The Battles of Mora

When I wrote my novel Owl Dance almost fifteen years ago, I had the idea that the protagonist, Ramon Morales, would meet a Captain Nemo-like character who I called Onofre Cisneros. In the novel, he attacks ships with his submarine, the Legado, in an attempt to show its worth as a weapon. In the years since, I’ve realized that Cisneros also was something of a response to Ragnar Daneskjöld from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, a pirate who robs from the poor to give to the rich. Cisneros basically was an engineering genius who wanted the world to recognize his abilities, but because he came from Mexico, investors in the United States and Europe didn’t take him seriously. In Owl Dance, Cisneros gets turned onto a better path and he ends up playing a major role in three of the four Clockwork Legion novels along with my parallel-universe novella Revolution of Air and Rust, where an older Cisneros teams up with Pancho Villa.

When Danielle Ackley-McPhail invited me to write a story for the anthology Other Aether, I wanted to investigate the circumstances that made Cisneros who he was when he’s introduced in Owl Dance. All I had really written was that he was introduced to the work of Spanish Inventor Narcís Monturiol i Estarriol and improved on his submarine design. I hadn’t really put a lot of thought into his childhood and how he came to his adopted home of Ensenada, Mexico, which wouldn’t have existed at the time of his birth. While reading and thinking about my story, I was struck by how many armed conflicts took place on Mexican soil between the early nineteenth through the early twentieth centuries. There was the Mexican War of Independence, Spain’s attempts to reconquer Mexico, the Mexican-American War, the French invasions of Mexico, and the Mexican Revolution, just to name a few. It would be hard to grow up in Mexico in that period and not be touched by warfare.

I realized that Onofre Cisneros would have been just about the right age to have been a boy during the Mexican-American War and I also realized that an important battle happened in Northeastern New Mexico, not far from the town where my parents lived when first married, which is Las Vegas, New Mexico. In 1847, the United States government had claimed New Mexico as U.S. Territory, but no treaties had been signed and the Mexican-American war was still in progress. Word had reached the U.S. Army that over 150 men had gathered in the village of Mora to strike U.S. forces. For reasons not entirely clear, Captain Israel Hendley decided to strike the Mexican militia in Mora with a force of only 80 men and no artillery support. The U.S. force was driven off and Hendley was killed. Despite that, the army took fifteen people prisoner and killed 25.

A little over a week later, the U.S. Army returned to Mora under the command of Captain Jesse Morin. This time they brought over 200 men and two Howitzers. They literally razed the village of Mora to the ground. Those who weren’t killed fled to the nearby mountains. I imagined that Cisneros was one of those who fled with some of his family while the screams of uncles and aunts rang in his ears. This is only a small part of the story, but it plants the seeds of Cisneros’s bitterness. What’s more, the area around Mora is familiar to me and, for a time, I even served on the board of the New Mexico Center of the Book with a librarian from Mora.

There are likely a few more chapters in Cisneros’s life to connect the dots between the events of “No One Alone” and Owl Dance. The whole story could possibly be a novella. It’s certainly something to think about, especially since Tangent Online gave my story in Other Aether a nice review. The reviewer described the story as “beautifully heartbreaking” which was exactly what I was going for. You can read the complete review here: https://tangentonline.com/print-other/other-aether-tales-of-global-steampunk-ed-by-greg-schauer-danielle-ackley-mcphail/

Other Aether was funded as part of eSpec Books’ Picking Up Steam campaign and copies should be shipping soon. If you missed the campaign, you can pre-order the anthology at: https://www.amazon.com/Other-Aether-Tales-Global-Steampunk-ebook/dp/B0CW1FRMR5/

A major part of the Clockwork Legion novels is showing the healing journey Onofre Cisneros undergoes. The series starts in Owl Dance, which you can learn about here: http://davidleesummers.com/owl_dance.html

Finally, if you want to see Cisneros’s adventures with Pancho Villa, check out the novella Revolution of Air and Rust: http://davidleesummers.com/Air-and-Rust.html

Other Aether: Tales of Global Steampunk

In the anthology Other Aether edited by Greg Schauer and Danielle Ackley-McPhail, invention and adventure go hand in hand. Clockwork technology and ingenuity are not the sole purview of Jolly Ol’ England. By airship or locomotive, prairie schooner or steamboat, it is time to explore the global landscape through lenses polished in the Age of Steam!

