Asylum Steampunk: Going Global

Thanks to Asylum Steampunk, Lincoln, and Dr Karl Bell’s Supernatural Cities for a splendid event of provocations and cultural nuances.

I gave a talk expanded from the research for my first novel. A Tale of Three Tunnels: Biology of the Metropolis and Victori-bethan Anxiety. I sketched the wild histories of Metropolitan Line, Bazalgette’s sewers, and London Hydraulic Power Company. In admiring the Victorians’ ambition, overcoming blocks and bursts that we forget in our retelling, I noted how we lampoon, belittle and malign their era.

Perhaps, I suggest, we are anxious that their era overshadows ours so completely that we will only be remembered as a footnote to the Victorian age, our technology parasitic on theirs, our visions shaped by theirs.

Speakers from the conference: extra plaudits for Karl Bell’s prosthetic arm

As conference organiser, Dr Karl Bell declared:
“Excellent papers & panels @ ‘Going Global: #Steampunk & Transnational Cultures’ conference #AsylumX. Huge thanks to @yoms @tinyhippo1979 @EsserHelena @ClockworkHeart @EilisPhillips @WilliamGeorgeQ @skuldugger @VanVeda Alex Anthony-Lewczuk, Catherine Redpath, @AsylumSteampunk“

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