Fairgrounds and Circuses
Your Top Ten Gas-Lit Empire Topics
Approaching publication day, we’re counting down the top ten points of interest in the Gas-Lit Empire novels, as revealed in readers’ comments and questions. In the last episode I wrote about the 8th most commonly commented on topic, which was research.
The seventh most frequently referred to topic is:
Number 7: Circuses and Travelling Shows
This is clearly a setting beloved of many readers, who have been keen to mention it in their reviews. It is an important aspect of the Bullet Catcher’s Daughter. Less so for the novel Unseemly Science. But the theme is reignited in Custodian of Marvels, where characters from the first book return. Though without the circus itself, they have a bond formed by their status as outsiders to every community through which they pass.
I was born in a house right next to the sea in the village of Borth in Ceredigion, Wales. There was a field next to our house where the seaside donkeys were left to graze. I remember a travelling fair coming to the village and pitching there. My parents were pleased to let them use our telephone for some calls. Unexpectedly, they gave us a free pass for the various fairground rides in exchange. I was a small child and didn’t understand the curious relationship between travelling people and the settled community.
Later, we moved a few miles down the coast to the town of Aberystwyth. A larger fair came and pitched there from time to time. Being older, I was beginning to sense that strange attraction/repulsion the townsfolk felt for the alien community that came for a week and then left. The streets around were thick with crowds. The smell of toffee apples, candyfloss and cigarettes. Strings of coloured light bulbs. Music and excited chatter.
To step into the glow of those lights was in some strange way to leave the ordinary world and enter a place where the restrictions of conventional morality seemed tantalisingly...
The full article can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
Approaching publication day, we’re counting down the top ten points of interest in the Gas-Lit Empire novels, as revealed in readers’ comments and questions. In the last episode I wrote about the 8th most commonly commented on topic, which was research.
The seventh most frequently referred to topic is:
Number 7: Circuses and Travelling Shows
This is clearly a setting beloved of many readers, who have been keen to mention it in their reviews. It is an important aspect of the Bullet Catcher’s Daughter. Less so for the novel Unseemly Science. But the theme is reignited in Custodian of Marvels, where characters from the first book return. Though without the circus itself, they have a bond formed by their status as outsiders to every community through which they pass.
I was born in a house right next to the sea in the village of Borth in Ceredigion, Wales. There was a field next to our house where the seaside donkeys were left to graze. I remember a travelling fair coming to the village and pitching there. My parents were pleased to let them use our telephone for some calls. Unexpectedly, they gave us a free pass for the various fairground rides in exchange. I was a small child and didn’t understand the curious relationship between travelling people and the settled community.
Later, we moved a few miles down the coast to the town of Aberystwyth. A larger fair came and pitched there from time to time. Being older, I was beginning to sense that strange attraction/repulsion the townsfolk felt for the alien community that came for a week and then left. The streets around were thick with crowds. The smell of toffee apples, candyfloss and cigarettes. Strings of coloured light bulbs. Music and excited chatter.
To step into the glow of those lights was in some strange way to leave the ordinary world and enter a place where the restrictions of conventional morality seemed tantalisingly...
The full article can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
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