every day, and sometimes you just want to cross the plains of Mars in style, or perhaps go spelunking in the crushing pressures of Saturn, and if that is the case, the unhinged and genteel will turn to Doctor Grordbort’s Contrapulotronic Dingus Directory!

But now, through some frightfully revealing tear in the aether/time continuum, the directory is available for purchase by mere mortals such as we. (Yes, I realise some of you may not consider yourself ‘mortals’, never mind ‘mere’ ones, but do play along.)

The Directory has lovingly drawn diagrams of the internals of the Grordborts rayguns, as well as items that the good Doctors sponsors, Weta (with the aid of Dark Horse Comics), have not yet managed to bring to market such as the Lazoplod 300 for Martian perambulation, the Courage Coat for extreme pressure space jaunts, and the above, mighty and delightful Goliathon 800 Moon Hater Death Ray – for when that pale baleful face in the sky has laughed at you one too many times. Lastly, but not least, there’s an illustrated account of one of the adventures of the magnificient Lord Cockswain and his ‘little’ hunting trip.

(Amazon affiliate links follow: UK, US.)

I’m rather a big fan of the young person’s series of Steampunk books by Messers Reeve and Wyatt, known as the Larklight trilogy, so it is with great excitement and no small amount of crossing of extremities that I hear that the filming for the first book in the series, Larklight, has been given the green light, a budget and a director!  Mr Shekhar Kapur (director of Elizabeth and the sequel, Golden Age) has been signed on with a $200 million budget to bring it to the silver screen – a not insignificant amount of money, I hope you’ll agree.  Thank you for pointing it out, Jwlphoto!

With Warner Brothers at the helm, I cannot help but wonder who will be developing the inevitable game to accompany this huge a budget of a film – being a games industry person myself I am wringing my hands over the fear that a game might be rushed and shoddy (please don’t be!)  But to give an indication of how much I enjoy Larklight and its sequel Starcross, I’ve recently started reading it aloud to my gentleman friend – what an enjoyable way to revisit a book it is!  How strange that it is only children who get to enjoy such treats – I look forward to reading out Starcross and the upcoming Mothstorm in the same manner.  (Amazon links to the Larklight series in the UK and the Larklight series in the US.)

While many (if not most of you) are aware that Issue 4 of the Steampunk Magazine has been out for a while now, I do want to mention it here on the site!  The Steampunk Magazine continues to publish thought provoking (and action instilling) articles on things of interest to a wide variety of Steampunk fans – from well written short stories and serials, to interviews with interesting people, to instructions on hat making and mad science!

The magazine is still available for free download, donation, or purchase, with how to get in contact with their contributors for other work should you wish to commission something.  I also want to let you know that the Steampunk Magazine has their own forum called the Gaslamp Bazaar – catering to those of a more anarchistic bent (those with more punk in their Steampunk).  A nice contrast to the Steampunk Forum here at Brass Goggles, and with some very interesting discussions there on many important subjects.

Lastly, it seems that the Steampunk Magazine has decided to go bi-yearly, with a small summer edition with fiction and reviews, while the more substantial winter edition will be replete with the same, and supplemented with how-tos and articles.  I am sorry to see it become less frequent, but I can barely imagine how difficult it must be to run a magazine!

The wondrous publication, The Steampunk Magazine, has recently birthed its third issue! Subtitled “The Sky Is Falling”, this issues theme is the apocalypse, and how it might arrive and be dealt with in a Steampunk manner. From what the best parts of a dead car are to scavenge, to what likelihood that cyberpunk staple gray goo has of deconstructing us all, to an impassioned plea to recycle and reuse to avert (or reduce) environmental catastrophe.

In addition, there are very useful looking patterns for making your own spats and aviators helmet (should you make some, do let me know), an article on airships, and interviews with both Alan Moore (he of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic (UK,US) and more) and Doctor Steel – mostly benevolent world-emperor to be (and musician). To top it all off, there is the usual high quality of written fiction to accompany the other more practical texts.

Also, should you be in New York City on the 20th of October, the Dances of Vice cabaret club’s Blue Moon Masquerade Ball will be hosting the official Steampunk Magazine Issue 3 party, with prizes and such for best masquerade costumes. Sounds like a most interesting evening indeed!

The sequel to Larklight, the young-at-heart-person’s novel set in possibly the most delightfully Steampunk solarsystem, is called Starcross, and much to my surprise the nice people at Amazon saw fit to furnish me with my preordered copy almost a week before I expected it.  Hurrah!

