David Lee Summers's Blog, page 106

HRM Steampunk Symposium 2015

I spent last weekend aboard the Queen Mary docked at Long Beach, California for the 2015 edition of Her Royal Majesty’s Steampunk Symposium. We kicked things off by listening to the radio show edition of London, Where It All Began by David L. Drake and Katherine L. Morse on the drive over. The authors attended the symposium in their Drake and McTrowell personae, and their stories are a delight.

Once we arrived at the Queen Mary, I made a quick change and went right to my first event, where I read the first chapter of my latest novel, Lightning Wolves. Although it was early in the convention, some brave souls arrived and took in the story. After the reading, I attended a presentation on Victorian-era Voodoo in New Orleans by my friend Denise Dumars.

As day gave way to night, we set up two telescopes on the sun deck of the Queen Mary in hopes of viewing the Orion Nebula, Jupiter, and any other objects we could find through the bright lights and sea air of Long Beach. The little steampunk telescope I described last week proved to be a success. It was easy to use and we found objects right away. My 8-inch Celestron which I’ve had for thirty years proved a bit more challenging, but I finally figured out I mis-read the label on the eyepiece I selected and it was both one difficult to use with all the lights around and a narrower field of view than I thought. I moved to a wider field-of-view Plössl eyepiece and things went much more smoothly.

I rounded out the night by attending a magic show by the talented Aiden Sinclair. This show took the form of a séance to summon Jack the Ripper. Of course, Aiden is an illusionist and doesn’t claim to actually summon ghosts, but this was a small intimate group and we got to watch his work in detail. It was a wonderful show and I also had a chance to visit with friends such as Drake and McTrowell, long into the night.

The next day came much too soon. Kumie and I awoke and took books up to our merch table outside the dealer’s room, where we were delighted to spend the day next to Nathaniel Johnstone and Laura Tempest Zakroff’s table on one side and Gaslight Gathering’s table on the other. We had a wonderful day chatting with readers and other steampunks. That afternoon, I presented my “Mars, Across the Aether” talk where I told a tale of the red planet, its canals, Queen Victoria’s watercolor teacher and extraterrestrial signals detected by Nicola Tesla. Afterwards, we returned to the deck to set up the telescopes. Here you see me working alongside my youngest daughter.

Once the viewing finished for the night, I made my way back to the main ballroom to catch the Nathaniel Johnstone Band. They were in great form and it was a delight to hear such favorite songs as “Snugglefish,” “Stone Woman,” and “Frog and Toad.”

Sunday morning saw a return to the merch table for a short time. Early in the afternoon, I promised to serve as second for Steampunk Gamera in a grudge match tea duel against Steampunk Godzilla.

For those unfamiliar with tea dueling, it is a competition which allows two people (or monsters) to settle their differences with a show of manners and decorum rather than through the use of arms. Girded with a cookie and cup of tea, the opponents each dunk their cookie into the tea for a five count. Once raised, the last one to eat their cookie without it crumbling is the winner. In the Gamera vrs. Godzilla tea duel, the seconds had to take the field as shown here. Godzilla’s second is the delightful Madame Askew.

After the tea dueling, I gave a presentation on building the steampunk telescope. Sadly, because of the long drive back to New Mexico, we then had to pack up and leave immediately afterward. The weekend was a delightful blur, but I hope to make it back again next year. My next convention will also be a foray back to the age of steam, Wild Wild West Con in Tucson, Arizona. Stay tuned for more details!

Steampunk Telescope

Back in November, I wrote a post that discussed building a telescope. The telescope worked great. The only problem was that without a mount, it was hard to point and keep the telescope on a target. This made it hard for multiple people to enjoy the view, or even for one person to look for more than a few seconds. To kick off this year, I built a simple mount for the telescope and this weekend, at Her Royal Majesty’s Steampunk Symposium in Long Beach, California, I’ll be hosting viewings through the telescope and showing people how they can build one just like it.

