Back in Business with the ABCs of Steampunk

Well, I can honestly say I spent the summer writing.  5 free online projects.  Another book out as of yesterday under yet another pseudonym.  I like to draw clear distinctions between the sort of stories I write.  Sets reader expectations.  Those who like my paranormal fantasy/light sci-fi stories aren’t likely to enjoy my cozy mysteries, and vice versa.  So this puts me in the position of writing under THREE names.  Still — I promise, doubters, it’s for the best.

Fearful Symmetry (The Past Lives Series, Book #1) should be ready soon.  In the meantime, I’ll be reposting some old blog posts and some new ones, just to remind folks I’m still alive!

To that end, something I wrote awhile back that got a nice response:

The ABCs of Steampunk

A is for Alchemy, Science’s emo elder brother
B is for Brass
C is for Corsets, or Cyborgs, or cyborgs in corsets
D is for Damask, Decanter, and Daguerreotypes
E is for Engine, steam of course
F is for Flying-Machine
G is for Gears, Gauges, and Gadgets
H is for Helium
I  is for Imperial
J  is for Jules (Verne)
K is for Knickers, Knobs and knobs in knickers
L  is for Leather (brown)
M is for Muttonchops, Machines, and Mankind
N is for Never was, but should have been
O is for Opium
P  is for Parasols, Pistols, and Petticoats
Q is for Queen, of course
R is for Revisionist (Alternate) History
S is for Spectacles
T is for Test tubes, Tin-Plating, and Tarts
U is for Uniforms — love a gal or a guy in one!
V is for Victoriana, the prettiest ugly stuff around
W is for Wells, H.G.
X is for X-rays and Xenon Gas
Y is for Young Edwardians
Z is for Zepplin, and for zzzzzzzzs … Good-Night!

Fearful Symmetry: Past Lives Trilogy Book #1

Here’s the cover:

Fearful Symmetry has a cover …

… the full reveal comes soon, and the book not too long after!

Everything I Need To Know I Learned from Harry Potter

In honor of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 here’s what seven books and eight movies have taught us over the years:

No Matter How Fabulous You Are, Some People (Including Blood Relatives) Won’t Like You

How can they spare affection for Harry when they have Diddykins?

Let’s face it.  If Harry Potter himself can’t win over everyone in the world, why should you expect to?  There will always be people who don’t get you, don’t appreciate you, and quite often they’ll share your DNA.

No Matter How Well You Think You Know Someone, There’s Always A Hidden Side

Sometimes we get lucky enough to see behind the mask.  Most often, we don’t.  But everyone around us is the star of their own dramatic backstory, the heroics of which we may never know.

You Have To Take Your Lumps

Every single book, Harry faces a time when he’s publicly misunderstood.  Whether it’s his supposed fame-seeking nature or Ron’s jealousy or the POTTER STINKS campaign, Harry meets his share of public criticism and even ostracism with great dignity.  He doesn’t expect his life to be perfect, nor does he believe the world owes him anything.  Yet at the same time, he never becomes bitter or unable to accept kindness.  It’s a difficult balance, yet he pulls it off.

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Long before the final book’s release, I wondered how anyone could consider Snape a villain.  Look at him shielding the kids from werewolf-Lupin.  Would a villain do that?

At the same time, I’ve always been mystified at how Voldemort won many followers.  Sure, he promises power, riches, etc.  But all he deals is pain and death.  Occasional sweet words mean nothing.

Be Careful How You Treat Others

Sirius Black died because he casually, unthinkingly tormented Kreature for years, while the evil sisters Narcissa and Bellatrix always treated the house elf kindly.  Treating people with contempt is a recipe for disaster.

Friends Are Everything

They say friends are the family you choose for yourself.  Harry’s friends pull him through again and again.  He may not be the smartest guy around, but he’s friends with the cleverest witch there is.  He may not come from a happy and loving home, but thanks to his buddy Ron, he can enjoy one whenever he wants.  Neville, Luna, Hagrid, Lupin, Sirius, Fred, George, Ginny … so many people Harry could never do without, and he chose them all.  The wider the circle, the better off you are.

