Gatehouse Gazette ISSUE 9 NOV ‘09 ISSN 1879-5676
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Gatehouse Gazette ISSUE 9 NOV ‘09 ISSN 1879-5676 BEAUtIFUl Industry EMRE TURHAL ISSUE 8 Gatehouse Gazette SEP ‘09 CONTENTS The Gatehouse Gazette is an FEATURES online magazine in publication Loving the Factory, too 3 since July 2008, dedicated to the Industry and machines in steampunk and dieselpunk. speculative fiction genres of 4 steampunk and dieselpunk. Alchemy for Mystery Interview with Carol McCleary, author of The Alchemy of Murder The Flying Scotsman 8 Not a man with wings but a champion of the steam railway. Start up the Big Machines 16 The industrialization of Britain, Germany and France compared. The Asylum 19 Thoughts on the recent Lincoln, England steampunk convivial. COLUMNS REVIEWS Dieselpunk Season 12 Hilde Heyvaert’s The Steampunk Wardrobe . The Alchemy The Martini 15 of Murder 4 Craig B. Daniel’s The Liquor Cabinet . Boilerplate 7 Quatermass and the Pit 11 Guy Dampier’s last Quatermass review. Leviathan 10 Dieselpunk Online 6 The Invisible An overview of what’s new at the premier dieselpunk websites. Frontier 13 Casshern 18 ©2009 Gatehouse Gazette . All rights reserved. Neither this publication nor any part of it may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Gatehouse Gazette . Published every two months by The Gatehouse . Contact the editor at [email protected]. PAGE 2 ISSUE 8 Gatehouse Gazette SEP ‘09 EDITORIAL LOVING THE NICK OTTENS FACTORY, TOO THERE ARE STARK AND UNDENIABLE DIFFERENCES dieselpunk, more distinctly informed b y cyberpunk between the mindsets of steampunk and dieselpunk in sensibilities, is more likely to become a dystopia than its spite of the close bonds between both genres and those steampunk counterpart. “Despondency and despair” who enjoy exploring them. Steampunk has evolved subsequently “linger upon society,” according to considerably over the past few years, from Victorian Piecraft (Issue #4 , January 2009 ), one that has “long science fiction to a movement that makes its own forgotten the novelty or dynamism of the old glory days fashion and lifestyle statement very boldly. Steampunk of the Jazz Age.” No longer is the machine a beacon of enthusiasts are prone to resist the mindless use of hope and modernity ; it embodies the sad and technology prevalent in our society nowadays. As editor depressing truth of pollution and oppression in the C. Allegra Hawksmoor put it in the latest edition of Piecraftian nightmare. SteamPunk Magazine , “We adore the machines that Is that how we see the factory today? The Victorian come from an age before endless replication reduced era brought us industry and in spite of all its vices everything into soulless copies of itself —lacking any (pollution, poverty, uncontrolled urbanization and the sort of individuality, and p lastered with labels warning terrible exploitation of workers) it paved the way for a us not to interfere with machines whose workings we new era of eco nomic growth and prosperity. We live in cannot possibly understand.” She goes so far as to that era today. The accomplishments of industry are declare steampunk “non-industrial”—the genre loves undeniable. In fact, you are probably reading this on the machine, she writes, but hates the factory. one of them. For all its majesty and grandeur it is Whether she professes a contradiction in terms sometimes easy to forget the downsides of technology here or a particularly poignant comprehension of the however . Both steampunk and dieselpunk much rather steampunk ethos, I shall leave undecided for a moment. revel in the beautiful products of the progress of times What I wish to declare is that dieselpunk does not make past than submerge in a constant depression about the this distinction. many ills associated with the often sudden and violent “Dieselpunk technology exudes an aim to express arrival of change. the energetic, dynamic, and violent quality of For that reason, we dedic ate this issue to “Beautiful contemporary life,” writes Mr Piecraft in Issue #5 of this Industry” with several articles and reviews related to magazine (March 2009) , “especially as embodied in the big machinery and the impact of progress. Besides, we motion and force of m odern machinery.” We find this feature an interview with author Carol McCleary of The sentiment expressed in the sort of dieselpunk fiction the Alchemy of Murder along with the familiar columns and weblog The Flying Fortress labeled as ‘Ottensian’: the a short story by Andrew Singleton, entitled Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow side of the “Stormbringer”. genre which we can easily associate with Futurism and As always , I hope that you will