The mount I built is basically a variation of one described at the 10-minute Astronomy Blog. Because my telescope is in a cardboard tube, I built a wooden box that fit snugly around the tube to hold the altitude bearings. Like the mount described in the 10-minute Astronomy Blog, my bearings are simply grated PVC end caps. I lined the wooden box with felt to snug the fit a bit more and avoid damaging the tube as I slid it in place. Allowing the altitude bearing box to be a pressure fit allows me to rotate the tube inside and it allows me to adjust the position of the telescope if I should add weight to one end or the other.

Another variation is that instead of building the ground board from scratch, my wife found a rotating TV stand at a thrift store for 99 cents. I simply put rubber feet on the bottom of my rocker box and set it on the TV stand.

Finally, I found that my elevation axis had a tendency to slip sideways, causing the telescope to slip out of the V-cuts. I solved this by adding melding plates to the outside of the V-cuts that keep the telescope from slipping sideways. I could possibly have also prevented this problem by making my rocker box a little narrower.

So, what makes this a “steampunk” telescope? First of all, it’s a Newtonian telescope very similar in design to the one Nathaniel Green, painting instructor to Queen Victoria, used to observe Mars in 1877. I painted the tube with brass spray paint to give it that old-fashioned brass tube look of nineteenth century telescope.

Although it gets dangerously close to the song “Just Glue Some Gears On It (And Call It Steampunk)”, I did glue some gears on my Dobsonian mount. I tried to evoke the idea of the clockworks that were used to drive old telescopes. What’s more, they make the melding plates looks more decorative than purely functional. I also added a steampunk cuckoo clock decal to the top of the mount. After all, time is very important to astronomy!

In a sense, the sky’s the limit—literally! The cardboard tube and simple wooden mount allow you decorate your telescope in a myriad of splendid ways, so you can go stargazing in style! My only recommendation would be to keep lights to a minimum to keep your telescope functional. The stand and telescope are lightweight and easily transportable, making them good for taking out any time you want. And really, that’s the point of having a little telescope like this, so everyone can enjoy the wonders the sky has to offer.

Steampunk Academy

In a week, I’ll be over at the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California to present lectures in the Steampunk Academy series at Her Royal Majesty’s Steampunk Symposium. This may sound like pretty serious business, but in fact, it’s all great fun. The Steampunk Academy is basically the Symposium’s series of workshops and presentations. I’m working on presentations about such mad scientific pursuits as nineteenth century Martian astronomy and a telescope building demonstration. I’ll also be reading from Lightning Wolves and, as an extra special treat, if the weather is clear, I’ll bring a couple of telescopes out on deck so we can view such objects as Jupiter, the Orion Nebula and the Andromeda Galaxy.

Here’s my tentative schedule for the event:

Friday, January 16
2pm – Verandah – Reading. I’ll be reading from Lightning Wolves and will be available to sign books.
5pm – Gazebo – Victorian Astronomy. Come learn what was going on in the world of astronomy in the nineteenth century. Afterwards, if the weather is clear, we’ll move out on deck to observe those objects which are available.
Saturday, January 17
4pm – The Board Room – Mars Across the Aether. This presentation is focused more specifically on Mars than my Victorian Astronomy presentation. Come learn about the canals on the red planet and hear extraterrestrial recordings from a Teslascope.
6pm – Gazebo – Telescope Viewing. I’ll be out with the telescopes again, weather permitting with another opportunity to see what’s in the skies over Long Beach.

Sunday, January 18
2pm – Regent Room – How to Build a Steampunk Telescope. I’ll show you how you can build your own functional telescope, and give suggestions for how you can steampunk it up to your heart’s content!

Her Royal Majesty’s Steampunk Symposium always features great music. This year, performers include Lee Presson and the Nails, the Nathaniel Johnstone Band, and Unwoman. What’s more, the Queen Mary is a great venue for a Steampunk event. I’m delighted to be returning and hope you’ll join us if you’re able! To learn more about the event and buy tickets, visit http://hrmsteam.com

While on the subject of mad science, I’m proud to announce the release of Tales of the Talisman volume 10, issue 2. The issue features thirty stories and poems by such folks as Lee Clark Zumpe, Rick Novy, Abra Staffin-Wiebe, and Erin K. Wagner. You’ll find stories about elder gods breaking the barriers of time and space using the Large Hadron Collider, the steampunkish origins of the artificial heart and even a modern-day quest for King Arthur. Issues are available at talesofthetalisman.com, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble.

