Branding yourself a Dieselpunk writer is an odd thing to do,
and to be honest it’s more for my benefit than any potential reader. I actually
write pulpy action-adventure stories that involve biplanes, gangsters,
Caribbean safaris and old-school mad scientists. But I do put a lot of effort
into theming my stories in order to experiment with ideas and genres and for
some reason I just clicked with the Dieselpunk vibe. I enjoy the stories that
happen when I think Dieselpunk so that’s why I write them.
Working out why I
enjoy them is a completely different issue.
I started writing Tommy Thunder set in the 1920s because
that’s the golden age of adventure, a time in which the world still hadn’t been
completely mapped, but the technology existed to take you to those places
anyway. The chance to explore those blank spaces of possibility is what gives
the era so many possibilities. It was this excitable attitude that
characterises many of the writers of the era, a certain amount of idealistic
positivity that, while in some cases poorly guided, it provided a world of
imagination and possibility that looked to the stars and beyond with an energy
that’s hard to match these days. Their imagination ran wild with stories of
what was out there in the world, out there in the galaxy and out there in the future. It made for
some fantastic imaginating.
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| The Future!!! We just don't think like this any more. |
But because of this pulpy optimism, Tommy Thunder is
decidedly Dieselpunk-averse. While I can touch on Dieselpunk ideas, the pure naive
optimism of Tommy under the clear blue skies of the Caribbean prevents me exploring
the gritty cool of Chicago and New York, and with it the reasons why so many
people love the symbols of the age, the clothing, the music and the design. I’m
fascinated with the idea that people would rather live there than here and I
want to know why. And I want to know why I
enjoy all these things as well.
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| Not really a Caribbean kinda gal... |
So Tommy wasn’t enough. As fun as he is, Tommy is not able
to explore the Dieselpunk side of life, a set of ideas that fascinate me no end
and exists within the same era as Tommy, if not in the same spirit. In order to explore Dieselpunk I need
gangsters and fast cars and mad scientists and speakeasies, and while all those
things will show up in a Tommy Thunder story, they won’t be distilled the way
they will be in Tales of the Aether Age,
my Dieselpunk ‘label’. In Tales I can go nuts and explore the arguments of
Dieselpunk, get my noir on and explore the Jazz Age’s seedier political corners
without compromising Tommy’s story. I get to explore ‘casual-isation’, ‘mainstream
criminality’ and the everyday politics of art deco design while Tommy gets to
shoot biplanes out of the sky. Everyone wins :)
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| Holodeck Dieselpunks/Tales of the Aether Age readers. |
To that end I’d also like to announce something very
exciting. This is where I reveal that my first piece of published writing will
soon be released, a Dieselpunk story published as the first Tale of the Aether Age. I’m quite
chuffed with how it turned out and it will be released as part of an anthology
released in conjunction with Dieselpunks.org, the internet’s best source for
all things Dieselpunk. More info to be posted during the week but for now I’ll
leave you with the title of my first story and a working cover:
That Sort of World: A
Tale of the Aether Age.
Whatcha think? Release date is the 18th February so I'll have more details soon.
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