enjoy this latest 1930s pulp science fiction, but also in the ‘Piecraftian’ issue of the Gatehouse Gazette and I would like to invite dieselpunk where “a you to let us know darker side to this “Mass production techniques brought whether you do. Should romanticism” emerges massively better material standards of you wish to have a letter that is almost absent or even an article of your entirely from steampunk. living for many people and steampunks own published here, The darker, grittier, need to remember that.” please, don’t hesitate to petroleum-fueled world of contact us! ■ —Arceye, The Steampunk Forum PAGE 3 ISSUE 8 Gatehouse Gazette SEP ‘09 INTERVIEW CAROL McCLEARY Author of The Alchemy of Murder , currently worki ng on a sequel to this historical detective novel. ALCHEMY FOR HILDE HEYVAERT On the next pag e: a review of The Alchemy of Murder by the interviewer MYSTERY WHAT GAVE YOU THE IDEA TO USE what some call the greatest single Yankee , Shelly’s Frankenstein , Jules historical characters for your book scientific discovery in history: the Verne’ s balloon and submarine and why did you choose these? fact germs cause disease. And, of voyages, the marvellous H.G. Wells A friend of mine gave me Nellie Bly’s course , Oscar Wilde was there, tales (even chasing the Ripper to exposé, Ten Days In A Madhouse , to titillating café society with his San Francisco in Time After Time ), read. Well, once I read it, I thought scandals and wit, Toulouse was The League of Extraordinary “wow, this is someone everyone painting his beloved whores, Gentlemen (and anythin g else Sean should know”—she is a real life students were ‘plotting’ revolutions Connery plays in). So, though I heroine—and perfect for a Victorian at café tables over absinthes and wasn’ t aware of the word, I enjoy mystery. smokes, while anarchists where the era; to be truthful, better than I could relate to Nellie because planting bombs under the tables this computer age we are in. I also as her editor told her, “Your (ju st like today). love the Indiana Jones movies, which grammar is rocky…” and so is mine. The plot developed itself from have the same ambiance as What I also discovered about Nellie the era, a time when inventions and steampunk in a diesel era. was that she had a warm heart and scientific discoveries like t hose cared very deeply about people, of Pasteur soared and the ‘far - especially about the rights of fetched’ ideas of Jules Verne woman, and fought relentlessly to were becoming reality. The fact make their lives better. She had these two men r epresented the immense courage. two extremes of ‘science’ The rest of the characters you intrigued me. Ultimately the might say chose themselves. plot was derived from Nellie’ s courage to right a wrong (as Why choose Paris as the setting? she was constantly doing), So many of Victorian tales are set in Jules Verne’ s fantastic ideas London or New York, I thought, why and the research of the great not Paris? It was an interesting Pasteur as he bla zed new paths place during this time—Paris was in real science. brimming with discoveries, inventions and wild parties and the You like the era for the same Exposition Universelle , the World’s reason the steampunk Fair was happening. movement does: the inventions, You lived in the Orient for quite a While researching who was the science, the changes. Were you long time. D id that in any way inspire hanging around Paris at this time, I aware of steampunk when you wrote your writing and this book in discovered Jules Verne was there, the book? particular? ‘inventing’ science fiction, and had No, I wasn’t aware of ‘ steampunk,’ While I lived in the Orient onl y until once served on a health committee but I love the Victorian Age and its I was six years old, it’s been said with Louis Pasteur, the great quirky tales of st eam era science that a person’ s personality is microbe hunter, who was making like Mark Twain’s Connecticut developed early and I believe living PAGE 4 CAROL McCLEARY ISSUE 8 Gatehouse Gazette SEP ‘09 in the Far East has had an enormous I’d be delighted! After Nellie gets beat him.” Pulitzer knows Nellie will effect on me. I was able to back from Paris, she is taunted by do exactly that, so he agrees to let experience different cultures and Jules’ remark at the train station her go. personalities which opened my that she can’ t beat the record of his It was an age of steam ships mind to the fact that there is a fictional hero, Phi leas Fogg, in his that had auxiliary sails for when the wonderful world filled with all novel, Around The World In Eighty boiler broke down and steam different kinds of interesting people Days . So, one day she goes to her locomotive s called Iron Horses.