17th Annual Preditors and Editors Poll

Welcome to a new year and I hope it’s off to a terrific start. The start of a new year means it’s time for the annual Preditors and Editors Readers Poll run by Dr. Andrew Burt and the Critters On-Line Writing Workshop. Now the Preditors and Editors poll is admittedly something of a popularity contest and the fact that it’s open to all means it’s dominated by a lot of small press and self-published titles vying for attention. Several years ago, I was one of those authors out there working hard to get every vote I could. Then the pendulum swung the other way for me and I went through a few years where I practically ignored the contest altogether. I’ve decided to devote a little time to it this year because, frankly, I feel proud of the work I’ve done.

To vote in the Preditors and Editors Poll, all you have to do is follow the links I give below. Vote for your favorite title, remember to fill in the information at the bottom, including the book cover CAPTCHA to prove you’re human. Once you’ve voted, you’ll receive an email with a validation link. Click that link to confirm your votes. The poll is open until January 14.

Without further ado, here are the works I have in the running at the Preditors and Editors Reader’s Poll.

Lightning Wolves

Lightning Wolves is my latest steampunk novel in which an inventor exiled from Mexico hunts ghosts while the U.S. Army seeks any means necessary to break the back of the Russian force that occupies North America’s west coast. In the meantime, former sheriff Ramon Morales must put the pieces of his life back together and figure out the next step in his life before he marries the healer Fatemeh Karimi. The novel is in the running for the following two categories:

Steampunk Novel

Vote at: http://critters.org/predpoll/novelsteam.shtml

Cover Artwork

Vote at: http://critters.org/predpoll/bookart.shtml

Hiding in Plain Sight

“Hiding in Plain Sight” is a science fiction story that appears in the Taurin Tales shared world anthology edited by J Alan Erwine. The stories in the anthology cover a wide range of life on the Taurin planet. It was fun to explore a new world literally through alien eyes. In the story, an object invisble to telescopes on the ground and only visible with two of the Taurins’ five eyes collides with a space station. Tensions run high as the Taurin nations assume an act of war. A space shuttle crew races against time to determine the true cause of the incident. “Hiding in Plain Sight” is in the running in the following category:

Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Story

Vote at: http://critters.org/predpoll/shortstorysf.shtml

Three Faces of Dracula

“Three Faces of Dracula: A Personal Story” recounts how I came to write vampire fiction. It’s a fun, lighthearted piece that discusses several of the vampire books and films that inspired me in my journey and how they directly influenced my novel Vampires of the Scarlet Order. “Three Faces of Dracula” is in the running in the following category:

Nonfiction Article

Vote at: http://critters.org/predpoll/nonfiction.shtml

Tales of the Talisman

Tales of the Talisman is the science fiction and fantasy magazine I’ve edited for the last ten years. We present the best science fiction, fantasy, and horror short stories and poetry with beautiful illustrations selected by art director Laura Givens. Of all the categories I list, this is the one I’d love to see make a strong showing in the poll, just because I do feel strongly about all the great work we’ve published over the years. Poems in the magazine are frequently nominated for the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s Rhysling Award. The magazine has received Honorable Mentions in Ellen Datlow’s Year’s Best Horror anthology. I think both of these facts speak to the magazine’s quality.

Magazine Editor – David Lee Summers

Vote at: http://critters.org/predpoll/zineeditor.shtml

Fiction Magazine

Vote at: http://critters.org/predpoll/fictionzine.shtml

Poetry Magazine

Vote at: http://critters.org/predpoll/poetryzine.shtml

Thank you for your consideration. I appreciate your votes. Even if you choose not to vote, I appreciate the support you’ve given me for these books and stories. Here’s looking forward to more great stuff to come in 2015!

