I've been damn busy, and it looks to remain that way for the near future. I'm not complaining. However, I have, as the old saying goes, many spinning plates in the air, and my feet are tangled in a mob of lemurs.
Until I have some spare creative energy, or something worthwhile to say, the best I can do is point you to my friend Cherie's superawesome Steampunk long-short-story/novelette in the Fall edition of Subterranean Online, Tanglefoot:
Stonewall Jackson survived Chancellorsville. England broke the Union’s naval blockade, and formally recognized the Confederate States of America. Atlanta never burned.
It is 1880. The American Civil War has raged for nearly two decades, driving technology in strange and terrible directions. Combat dirigibles skulk across the sky and armored vehicles crawl along the land. Military scientists twist the laws of man and nature, and barter their souls for weapons powered by light, fire, and steam.
But life struggles forward for soldiers and ordinary citizens. The fractured nation is dotted with stricken towns and epic scenes of devastation–some manmade, and some more mysterious. In the western territories cities are swallowed by gas and walled away to rot while the frontiers are strip-mined for resources. On the borders between North and South, spies scour and scheme, and smugglers build economies more stable than their governments.
This is the Clockwork Century.
It is dark here, and different.
Want to know how awesome Cherie is? She's currently nominated for a rather prestigious writing award . . . against Ursula LeGuin. Not bad for your first time, Cherie.
I'm back to the salt mines. Have a nice day, and watch out for the lemurs. They're motherfuckingeverywhere.