Love Is More Powerful Than Death

Maybe the theme sounds a little lame written out, but there it is.  Tom Riddle went through a great deal to avoid death; Harry walked forth and faced it like a man.  The result?  Voldemort was annihilated and Harry prevailed.  Love spared Harry in the crib; love motivated Snape to watch over him for years; love gave all our heroes, not just Harry, the strength to stand up to evil.  Many of the epic stories boil down to this: Lord of the Rings, His Dark Materials, Chronicles of Narnia, and classic books like A Wrinkle in Time.  As a famous letter-writer once observed, “Love never fails.”  In the Harry Potter series that sentiment is proven all over again.

Emergency Helpful Post: Free Advice for the X-Men Sequel

Okay, I am supposed to be writing, but I just got an update that another McAvoy/Fassbender X-Men movie might happen.  So: please, please, Hollywood, be careful — the current movie is rebooting the franchise.  In other words, please don’t make X-Men: Second Class.  I realize my blog is copywrite-protected, everything original posted within is the intellectual property of the author, but SERIOUSLY — feel free to use any of this!

Who Will Be Field Commander of the X-Men?

Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) is now in a wheelchair and unable to command in the battlefield.  So In the original comics, the field commander was Scott Summers, AKA Cyclops.  But now his “little” brother Alex is a founding X-Man, and Scott isn’t even born yet.  (No complaints — the movie version of Scott is hardly worthy of life.)

So who can lead the new team?  Alex is too hot-headed and Beast is too cerebral.  So how about this groovy 60s girl?

She’s young, hot, and half-dressed.  Perfect for a popcorn movie.

Polaris, like Magneto (Michael Fassbender), has the power of magnetism.  The X-Men need someone who can stand up to Magneto … at least theoretically.

Who Will Be The Main Villain?

Well, duh, Magneto, right?  WRONG.  Fassbender is a rising star and the Magneto/Professor X friendship is a big part of the fandom.  They will never agree, but they will never give up on each other.  What’s needed, in a summer popcorn movie, is a villain that lends itself to mass destruction with minimum actual bloodshed.  This is why summer is populated by Transformers instead of flesh eating zombies.  So, hmm, let’s see, is there a scary villain the X-Men can unleash against, without having to argue the ethics of murder?

Ah, the endless utility of the Big Metal Robot

Yeah, baby.  SENTINELS.  They’re (mostly) mindless.  They hate mutants.  They want to round them all up and exterminate them.  Plus, with a modern redesign, they’d made not only a great cinematic visual, but wicked cool TOYS.  Hello, marketing??

X-Men: Rise of the Sentinels … a FREE Three-Act Outline:

Act One: Charles says, Magneto is up to no good and we must stop him.  Polaris, a mutant nearly as powerful as Magneto himself, is Charles’s best hope to neutralize his old friend.  Charles continues to defend the government’s rogue mutant division until…
Act Two: Magneto was right, the humans were planning to kill us all along!  Cursing himself for his own stubbornness, Professor X and his students fight bravely, but get themselves captured.  Worse, the Sentinels have decided ALL human life is based on mutation.  Therefore, to carry out their prime directive, they must sterilize the earth.  Act Two concludes with a situation that leaves Polaris the last X-(wo)man standing.  She’s tired and beaten up … can’t go on … yet her power seems to be increasingly exponentially.  Is it her winsome expression, her lovely green hair?  Nope…
Act Three: It’s Magneto, boosting her to new heights.  He and his outlaws return to save the day and fight beside the X-Men.  In the end, the human race is saved.  Although the Professor and Magneto disagree, they’ve found themselves working together for the greater good once more.

But what about…

This guy, the ultimate kid fan favorite?

Put him in.  Make up some crap about his memory and put him in.  No worries about him not being the X-Men’s field commander.  You don’t hire a guy with metal bones to spearhead a fight against a fellow named Magneto.

Okay, Hollywood, happy to help.  Back to my own book.  Whatever you do, please — DON’T MESS THIS UP.