I was excited that Danielle and Greg invited me to be part of this anthology. My story in the book is called “No One Alone” and its an origin story for Onofre Cisneros from Ensenada, Mexico. He’s the pirate captain and submariner of my Clockwork Legion novels. When we meet him in Owl Dance, Cisneros feels he must resort to desperate means to induce investment in his dream of a submarine boat. My story tells how he built his first submarine and how he sought a legitimate investor only to encounter disappointment. Cisneros builds the submarine for his community and he sees himself as no one without the support of his friends. Of course, “no one” or “no man” in Latin is Nemo. Now, here’s a look at the other fine stories you’ll find in this volume.

“The Kami of the Mountain” by Cynthia Radthorne. Set during the battles of the Meiji Restoration, Radthorne imagines a world where the forces of the Shogun and the Emperor battle with steam-powered cannons and crossbows. Caught in the middle is Haramata Castle, a neutral site near the mountain with hot springs and rice fields. Miako is a Lady of the Court who is fascinated with machines, including the steam pipes under the castle that feed both the baths and the steam weapons. When the old man who tends the machinery unexpectedly dies near the beginning of the battle, Miako finds herself chosen by the Kami to save Haramata Castle.

“No Safe Harbor” by Aaron Rosenberg. Phillipe Huron a Detective-Inspector from Paris arrives in Hong Kong via airship. He’s searching for Father Chapdelaine, who abandoned his parish for reasons unknown. Huron and his parrot Dupin team up with local Inspector Wu and follow what clues they have only to figure out that Father Chapdelaine is a pawn in a much bigger plot.

“Mervat in the Maiden’s Tower” by Jeff Young. Mervat, the matron of a hospital founded by Florence Nightengale has been summoned to Constantinople’s airfield. A large Chinese airship has arrived and the harbormaster is afraid they have brought the black plague to the city. He wants Mervat to assess whether or not that’s true. In addition to being a healer, Mervat has assistance from her cousin and from a nearly forgotten goddess who appears in visions.

“Ghosts in the Infernal Machine” by Ef Deal. Didier Rabôt is a fifteen-year-old who only wants to exist in peace to tinker with his electrical experiments and prepare to enter university. However, his neighbor has been talking about his dissatisfaction with the king and then started building something big in his apartment. Didier and his friend Jacky fear he might try to assassinate the king with some kind of infernal machine he’s building. They come up with a way to sabotage his efforts. In the meantime, Didier learns he might be more attracted to his friend Jacky than he originally thought.

“The Sand Boat by James Chambers. Morris, an inventor, and his friend Marceline, a diplomat, are visiting Cairo. She wants to surprise him by taking him down the Nile to see the Pyramids of Giza. While on their way, they’re confronted by a group of men from the Cult of Bast who want to capture and kill them in a blood sacrifice. Fortunately, they’re saved by Amun Zaki, an Egyptian engineer who wants to keep his fellow engineer safe, but also wants to assure that developing technology for Egypt is done by Egyptians. They head for a meeting with a like-minded leader at the Pyramids. To get there, they travel in a sand boat, a steam-powered overland craft invented by Zaki, which proves to come in handy when they run into unexpected trouble.

“Justice Runs Like Clockwork” by Christine Norris. Set in New Orleans during the Civil War, we follow Pricilla, a spy for the Union who has many advanced weapons and works out of a secret base under St. Louis Cemetery adjacent to the French Quarter. The Union Navy is advancing on New Orleans. Pricilla’s mission is to do as much damage to the slave trade and get as many slaves to safety as she can before the invasion begins.

