Alexa asked:

Do you think this book was steampunk or a later era in France?

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9 years ago
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Aubrie This is historical fiction, taking place in France during the 1930s. Georges Méliès was an actual man with a knack for "magic" and prop work in his films, as many film-makers and even photographers did back then because there was no such thing as Photoshop. Everything was done by hand in a dark room. Now, such movie tricks are usually done with CGI, though there are still experimental film-makers and photographers that still work by hand like he did. I think readers are most confused by the automaton, which they see as futuristic technology. It's actually not, but there was a "Golden Age of Automata" which happened during the last fifty years of the Victorian era, which most of the Steampunk aesthetic is based from. Automatons have actually been built since ancient times and are still in production, though now it's mostly for artistic purposes.

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