Once again following the adventures of the Mumby family and their very dear friends, what was initially set to be a delightful retreat from the chaos of redecorating a ramshackle orbital home becomes something much more sinister and thrilling!  The hotel Starcross is an example of refined opulence and where your every need is catered to by custom made automatons, but through unnatural phenomena the hotel and its guests are cut off from the outside world and a double ‘murder’ is discovered.  With aether pirates, secret agents, space trains, perfectly wonderful Hats (the best in the known galaxy), time travel, rousing rowdy drinkinghall songs, and enemies both familiar and new – this is most definitely an excellent continuation of the Larklight trilogy.  If you’ve ever wished you could spot and name a hundred inhabited asteroids and hunt giant icthyomorphs from the luxury cabin of your trans-aether steamtrain, then you’ll be in good hands. I did feel that once again that when one or other of the parents were in the scene, that the book fell a little flat – as parents do have a terrible habit of taking over and doing everything right, just like in real life.  I would also highly recommend that Starcross should not be read in isolation, but as a continuation of Larklight – there are several characters that could possibly confuse, otherwise.  However I still very happily commend it to anyone who fancies some exciting and wonderous adventure, beautifully and richly illustrated, in a wonderfully realised Steampunk universe.  I look forward to the third in the series – Mothstorm! (Starcross: UK/US Amazon. Larklight: US/US Amazon. These links are affiliated, your hood not winked by me.)

Mr Iversen wrote to point out the simply mindblowing piece of research and presentation, the Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana! By Mr Jess Nevins (who also wrote companion books to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) with an introduction from Mr Michael Moorcock, this work goes into intricate detail on a wide swathe of the fiction of the Victorian era with entries on such things as Springheeled Jack, the Invisible Man and Vampire Bombs, whatever they maybe. I imagine this to be a book that one does not attempt to read at a sitting, but could find it endlessly fascinating to open a page at a random entry and enjoy a look at the frequently fascinating, often brilliant (and occasionally wonderfully-awful) fantastic literature of the Victorian years.

Not just Steampunk and Victorian Science Fiction, but mysteries, ghost tales, and more. It’s quite a shame that it seems to be sold out most places I look for it, but I’m sure it will return at some point in the future. Thank you, Mr L.T. Intollerant, Ms Katie and Mr Iversen! (I hope your trip went well, Mr Iversen.)

Oh good grief yes – a while ago I read the book, Larklight by Philip Reeve (and David Wyatt) and found it to be utterly marvelous! A rip roaring Steampunk adventure of brave young upstanding members of the British Empire thrown into adventure when giant space spiders kidnap their aetherfish studying father from their rambling space dwelling, the titular Larklight. To put it mildly – I thought it was fantastic in every sense of the word!

So, my excitement is great and my anticipation hightened to read that the sequel, Starcross, will be out on the 1st (or 16th) of October of this year, and follows the terrible trials that face Art and friends when their holiday takes a turn for the worse in the asteroid belt, involving some terribly devious headwear! Will our hero, his sister and their piratical friend triumph in adversity? Find out in “Starcross”, or “The Coming of the Moobs!” or “Our Adventures In The Fourth Dimension! A Stirring Tale of British Vim upon the Seas of Space and Time!”. Also, Warner Brothers have ‘optioned’ the series for making as movies – that’d be something to see, and perhaps the Steampunk film I’ve been hoping for! (Starcross: UK/US Amazon. Larklight: US/US Amazon. These links are affiliated, just so it’s not thought that I’m trying to hoodwink anyone or be unscrupulous.)

Ah, the Penny Dreadful was a wonderful idea – cheap and cheerful installments on the worst quality paper bringing adventure and thrilling tales to anyone with a 19th Century penny to spare.  Around about the same time, the dime novel would bring a similar system to the USA.  And now, in a much belated return there is the Dollar Dreadful!

• THRILL!  At the tales of Doctor Octavius Watt and his pneumatic, handcrafted, mechanical wife!
• MARVEL!  At the adventures that befall the owner of the skeleton key in the lands of the dead!
• WONDER!  At the cunning mysteries that the blindingly clever Dressmakers association unravel!

There are previews to download, and I’m informed that the online shop will be open by the turn of the month (they’ve sold out at the moment because of the MoCCA Art Fest of New York).  So if you’ll feel like reading ripping yarns of the subjects above, or the upcoming stories like “A Mighty Fine Swine and the Truffle Hunters!” or a culinary mystery so tasty it’ll have you salting your screen, then this may be just the place for you.  If not, then surely you can admire the Steampunk site design, as I do – it’s really wonderfully tongue-in-Victorian-cheek.  Thank you to Wilhelm and TDR for answering my questions!

Please, if you value your speaking parts, do not try to read the title of this post out loud three times fast.  I’ll not be responsible for suffocating fits caused by tied tongues!  But enough of that – Weta are at it again and this time they’ve not only revealed a new raygun*, but they intend to release a directory of arcane inventions, contraptions and weaponry!  It features their own rayguns in pride of place, but their own take on the Steampunk world has far more content than just that – vibrating chairs that may cause unexpected spasms (but that automatically redirect any vaporous emissions you may create while perched upon it), heavy steam walkers for subjigating Mars from, and I’m sure much more.  There’s even an adventure in comic form from Lord Cockswain!  I look forward to that.

The new raygun is the concealable Victorious Mongoose.  They advise that the ladies may conceal it in a garter holster – oh that we live in an age when a lady must conceal a disintegrator beneath her skirts!