Welcome to this special Steampunk edition of my fanzine Andromeda's Offspring. In this issue you will find some really exciting (I hope) material, including a brand new story from Steampunk regular Raven Dane as well of thoughts on Steampunk ad In a letter to Locus magazine in 1987, Jeter what makes it so enjoyable remarked on the writing that himself and fellow from scribes such as Kim scribes such as James P Blaylock and Tim Lakin-Smith and K. W. Powers were experimenting with. The term Jeter. And speaking of Mr used, which is now recognised as a genre in its Jeter, for those that don't own right, is Steampunk. The two books Jeter is know the story of how particularly known for is Morlock Night and Steampunk gained its Infernal Devices . These books, along with name, let me fill you in. works by Blaylock and Powers and The Difference Engine by Gibson and Stirling, have become the canon. LETTERS OF COMMENT November 29, 2012 Dear Theresa: Thank you for Andromeda's Offspring 5. On my way down to Los Angeles last week, I made some notes on this issue, but as always these days, my time is not my own. Now to look at the notes, and see if anything I wrote makes sense any more. It's great to see a picture of you! Now I know who I'm talking to. Or writing to, or something like that. Congratulations on the new book. I wouldn't mind the kind of job you have with Urban Shadows...if there are similar publications here, I don't know about them. I have a job in publishing right now, but I'd like a better one, and I am trying to turn my evening job into my full-time job. I hope there's plenty of support for Andromeda One. Good luck with running the convention, and who knows how far this could go? Some ideas for future interviews...two old friends of mine are Karen Wehrstein and Shirley Meier. They used to write novels together and with S.M. Stirling back in the 90s. Another old friend is Tanya Huff. All three of these great ladies would make for excellent interviews. Karen and Shirley are starting to revive their writing careers. Not many times do I see the name Doris Piserchia in fanzines. I have a lot of her books on my shelf, and she wrote a fair number of them for DAW, if I recall. A quick look online shows that she is in her 80s, and hasn't written anything new in nearly 30 years. She is a subject that needs more research than what a Wikipedia entry can provide. The success of Fifty Shades of Grey comes not from the quality of the writing, but from the publicity it got, and the resulting public interest in mommyporn, as it's been called. Perhaps that's just a slightly higher level of Harlequin romance book? And the parody opportunities...there must be hundreds, if not thousands of parodies out there now, which unfortunately will probably make the original Fifty Shades of Grey one of the most successful books in publishing history. Many thanks for this issue...I am looking forward to the Steampunk issue! We took our Steampunk costumes to Loscon, lots of pictures and kind comments, and they made our day. Many thanks for this issue, and as always, I look forward to the next one, and I hope I can respond a little faster next time. Yours, Lloyd Penney. Thanks as always Lloyd, I'll take on your suggestions! Theresa Hello Theresa, I came across Andromeda's Offspring via Suzanne McLeod's blog. I enjoyed your issue, especially because you had a short story by Ms Mcleod in no.#5. I've been a fan of McLeod's writing for a few years, ever since I came across an excerpt ('across the pond' I see it's called an extract) of her novels way before they were available to us in the United States. I'm always happy to find a short story of hers to read, and Piece of Cake was especially fun, because I could totally imagine my granddaughter with a pair of magical fairy wings divebombing us and the dogs! Something that grabbed my attention was the article about women SciFi writers. There was a list, and something about displays and the money they made which I didn't really understand, because in the bookstores I've been to, no matter how things are displayed, when things are purchased, the items are brought up to the cash registers, so not sure how they would register as separate sales - but then my brain no longer wants to actually WORK. I do have something to say about regarding the low sales of women writers in the SciFi genre though. I have a hard time FINDING women authors in our SciFi sections in the bookstores I go to (Barnes & Nobel, mainly). While I love reading urban fantasy, I do wish they would focus less on the strong romance and more on story. I wonder if that's why the sales are less for women - do people expect more romance in a woman's story? I would love to read SciFi by women writers with little to no romance, and wish that I could find more to read. I only recognized a few of the writers on the list by Helena Bowles; Lauren Beukes, Sara Creasy, Elizabeth Moon, Bujold, and Kristine Kathryn Rusch are a few of the authors from the list that I have read and enjoyed. I have copied the list down on my laptop for referencing purposes. I plan on searching out some of these writers to see if I might enjoy reading their work. I hope so, and am glad I read this article and now have some new names to explore. Thanks for a fun 'magazine'(?) zine(?) issue. Between the short story by Suzanne McLeod, the reviews and the interesting article, I had an interesting interlude of reading. Sincerely Mardel Sissle (from way far away, across the pond) Hi Mardel, many thanks for your letter. In respect of the book sales, Helena keeps tabs on her section of what actually leaves the shelves in order to measure the sales. Interesting what you say about the romance aspect, and I do wonder if that is the issue. When does paranormal romance become urban fantasy? I'm really pleased you'll be exploring new writers. That is all I could've hoped for. Yours truly, Theresa Congrats on becoming Reviews Editor for Urban Shadows. I'm something of an Urban Fantasy fan (mostly Tim Powers, Jim Blaylock and that crowd) so I'll have to check it out. I've recently restarted the plan to launch my Film Journal, Klaus at Gunpoint, and we've got a couple of grants to make it possible, so now it's almost like I'm a real editor! Wow, good on ya for thinking about TAFF! We all know that the 2014 race is looking like it's going to be quite full, but I've heard of a few people already considconsidering ering 2013! I'll say this: TAFF for me wwaaaass a lifelife----changingchanging experience and one that I'll always cherish. For some reason, the second page showed the book cover, but no text! Was it just my PDF reader, or did something go weird? Love Laura Resnick's stuffstuff.. Got to meet her at WorldCon this year, she did the Writers Under Glass project, a group writing exercise that ended producing a helluva weird novel I really want to readread.... I would really love to read Katya's World, and I didn't know there was a new Kitty Norville novel! I love Carrie Vaughn (she's really cool, I met her right before the first Kitty novel was released, and she's kindly written for Journey Planet) and I am going tototo have to pick it up and read it. I like the new cover theme for it too! Page 11 and 12 are blank for me too, other than teh graphgraphicic on 12! Is there a monster in my machine? Is it eating pages? It would seem appropriate, a computerized monster eating pages out of a zine. There may be a story in there... ...of course, I can' t write it until I'm done with National Novel Writing Month! Thanks! Chris WHAT IS STEAMPUNK ANYWAY? By Adrian Middleton Genre mutates. And the Steampunk of the In literary terms, modern Steampunk twenty-first century isn't what it was in the perhaps should be renamed twentieth. It started out as a literary affectation, 'steampulp', focusing as it does on not even a sub-genre, and the name kind of tales of adventure and romance. stuck. But with no real literary movement driving Nothing wrong with adventure and it, it sort of migrated into the world of music romance, but there seems to be a culture, and (I'm generalizing here) became a sort dividing line between this and the of fashion statement for the well-to-do goths. That desire by many to see a more socially too changed, as even the non-goths and the not- conscious foray into the realms of so-well-to-do now find it an affordable fashion, Imperialist/Victorian social and cultural and the Steampunk movement has at last history. There may be room for both, become a revolution, returning to its literary roots but in the hard-nosed literary because, lets face it, the pen is always a better marketplace the lack of distinction method of expression than the corset-and- between the two can rankle.