“On the Wings of an Angel” by Danielle Ackley-McPhail. Sadie is the entertainment in a Montana saloon where a tinker has been through and induced the owner to buy a number of his gadgets. The tinker’s finest gadget is an elaborate construction that gives Sadie the appearance of being an angel. Her pure voice and innocence help bring customers into the saloon. The problem is that as Sadie gets older, the miners in town are no longer seeing her as such an innocent, untouchable angel. Fortunately, there may be more to Sadie’s angel wings than appear at first sight.

“Correspondence Transcribed in Code, Addressed to the Widowed Mrs. Clydesbank” by Beth Cato. This story is told in letters from El, who works as an engineer for an airship manufacturer based in California, to her mother. To work as an engineer, El has taken the identity of a man and works primarily on the mooring towers for the airships. However, this region of California is fertile and birds present a real danger to airships. Rather than taking sensible precautions, the company decides to be more aggressive in managing the wetlands and wild areas to discourage the birds. El tries to convince the management of their error, only to be rebuffed and now must decide whether or not there is another way to fight the system.

“The Merrie Monarch’s Mecha” by Hildy Silverman. Hawai’i’s King David Kalâkaua is working to establish the sovereign island’s reputation around the world. He has diplomatic missions with both Japan and America. In the meantime, one of his engineers is building a giant mecha to demonstrate Hawai’i’s proficiency with technology. A botched assassination attempt puts the King’s people on alert and the mecha is deployed during the formal coronation ceremony. It’s a good thing, because the ceremony comes under attack!

Other Aether is scheduled to be released on June 1, 2024. If you didn’t support the Kickstarter, you can pre-order copies of the ebook at: https://www.amazon.com/Other-Aether-Tales-Global-Steampunk-ebook/dp/B0CW1FRMR5/

Print copies are available at: https://www.amazon.com/Other-Aether-Tales-Global-Steampunk/dp/195646333X/

This Strange Way of Dying

This past summer, I wrote a story called “No One Alone” for the anthology Other Aether, which will be published by eSpec Books early next year. My story is set in Mexico circa 1876 and tells the story of the inventor Onofre Cisneros and how he acquired plans for a Spanish submarine and improved on it. He then embarks on a quest to the United States to try to interest an investor. Meanwhile, he’s in love with Estrella, the daughter of a fishing boat captain. Can Onofre win Estrella’s hand while pursuing his dreams for a prosperous and peaceful Mexico? To write this story, I really needed to immerse myself in Mexican culture, and particularly the culture of nineteenth century Mexico. At some level, this is easy. My mom’s family has lived near the Mexican border since around the middle of the nineteenth century and I’ve spent time in Mexico. However, I wanted to immerse myself even more. One of the places I turned was Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s fine collection of short stories This Strange Way of Dying.

The fifteen stories in Moreno-Garcia’s collection are set between the early colonial period and the near future. It’s easy to think of the stories as a mix of fantasy, horror, and science fiction, but that minimizes how life in this part of the world can have a magical quality that’s really just the way many people see the world. When reading the collection, I focused a lot of my attention to the historical stories. “Bed of Scorpions” told the story of a brother and sister who go to a remote house, hoping to convince the owner to marry the sister so they can inherit the money. This proved a wonderful Gothic tale. In “Cemetery Man,” a woman soldier during the Mexican Revolution is “rescued” by a scientist trying to bring soldiers back to life. This proved a great reminder that women in 1800s Mexico could and did stand up for themselves. “Shade of the Ceiba Tree” which is set in pre-colonial Mexico also provided a thought-provoking look at the power of women, as a young woman offers herself as a sacrifice to a “god” while hoping to find her sister. I came away from these historical tales reminded how much invasion and warfare defined much of life in nineteenth century Mexico.

Getting into the more contemporary stories, I really loved “Bloodlines” which told the story of a family of witches and looked at who holds the power among a group of siblings. The title story “This Strange Way of Dying” imagines a young woman romantically pursued by death, which was a wonderful exploration of the way death is an inescapable part of life. “Driving with Aliens in Tijuana” took us to the near future where a woman is hired to spend time with an alien and an alien’s friend. It serves as a look at “the other” from a Mexican perspective. There’s even a vampire tale in “Stories with Happy Endings” about a journalist who interviews a vampire.