2014 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

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Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,700 times in 2014. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Lightning Wolves Review

The blog “Dab of Darkness” just posted an insightful and in-depth review of my novel Lightning Wolves. Drop by and take a look. Susan, who runs the blog, regularly posts reviews of interesting books and interviews with authors. I follow her blog regularly and am honored that she enjoyed my latest steampunk offering! Her review is at: Lightning Wolves by David Lee Summers.

You can find all the places the book is available by visiting: http://www.davidleesummers.com/lightning_wolves.html.

Space Battleship Yamato 2199

Back in August, I discussed my thoughts about the Space Battleship Yamato motion picture. At the end of the post, I noted that a new series had been produced called Space Battleship Yamato 2199. The new series is basically a remake of the 1974 “Quest for Iscandar” season of the original series. I finally had the opportunity to watch the new series and I was thoroughly impressed. I just spent the week before Christmas rewatching the whole thing with my daughter and not only did it hold up, but I enjoyed it even more the second time around. The series is well worth seeking out if you’re a fan of either the original Space Battleship Yamato or anime in general.

As Space Battleship Yamato 2199 opens, Earth has been bombed into a dry husk by aliens from the Large Magellanic Cloud called Gamillas. Humanity has little more than a year to survive. Fortunately, aliens from the planet Iscandar have a device that can help save Earth if the humans can come pick it up. The Iscandarans have sent a drive that will allow humans to warp through space much faster than the speed of light. The humans build a starship in the form of the World War II battleship Yamato and equip it with the so-called wave motion engine. The crew sets off for Iscandar in the hope of saving Earth but the Gamillas do everything in their power to stand in the Yamato’s way.

The original Space Battleship Yamato focused on Susumu Kodai, a young Earth officer pressed into service aboard the Yamato because all available senior officers had been killed defending Earth from the Gamilas. Captain Okita of the Yamato takes Kodai under his wing. The story has a feeling not unlike the tale of Luke Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi from Star Wars. That’s not the only similarity. Dogfights between Yamato’s fighters and those of the Gamilas are commonplace. There’s just enough similarity that I remember critics back in 1974 accusing Yamato of being a Star Wars rip off … until they realized that Yamato appeared three years before Star Wars!

The new series follows the original closely, but adds several new characters including several women, who were noticeably lacking in the original. With the new characters come several interesting story arcs. It turns out the crew of the Yamato is not one big happy family. They all want to save humanity, but they believe there are different ways to achieve that end.

The new series worked strongly to keep everything that was cool about the original, while fixing plot holes, gaffes and things that were just plain goofy in the original. The Bee People of Beemela are just a memory, the Yamato’s construction is much less miraculous, and we now have an on-screen explanation for the different skin hues of the Gamillans. I was especially pleased to see that they brought on a good team of science advisers and largely listened to them. There were a few times they hand-waved the science in the interests of story, but I was impressed with how much this was kept to a minimum.

The end result was that Space Battleship Yamato 2199 easily stands up with my favorite science fiction television series, such as Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Babylon Five and Firefly. In fact, after spending this last week watching the whole thing for a second time, I think I’d rank it as my second favorite SF series after Firefly. Every episode was engaging and contributed to the overall story arc. The characters, humans, Gamillas, and Iscandarans, all had a wide range of agendas and motivations. All the characters felt quite real.

As an anime series, Space Battleship Yamato does have its share of angst and fan service. It’s hard to say the Gamillan agenda makes complete sense, but it’s also hard to say how much of that is muddied by the multitude of agendas, much as things in the real world often are. Every now and then the CG effects didn’t always blend seamlessly with the traditional animation, but overall, the show held together quite well. Sadly, finding affordable copies is not altogether easy, but it’s a quest well worth taking.

One of my Christmas gifts this year was a beautifully detailed model of the Yamato from the new series. I look forward to building it once I get to a good break point on the new novel. It will take a place of honor next to my models of the Enterprise and the Firefly.

Space Battleship Yamato 2199 poster art copyright Bandai Visual and used to illustrate critical commentary of the series.

A Potpourri for Christmas 2014

As usual, it’s a busy time as we move into the holidays. I started my most recent break from Kitt Peak National Observatory by stopping into one of my favorite annual holiday events, the Tucson Steampunk Society Dickens Tea.

