A very cold looking delivery man has just delivered a big box to the front door. Exciting. Even more exciting it contains my copies of Resurrection Engines, a splendid collection of steampunk retellings of classic tales. Oh, I love the feel of fresh books straight from the printers. They’re always strangely chilly. I used to get the same buzz back in my magazine editing days. That thrill of peeking at the finished pages for the very first time.
Even better, this is also my very first stab at steampunk.
Can you guess what my own effort, entitled ‘Fairest of them all’, draws on? Yes, that’s right, Sleeping Beauty. No, no, of course not. It’s Snow White – but Snow White in a strange victorian world where Isambard Kingdom Brunel employs hulking cybernauts to build his steamships and beauty is all that matters for the fairer sex.
I’m looking forward to diving into the rest of the stories. The question with anthologies is whether you start at the beginning or dip in or out? As you can see it’s a big old book. Over 500 pages of brand new tales of scientific romance, edited by Scott Harrison.
In fact, I’ll dive in right now. I’ve managed to get 5,000 words of my current WIP done today so time to settle down and enjoys a little steampunkery. Kim Lakin-Smith‘s retelling of Peter Pan I think. Yes, ‘The Island of Peter Pandora’ it is…
Resurrection Engines is out now, published by Snow Books, and available from Amazon, Waterstones, WH Smiths and all good bookshops*.
*Because, actually, is there such a thing as a bad bookshop?
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