Steampunk Scholar

It’s wild to me to think that it’s been over 15 years since I started this blog. It feels weird just writing the word ‘blog.’ Who blogs anymore? Everyone who writes is on Substack or ...

http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com/2024/06/lets-try-this-again-shall-we-soft-reboot.html

It's already been three months since the launch of my first book, Steampunk FAQ. What a ride it's been, from getting a cold-call email from Robert Lecker in December of 2015 asking if I'd be...

http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com/2019/01/steampunk-faq-i-wrote-book.html

It's been 10 years (and one week) since I started this blog. When Steampunk Scholar went live in 2008, I was busy finishing up two term papers: one on Captain Nemo which would go on to become m...

http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com/2018/12/a-decade-of-steampunk-with-steampunk.html

I saw award-winning fantasy author Tim Powers speak at the first Steamcon steampunk convention in 2009, where he was asked about the then-forthcoming Pirates of the Caribbean 4, a film adaptat...

http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com/2018/12/mortal-engines.html

When I was in grade four or five, I sent a letter to a writing college. I'd been subscribing to Writer's Digest (no, for real) for a few months, and had been dreaming of going to one of the ...

http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com/2016/10/i-am-writing-book.html

One of my great frustrations in my final year of studying steampunk was that, although I had Rush's Clockwork Angels to keep me company as I finished writing my dissertation, I never got arou...

http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com/2016/05/clockwork-lives-by-kevin-j-anderson-and.html

This post is part of Steampunk Hands Around the World, 2016. In 2008, the website Gizmodo announced that "steampunk is dead." This was a bit of a disappointment to me, given that I was just s...

http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com/2016/02/swecon-2014-steampunk-festivalen.html

It's back! After a long hiatus, I'm finally reading steampunk again in earnest, motivated primarily by the first book on the list this year. Mark Hodder's Burton and Swinburne series restored my...

http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com/2016/01/top-5-steampunk-reads-of-2015.html

Here it is, Halloween, the anniversary of when the Steampunk Scholar was born, at Steamcon, one of the first (if not the first) big steampunk conventions in North America. It was two months later...

http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-greyfriar-book-1-of-vampire-empire.html

Reuts Publishing announced this morning that they've signed a three-book deal with science-fiction/fantasy author J.M. Frey (rhymes with Sci-Fi!), for the Skylark Saga, with the first book due ...

http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com/2015/09/spotlight-on-jm-frey-author-of.html

Jay Lake made me famous. Well, as famous as any academic working on steampunk can ever be, but it was when I posted my review of Lake's steampunk novel Mainspring that I saw my visitors shoot ...

http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com/2014/06/mainspring-reconsidered-in-memory-of.html

The following is a guest post by an ardent fan of Murdoch Mysteries who wishes to remain anonymous. Once you read the opening paragraph, you'll know why. As a Canadian citizen, I can run the ri...

http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com/2014/05/murdoch-mysteries-guest-post.html

This year was a tough one for steampunk. While precious few steampunk writers continue to produce quality work, from Gail Carriger's manga editions of The Parasol Protectorate and her new Finishi...

http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com/2013/12/top-5-steampunk-reads-of-2013.html

At the 2009 Eaton Science Fiction Conference in Riverside, California, SF writer Rudy Rucker commented that the Wardrobe of C.S. Lewis' Narnia chronicles was just another way of traveling to ...

http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com/2013/12/doctor-who-doctor-widow-and-wardrobe.html

Steven Moffat's "A Christmas Carol," the sixth Doctor Who Christmas special, begins with a galaxy-class starship, an obvious intertextual allusion to Star Trek, hurtling through a roiling cl...

http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com/2013/12/doctor-who-christmas-carol.html

My research kept me from enjoying a lot of geek content between 2008 and 2012. I spent most of my "free" time reading steampunk novels, their antecedents, and secondary sources related to th...

http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com/2013/12/doctor-who-next-doctor.html

In the early years of my research, I was often asked the question, "Is Doctor Who steampunk?" While I haven't been asked the question in some time, the relationship between Doctor Who and steam...

http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com/2013/11/doctor-who-girl-in-fireplace.html

Sorry I've been so quiet this past month and a half, everyone. It's been a busy start-of-term, with provincial budget cuts leading to class-size increases, which results in more grading for me! ...

http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com/2013/10/fall-roundup-kinslayer-clockwork-canary.html

This is the first year since 2010 that I didn't do a dedicated feature on Canuck Steampunk. As I said earlier in 2013, I'm no longer looking to produce vast reams of content, both because I'm...

http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com/2013/08/ether-frolics-by-paul-marlowe.html

I've been studying Blaylock's work for four years now, since I first read portions of the omnibus collection of his early steampunk works, "The Adventures of Langdon St. Ives." When I was asked...

http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-aylesford-skull-by-james-blaylock.html

The following is a review of the audiobook for Ciara Knight's Weighted: The Neumarian Chronicles, which is a brief prequel to the full novel Escapement, a dark romance-adventure set in a post-a...

http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com/2013/07/weighted-neumarian-chronicles-by-ciara.html

I came across Art Donovan's incredible Shiva Mandala in 2009 while retooling my lecture on Captain Nemo for the first Steamcon. It was gorgeous, and seemed to be a concrete representation o...

http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-art-of-steampunk-second-revised.html

I first spoke at the Pure Speculation Festival here in Edmonton in 2009, when I presented on Steam Wars and Captain Nemo. Since then, I've attended and presented every year. Each year m...

http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com/2013/06/preview-of-pure-speculation-2013-20000.html

There is perhaps no better way to express my understanding of what steampunk has become in the 21st century than stories like those in Mechanized Masterpieces from Xchyler publishing. I conside...

http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com/2013/05/mechanized-masterpieces-edited-by-penny.html

I'm reading my way through the seminal steampunk works of K.W. Jeter, Tim Powers, and James P. Blaylock for a chapter in a forthcoming academic anthology on steampunk. It's meant a re-read of...

http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com/2013/05/lord-kelvins-machine-by-james-blaylock.html