At the Dickens Tea, Michael Jacobson showed off his clockwork wolf head. Although it’s not inspired by the clockwork wolf of Owl Dance and Lightning Wolves, it was still cool. The event was good inspiration for work on The Brazen Shark, the third novel in my steampunk series. That said, I didn’t write quite as much as I would have liked, but I did quite a bit of reading and research and I feel like the novel is getting stronger for the work. Unlike the first two novels in the series which are set in the wild west, the third novel is set largely in Japan and Russia.

One of the reasons I didn’t write as much as I would have liked was that I was getting Tales of the Talisman volume X, issue 2 off to the printer. The issue is now available at Amazon.com. Copies are winging their way to me now and I’ll send copies to subscribers and contributors as soon as I have them. Also, as soon as I have the copies, I’ll post volume X, Issue 2 as the current issue at TalesOfTheTalisman.com.

It turns out there have been some exciting happening with my horror and vampire novels. Drop by the Scarlet Order vampire blog on Monday for details.

Don’t forget, if you’re on Goodreads, you can enter to win one of two of my novels. Details are in last week’s post.

Also, remember that if you want signed copies of my books, you can order through my company Hadrosaur Productions. Just message me when you purchase and let me know how you would like the book sign. Unlike the giant online retailers, I can’t make promises this late about getting the book to you in time for Christmas, but if you order this week, I’ll get it out to you priority mail so you can have it just as fast as you can!

Wishing you a delightful and joyous holiday season!

Goodreads

Goodreads embodies one of my favorite ideas for a social network—a place to hang out on line and share books with friends and potential readers. They have a lot of nice tools to allow readers to interact with each other and for authors to interact with readers and share information about their projects.

That said, the part I find the most challenging is site’s reliance on the five-star rating system. In particular, there are many books where I’m hard pressed to apply one “grade” to the entire book. Perhaps the book embodies beautiful prose, but has flat characters. Perhaps it’s a diamond in the rough that I thoroughly enjoyed despite some grammar and spelling problems. As with any social situation, I face awkward questions of going against the norm. What if I hated a book everyone loved or even loved a book everyone hated?

I’ve finally decided the standard I’m going to use to give books ratings on Goodreads is simply my enjoyment of the book. If I had a good time or felt enriched from reading it, I’ll likely give it five stars. If the book tempted me to throw it across the room in frustration, I’ll likely give it one or two. This may seem an extremely simple approach and you may wonder why it too me so long to come to this conclusion, but it goes back to that whole awkward social interaction thing. It’s easy to get caught up in questions of what people think of your opinions. In this case, I’ve simply found a standard that allows me to explain why I’ve given a book a particular rating—and it’s a standard that’s fun for me.

Of course another daunting element of all this is that I get to see what ratings people give my books. I do my best to adopt an attitude I first heard articulated by my friend Janni Lee Simner. I avoid trolling Goodreads for reviews and hope readers see it as a place where they can freely rate and discuss my books as they choose. I do look at the reviews from time to time and consider the comments good and bad, but I’ve also learned not to obsess over them. In fact, I’ve learned that most of my favorite authors have an average rating of about 3.5 give or take. Some readers love them, some hate them, a few are kind of neutral.

This month, I’m giving away two of my books on Goodreads. I’m giving away five copies of my wild west steampunk adventure novel Lightning Wolves at https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/118409-lightning-wolves and I’m giving away five copies of my novel of vampire mercenaries, Dragon’s Fall at https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/118410-dragon-s-fall-rise-of-the-scarlet-order. If you’re a Goodreads member, I hope you’ll enter to win! If you do win, I hope you’ll take time to review the book. Whether you liked it or hated it, a review shows you cared about the book and in the end, that’s what really matters.

Tales of the Talisman – Autumn 2014

Admittedly winter is almost upon us according to the calendar, but we still have a couple weeks of autumn left and I’ve been working hard this past week to finish the Autumn 2014 issue of Tales of the Talisman Magazine. The issue has something of a mad science vibe with stories of elder gods manipulating the Large Hadron Collider to break through to our world and Thomas Edison working to contact the dead. We also meet nineteenth century scientists working on the first artificial heart and we see a world where the wealthy reenact early space flights.

