Full Steam Ahead

Over the last few years, one of the bestselling anthologies on the Hadrosaur Productions convention table is Gaslight and Grimm, a collection of steampunk fairy tales published by eSpec Books. I had a blast writing the story “The Steam-Powered Dragon” for that collection, which was a steampunk retelling of a lesser-known Grimm Fairy Tale, “The Dragon and his Grandmother.” Back in 2020, the editor, Danielle Ackley-McPhail asked if I would be interested in steampunking another fairy tale. I was definitely game. She told me the new anthology would be Grimm Machinations and the stories must feature a maker or some form of political machinations, or both. One of the suggested stories for the anthology was “Snow White.” Danielle mentioned she thought “Snow White” might be a stretch for this anthology’s themes. However, I love a challenge and this was a story I had translated from German back in college, plus I had the German edition of the tales, which included the Grimm Brothers’ original notes. I totally saw “Snow White” as a story that contained elements of both makers and political machinations. I began some tinkering of my own and soon “The Porcelain Princess” was born. While waiting to hear more about Danielle’s plans for this anthology, plans for a convention started to take shape.

Long time con-goers, vendors, and entertainers, Donna McClaren, aka The Baroness Alexandra, and Kolleen Kilduff from Design by Night Designs noted a lack of Steampunk festivals in the Baltimore area. Hence, Baltimore’s first Steampunk Convention, Tell-Tale Steampunk Festival was born. It is a weekend-long event and will feature workshops, vendors, entertainment, music, and educational panels. Tell-Tale Steampunk will draw its inspiration and theme from authors each year and plans on having a more hands-on/participation experience for festival goers. This year’s theme is based on the writings of Baltimore’s own Edgar Allan Poe and will feature a volume of stories based on the corax family (a nod to Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”), as well as an interactive game to accompany the stories of our feather heroes. The main focus is audience participation and interaction. You can learn more about the convention at https://telltalesteampunk.com/

While I was vacationing in the Grand Canyon this past summer, I received an email from Danielle Ackley-McPhail about this anthology. Being at the canyon, I was literally surrounded by ravens. What’s more, several scenes of my novel Owl Dance were set at the Grand Canyon. I began to think about Professor Maravilla arriving at the canyon and seeing all the ravens. I also learned more about early geologists who had an eye on exploiting the canyon’s mineral wealth. All of those ideas came together to form the story “Dreams of Flight” which is now part of the game and part of the anthology A Cast of Crows.

But wait, as Ron Popiel used to say, there’s more! When this project started coming together, Danielle added a third book to the mix. This one is an anthology called Grease Monkeys: The Heart and Soul of Dieselpunk. Danielle and I discussed whether I might have a contribution to this anthology and I thought about my grandfather, who worked for the Santa Fe Railroad during the time when the railroads were transitioning from steam to diesel locomotives. I’ve also been fascinated by the history of narrow-gauge rail in the west, in part thanks to my university history professor who was a historian on one of the lines. I remembered how narrow-gauge railroads were particularly challenged by the change to diesel. Then I began to think about the outlaws of the era and I started to imagine Bonnie and Clyde as air pirates. It wasn’t long before I had a story about my grandfather fighting the famous outlaws over the mountain towns of Colorado’s San Juan Mountains. Soon, the story “The Falcon and the Goose” was born and after a solid rewrite based on editorial feedback, the story was added to the atnthology.

These anthologies include several authors I greatly admire and have worked with including Michelle D. Sonnier, Patrick Thomas, Christine Norris and John L. French. If you love retrofuturistic stories, or if you’re just curious about the whole steampunk and dieselpunk thing, this is a great place to dive in and find some great stories. The project has already funded, but please keep supporting. There are some great rewards for supporting the Kickstarter and if the project earns enough money, eSpec Books will create hardcover editions, which I’d love to see. Help us reach our goals and make all three of these books happen by supporting us at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/e-specbooks/full-steam-ahead

Research Trip Through Time

As I mentioned back in my post about visiting the Grand Canyon earlier this year, I’ve been invited to write a story for a steampunk anthology and the anthology must feature a crow or a raven in some prominent way. As it turns out, there are many ravens in Northern Arizona and the Grand Canyon. They’re all over the place and they talk to each other and they’re frequent visitors to the campground. Also, my novel Owl Dance features Professor Maravilla who retreats to the Grand Canyon in 1877 to study birds flying over the canyon. After some thought, I came up with enough of a story idea to pitch to the editor. Of course, a pitch is not a fully formed story. To make the story work, I needed to know a little more about the history of the Canyon at that period. Fortunately, I found John Wesley Powell’s book about exploring the Grand Canyon in the gift shop. His expeditions happened just about five years before my story was to be set, so it seemed a great resource.

John Wesley Powell was a geologist, who in the years after the Civil War, put together an expedition to study the geology of the Green and Colorado River basins. He assembled a team and they started up near the headwaters of the Green River just above the Gates of Lodore. As it turns out, my wife and I had camped just a few miles south of his starting point in 1993.

Green River in Northern Colorado

Powell and his team proceeded down the Green through the canyon lands of Utah until it met up with the Colorado. Along the way, he describes many adventures climbing up the mountains on either side of the river to measure elevations. At one point, he describes going up one cliff face almost too steep for him. He jumps and tries to pull himself up to the top, but can’t. Eventually, his partner has to climb above him, take off his pants and throw one end to Powell, so he can use them as a rope to pull himself to the top. What Powell didn’t really tell us in his narrative is that he’d lost one arm in the Civil War, making this an even more harrowing episode than I first pictured.

What actually proved very useful in this part of the book is that Powell describes the equipment he used at the time and how he used it. This gave me some nice detail to add to my story, since I imagine Professor Maravilla meeting some geologists in my story. Powell’s journey continued on into Arizona and he passed the Vermilion Cliffs, which I visited a few years ago.

Vermilion Cliffs

Powell’s party ultimately wends its way into the Grand Canyon itself. Of course these are the days before the Grand Canyon was anything like a tourist destination or even a household name. He describes traveling along the river and exploring many of the side canyons along the way. I learned that he named the area called “Indian Gardens” after a literal garden he found near the river. At this point in the expedition, they were running low on supplies and Powell describes helping himself to squash growing there.

The Grand Canyon in 2022

Powell’s views on Native Americans are both interesting to read and challenging. He was invited to hear stories and watch ceremonies that few non-Native Americans get to see today. He offers insights unique to his time period and advocated for the preservation of Native American culture. However, he also saw Native Americans as primitives and advocated for their education. Unfortunately, this would be part of the movement that would lead to the creation of Indian Schools which stripped many Native Americans from their homes, languages, and cultures. While my story doesn’t involve Native Americans living near the Canyon, Powell’s attitudes did help me better form some characters in my story.

John Wesley Powell would go on to become the second director of the United States Geological Survey a few years after his book was published. Lake Powell, an artificial reservoir in the Colorado River created by the Glen Canyon Dam is named for him. I appreciate the research trip through time I took with John Wesley Powell and the view he gave me of geology in the Wild West. Of course, the challenge of this kind of time travel is that while Powell can speak to me, I can’t speak to him and discuss the consequences of his actions and find out what he would do as a result.

You can learn more about my novel Owl Dance at: http://davidleesummers.com/owl_dance.html