Under normal circumstances, I cannot abide the “throw it all away” philosophy of Marie Kondo. I just like my stuff too much.
But sometimes, decluttering can be good.
Which brings me to writer Danielle Ackley-McPhail who — as she explains in the following email interview — put together her new steampunk short story collection Echoes Of The Divine And Other Steampunk Stories (paperback, Kindle) when she realized she, “…had a lot of short stories … just sitting around cluttering up my hard drive.”
Eight years after releasing the iconic steampunk novel Everfair, author Nisi Shawl has returned to that novel’s realm for the long-awaited sequel, Kinning (hardcover, Kindle).
In the following email interview, Shawl discusses what inspired and influenced this second book, as well as why it switches genres to AfroRetroFuturism and mycopunk.
In science fiction, subgenres often give birth to other subgenres. Solarpunk, for instance, begat lunarpunk. It’s also how we got dieselpunk out of steampunk. But what exactly is dieselpunk? That’s one of many questions I put to Danielle Ackley-McPhail and John L. French, co-editors of the new short story anthology Grease Monkeys: The Heart And Soul Of Dieselpunk (paperback, Kindle), in the following email interview.
In eSpec Books’ Systema Paradoxa series, writers tell stories about different cryptids that exist in myths and legends and maybe your backyard. But unlike some of them, the cryptids in Ken Schrader’s contribution, Crimson Whisper (paperback, Kindle), are not the monsters they might seem to be. I’ll let Schrader explain in the following email interview.
In 2014, writer Christine Norris put a steampunk spin on the classic fairy tale “Cinderella” for her novel A Curse Of Ash And Iron (paperback, Kindle). Now, nearly a decade later, the book is coming back into print, and with a new publisher (eSpec Books). In honor of this, I conducted the following email interview with Norris to find out about how this story originally came to be.
In many stories, magic is presented as being part of the natural world, and thus able to interact with it. And while that’s still true in Michelle D. Sonnier’s The Clockwork Chronicles series, what she adds to the mythos are people whose magic works instead on technology. In the following email interview, Sonnier talks about The Clockwork Solution (paperback, Kindle), the second book in this steampunk / gaslamp fantasy series.
The folk tale “Ali Baba And The Forty Thieves” is perhaps the most famous of the One Thousand And One Nights stories. And like all classic folk tales, “Ali Baba” has a universal appeal, even when told in a very different way.
Which brings us to Baba Ali And The Clockwork Djinn (paperback, Kindle, audiobook), a steampunk faerie tale co-authored by Danielle Ackley-McPhail and Day Al-Mohamed.
With a new version being released by Danielle’s eSpec Books, I present the following email interview, in which they discuss what inspired and influenced this retelling, as well as what they changed for this new edition.
In The Guns Above, the exciting first book in her ongoing Signal Airship series, writer Robyn Bennis not only brought some Master & Commander-esque sensibilities to the steampunk genre, but she did so with a masterful commander who challenged the idea that women can’t be as capable as men. And while she’s continuing the adventure elements in the second Signal Airship book, By Fire Above (hardcover, Kindle), in the following email interview, she explains it’s a different aspect of sexism that’s fueling this new flight of fancy.