There are plenty of other stories as well, including the tale of a man who seeks King Arthur’s grave to implore the once and future monarch to rise and save the world. A doctor visits a village in Mongolia only to encounter terrifying magic. Another man peels up the corner of the world to reveal the elephants underneath. Of course, the issue itself is supported and enhanced by wonderful speculative poetry and terrific illustrations. I hope to send the issue to press sometime in the week of December 14. My guess is we’ll be shipping it out early in 2015. Please watch for it to appear at TalesOfTheTalisman.com and support the fine work of the authors and artists who have made this issue possible.

I suspect most people have heard by now that Tales of the Talisman will be going on indefinite hiatus. I thought I would take this opportunity answer some questions I’ve received about our break from the magazine.

Why are you going on hiatus?

In short, both Art Director Laura Givens and I have a lot of new, exciting opportunities on our plates and we could use more time to focus on them. I am contracted to deliver two novels to Sky Warrior Publishing in the next eighteen months. I will start working with my editor on a third novel for Lachesis Publishing early in 2015 and I have several other projects both personal and professional that have long been on the back burner simply due to lack of time.

By my estimate, I spend about 4.5 months of my year working at Kitt Peak. This is pretty much on par with an ordinary eight-hour per day, five-day per week job. Tales of the Talisman requires about 4 months of my year. That leaves about 3.5 months to do everything else, which has included writing a novel roughly every other year, multiple short stories, and attending conventions to promote my work.

In 1995, I assembled a small anthology called Hadrosaur Tales. That soon grew into a magazine, which I edited until 2005. At that point, in consultation with several people, we decided to take the magazine to the next level and add illustrations and give the stories the presentation they deserve. This became Tales of the Talisman.

For most of those twenty years, Hadrosaur Tales and then Tales of the Talisman supported themselves. However, they neither made me nor any of their contributors a living, much less making us rich. I have been delighted to have seen all the stories and poems that have come in to Tales of the Talisman and Hadrosaur Tales over the last twenty years, but I also felt like twenty years marked a good point to take a break and pursue other opportunities while I consider the next, best way for Hadrosaur Productions to present short fiction

When will Tales of the Talisman come back?

The most straightforward answer is, I don’t know. In short, deadlines are upon me for some of the projects I’ve mentioned above, plus I’m still spending time working on getting the final issues of Tales to press. I simply haven’t had time to consider that question. I plan to have a more definitive answer by the end of 2015.

Will Tales of the Talisman come back?

I’m not entirely certain, at least as it exists in its present form. Hadrosaur Productions, the company that publishes Tales of the Talisman remains committed to presenting great short speculative fiction. What we have to consider is whether the magazine is the best, most cost and time-effective way to do that. I have been considering other options, including an annual or semi-annual anthology, which might allow for quicker ebook conversion and easier distribution.

How long will Tales of the Talisman be published?

We have purchased stories through the spring 2015 issue. So, including the one that’s about to go to press, we have three issues to go. The artists are currently working on the winter issue, so I hope it will be released well before the spring winds start blowing here in New Mexico. We have all the material we need to fill those issues, so there will be no further reading periods until such time as we start up again, in whatever form that happens.

How will subscriptions be handled that extend past the last issue?

We don’t have many of those at this point. If you are one of those subscribers, I’ll contact you after we ship the final issue and find out if you want a refund for the balance of your subscription or if you’d like a product from the Hadrosaur Productions catalog for the value of the subscription.

If you have a question that I haven’t covered, feel free to ask in the comments. I want to thank all those people who have supported Tales of the Talisman and Hadrosaur Tales over the years. I ask that you continue to support my work and growth as a writer in the coming months. I hope that growing as a writer will help me grow as an editor as well. When we come back—in whatever form that is—I want the short fiction and poetry venue of Hadrosaur Productions to be a strong, vibrant home for the best voices in speculative fiction. My goal for this hiatus is to grow so that the material I choose and guide remains on that cutting edge. Please visit davidleesummers.com, browse my books and sign up for my newsletter.