True Blood Season 4 Opener

As usual, I am busy writing, so this post is just a reaction, not a structured review.  Here we are at season 4…



What’s that game called?  Marry, Kill — what?

Sookie in the Land of the Fairies

I suppose it was fine.  Competently done.  I wondered if viewers who (as someone once told me) “just tune in for the dudes” gave a damn about Queen Mab et al.  I didn’t care, but I’m kind of jaded.  I also rolled my eyes when Sookie met Grandpa Earl just long enough to lose him, and cry over him.  Sookie crying again.  Riveting TV.



Um … yeah.

Tara the Traveling Bisexual Cage Fighter

Am I the only one who found this latest attempt at a story arc cringeworthy and impossible to believe?  I swear, the people running this show need help.  It is very true, if you run around with super-powered people, you need super-powers yourself.  Otherwise you are always the hostage/victim.  Tara, an ordinary person whose best friend is always this close to death, needed to be killed off or given a defensive power around season 2.  In the Charlaine Harris novels, Sookie has a friend who’s a witch.  Why oh why didn’t the producers/writers merge Tara’s character with the character of that witchy friend?  Instead we have the wonderful Lafayette as a reluctant witch, something that may or may not work.  He should have been made a vampire by Eric.  It wouldn’t have changed anything we love about Lafayette, except given him the power to sell his own V and perhaps become a local celebrity.  Can’t you see him taking questions on his own web show, Queer Black Vamp?  He’d be more popular than Nan Flanagan.

Steering into the Ditch

Speaking only for myself: Hoyt and Jessica’s domestic problems.  No.  Sam’s shifter group?  No.  Arlene’s possible bad seed baby?  No.

Two good things came out of the mostly-good third season: Vampire King and television star Russell, and this guy:



I’d love to know why Arlene made it into the premiere and he didn’t

True Blood is supposed to be fun and sexy.  Grandpa, tears, weird baby, wild horses, WTF????  What about Alcide?

Eric Northman, Small Business Owner, and Bill Compton, Your Grandma’s Favorite Vamp

These are the parts that worked for me: Eric using the TV camera to make sweet, sweet love to all his potential customers, and Bill using his 19th century charm to mesmerize a group of senior citizens.  Then Eric reveals HE bought Sookie’s house (duh) and Bill reveals HE is the new Vampire King (whoa).  I liked that twist, but why do I fear it will lead to this sort of sequence:

SOOKIE:  I will never trust you again, Bill Compton!
SOOKIE:  I trust you again, Bill Compton.
BILL: While I thought you were dead, I married Sophie-Anne to become King and now I keep her locked in a coffin.
SOOKIE: (in tears) I will never trust you again, Bill Compton!

Yes, I Know, Comparisions Are Odious, But …

There’s another HBO show that just spent 10 episodes teaching us what PLANNED character development looks like.  I hope it’s not too late for the True Blood writers/producers to watch that show and take some notes.



Actual photo of a character with a planned story arc experiencing character development



Dream Casting: Michael Fassbender as Ted Harrington

Even the clothes are nearly correct…

Can I post this to my blog without looking and sounding like a complete jackassy doof?  I know Anne Rice routinely posts to Facebook about her “dream casts,” but she’s Anne Effing Rice, so (1) it could actually happen and (2) she’s Anne Rice. 

Oh, I don’t care.  In this picture, Fassbender looks exactly like one of my 1870s characters, the master telekinetic Ted Harrington, and I just can’t help myself.

We Interrupt This Blog…

I need a synonym for “psi-bolt” … hmmm…

Hello and happy summer!

You may have noticed I haven’t been posting as much lately.  All my writing time is going toward my two projects: Fearful Symmetry (Past Lives Series #1) and my as-yet-untitled sci-fi novel.  I’ve found that when the energy to write is on me, I have to obey.  So I’ll be back to more regular blog posts as soon as I can.  In the meantime, Howard may post a few things for me, assuming (of course) that he regains consciousness long enough.

