Just a quick thanks to Pauline Creeden, author of Armoured Hearts, for guest posting today
and for letting everyone get in on a giveaway of an e-copy of her book.
What is steampunk?
By Pauline Creeden
The short answer: Steampunk is retrofuturistic technofantasy, parallel to our planet's many histories.That clears up a lot doesn’t it? No, not really.
The long answer: Steampunk is science fiction which takes place in the past. An alternate history where inventions, gadgets, and personal conveniences do not belong, and yet, are there. Often these inventions are powered by steam, hydraulics, clockwork, gyroscopic action, or pretty much anything but gasoline.
The punk appears in the creative attitudes of the characters. Often they are forward minded for the time period. A touch of feminism, a smattering of individuality, and a pinch of political dissention. Similar to dystopian, the world is bleak, but the characters within rise up and change that world.
Where steampunk has hit mainstream is in the fashion world, where it’s become popular to mix the past with the present in creative and clever ways.
Personally, I’ve loved steampunk before I ever knew what it was. Some of the modern examples of steampunk in movies would be: Wild Wild West with Will Smith, Stardust with Claire Danes, or the animated film, Howl’s Moving Castle. Or pretty much anything by the Japenese animator, Hayao Miyazaki. And I am a huge Miyazaki fan.
So, just like any other subgenre of science fiction/fantasy, there are those who concentrate on the science, those who concentrate on the rebellion, or those like Melissa and I, who used the retrofuturistic world as a backdrop for our character focused fairy fantasy story, Armored Hearts. Which, we believe has just the right amount of steampunk to introduce a new set of readers to the genre.
Giveaway
Summary
When a crippled young lord rescues a girl falling from a tree, it reveals a secret about himself and his mother’s side of the family that could put him at the center of a war with beings he thought only existed in fairy tales. Tristan Gareth Smyth lived his entire life stuck at home at Waverly Park, left behind while his Grandfather makes trips to London, all because of his blasted wheelchair. Then an American heiress falls in his lap, literally, and he must find a way to keep her at a distance to protect not only his secret, but everyone around him from an assassin sent to kill him.