The stories in This Strange Way of Dying are all quick reads and they all left me wanting to read even more by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Fortunately, she has a number of books out there to dive into.

While you’re waiting to read “No One Alone” in Other Aether, you can learn more about Onofre Cisneros in my Clockwork Legion series. He appears in all four novels, which you can explore at: http://davidleesummers.com/books.html#clockwork_legion

Picking Up Steam

This weekend, I’m at Las Cruces Comic Con. If you’re in town, I hope you’ll drop by and see me and Tamsin Silver at Booth 79 in the Exhibit Hall. Also happening right now is a Kickstarter campaign raising money to publish two anthologies featuring my stories plus a third, really awesome looking book.

The first of the three books is called A Cry of Hounds and it features works inspired by the stories of Arthur Conan Doyle. The title is influenced by The Hound of the Baskervilles. The anthology is being produced in conjunction with Baltimore’s Tell-Tale Steampunk Festival, which is the brainchild of long-time con-goers, vendors, and entertainers, Donna McClaren, aka The Baroness Alexandra, and Kolleen Kilduff from Design by Night Designs. Tell-Tale Steampunk draws its inspiration and theme from classic authors each year and incorporates a more hands-on/participation experience for festival goers. You can learn more about the convention at https://telltalesteampunk.com/

My story in the anthology is called “The Vampire of Rannoch Moor” and is inspired by Doyle’s short story “The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire.” In my story, spiritualist Dinella Stanton travels to Scotland to have a holiday with her friend only to discover that several men from the village of Rannoch Moor have gone missing. What’s more, the new laird to took possession of the nearby manor house is rumored to be a vampire and locals have seen the guard dog of the fae haunting the night. Other contributing authors in this anthology are Christopher D. Abbott, Aaron Rosenberg, Keith R.A. DeCandido, Dana Fraedrich, James Chambers, Jessica Lucci, Ef Deal, Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Michelle D. Sonnier, Doc Coleman, and John L. French.

The second book on the slate is Other Aether: Tales of Global Steampunk. Curious about what embers ignite invention upon foreign shores? Find out in this global steampunk collection. My story in this collection is a prequel to my novel Owl Dance and tells the story of how Onofre Cisneros came to possess plans for a remarkable Spanish submarine (that really existed!) and made it better. He hopes the submarine will show investors that the people of Rancho Ensenada de Santos have the wherewithal to build a modern sea port. The only problem is not everyone is looking for investors. Some people would rather sell an invention at the first opportunity for their own benefit. Authors participating in this one alongside me are Jeff Young, Cynthia Radthorne, James Chambers, Christine Norris, Ef Deal, Aaron Rosenberg, Hildy Silverman, and Danielle Ackley-McPhail.

The third book is a collection of steampunk cosmic horror called The Chaos Clock: Tales of Cosmic Aether. For those not familiar with cosmic horror, it is along the lines of HP Lovecraft, Robert Chambers, William Hope Hodgson, Lord Dunsany, and Clark Ashton Smith, to name a few. Much of the classics in this genre were written during the period against which steampunk is set, so the pairing feels very natural (or appropriately unnatural, depending on your point of view)! Authors coming out to play in the creepy playground are James Chambers, Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Will McDermott, Carol Gyzander, Jeffrey Lyman, Jody Lynn Nye, Randee Dawn, Rachel Brune, Bernie Mojzes, Marc L. Abbott, and Teel James Glenn.

The campaign features many great stretch goals, including ebooks and stories from such folks as Christopher D. Abbott, Aaron Rosenberg, and Keith R.A. DeCandido. If enough money is raised, you’ll even get a digital copy of my novel Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order Vampires as a thank you for supporting the campaign.

Please do consider supporting the campaign. If you’re unable to support, or if you’ve already supported the campaign, please share it with friends and on social media. Any of these books would be a great introduction to the world of Steampunk. You can support the campaign at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/e-specbooks/picking-up-steam