Mystery paw shot

A Modern-Day Zeppelin Tragedy

This is sad.  A Goodyear Blimp crashed and burned in Germany on Sunday, June 12th.  The pilot saved his passengers by getting them close enough to the ground to jump, before perishing himself in the crash.  You can read about it here.  A picture of the hero pilot Mike Nerandzic:

This Aussie pilot saved his passengers at the expense of his own life

Click here for my my original post on Zeppelins.

Interview with Evelyn Lafont, Creator of VampLure

If you plan on breaking his heart — better read VampLure first…

Today marks the return of the amazing Evelyn Lafont, aka The Keyboard Hussy.  Fresh off the success of her first book, The Vampire Relationship Guide, Volume 1: Meeting and Mating, Evelyn returns to tell us about her latest venture, the online magazine VampLure, and her next book, The Vampire Relationship Guide, Volume 2!

Okay, Evelyn, you know I read and loved your first book, The Vampire Relationship Guide, Volume 1: Meeting and Mating. And I have no doubt if vampires existed and were accepted members of our society, a magazine like VampLure would be very popular.  In addition to the humorous articles (“Suicidal Jeans” was hysterical!) do you have any plans to sneak in some “bonus content” about this world you’ve built?  I would love to see a feature called “A Look Back” (or whatever) recounting the day vampires came out of the coffin (TM Charlaine Harris, I think).   Or perhaps the day a constitutional amendment made the undead full citizens?

Thank you! In The Vampire Relationship Guide, Volume 2: Travel and Transformation (tentative title), I address the “coming out” of vampires, from Josie’s point of view. I may get into politics a little bit on VampLure.com, but this monthly e-zine is no Atlantic or Vanity Fair. It’s very much a trashy monthly mag for vamp-obsessed girls. The girls who read VampLure, already happy to give up a little piece of their pride just to cling on to a vampire boyfriend, would probably not care very much about the politics behind their emergence. So amendments and laws may be referred to in articles, but they won’t be the focus. Honestly, it’s like picking up Cosmo for relationship tips…I mean, really?

The magazine VampLure says he’s a VampModel…

Human nature being what it is, I suspect gorgeous male vamps would always be the target not only of gold-diggers, but of people desperate for immortality — “grave-diggers,” maybe?  While reading VRG #1, I had the idea (subtext, not text) that vamps weren’t empowered to make other vamps at will; there was some kind of taboo, either political, religious, or magical.  Will you address “grave-diggers” (or whatever you want to call them) in Vamplure?

I love the term grave-diggers! For as humorous as all the volumes of VRG are, there is a definite subtext about power and who gets to have it. There is a process for wanna-be vamps that involves a vampire panel and proceedings. You must be ridiculously attractive, first of all. But you also must be….useful and a good “bet” in terms of financial success because you must help maintain the balance of power. It wasn’t always this way, but vampires have a plan now. As you read the books, you will find there is also a recruitment angle–kind of like model scouts use, but for very different reasons. The vamps have established that it’s an exclusive club, and they are not flexible about this.

You have an amazing gift for satire.  Is there any particular cliché of vampire fiction you plan to address in either Vamplure or your next book, The Vampire Relationship Guide, Volume 2?

Again, thank you! This is a hard question because sometimes I address things that I’m not sure other people even notice. For instance, in book one I talk about vampires investing in fixed securities. To me, this is just a funny practical touch that, if I were reading it in a normal paranormal romance novel, I would die laughing about. I love these teensy little average details. I’ve got a few of those in book two but I also address Weres and heroines with…kooky plans….and that’s all I’m saying…

Thanks, Evelyn!  Can’t wait for the next book!  In the meantime, for anyone who somehow missed it, take a look at the awesome book trailer that started it all…

Promotional material states: photo of Evelyn Lafont, sober.  This site makes no claims or guarantees.

BIO:

Evelyn Lafont is an author and freelance writer with an addiction to Xanax and a predilection for snark. Her debut novella, The Vampire Relationship Guide, Volume 1: Meeting and Mating is a comedy about dating, sexing, and living with vampires and is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Smashwords. She has also developed a monthly e-zine to accompany the series, which can be found at VampLure.com.