I’ve been a bit quiet recently, but for a good reason at least – a few weeks ago I attended two fantasy and science fiction conventions in the UK. The first, Bristolcon, is a favourite I attend pretty much every year. This October, however, the stars aligned to put the World Fantasy Convention only a week later in Brighton. What’s more, this particular World Fantasy Con joined forces with Fantasy Con (an annual UK-based convention run by the the British Fantasy Society) in a sort of extra-large affair, so it seemed worth going to both.
If you’re getting confused by all the extremely similar con names, you’re not the first… a few times when drafting this post I accidentally wrote “Worldcon” instead of “World Fantasy Con”, which would be an entirely different con yet again.
Anyway, I wanted to share a few personal reflections and highlights from both conventions, but in this post I’ll just focus on Bristolcon to keep things short. I’m also not going to write extensively about everything I attended, because the mere thought is exhausting and because I didn’t take diligent enough notes, so I’ll simply pick out a few highlights that stayed with me.
The Völklingen Ironworks in Germany’s Saar region—a warren of rusted towers, smokestacks, and steam-age machinery now preserved as a UNESCO World Heritage site.
While I was writing a previous post on the origins of steampunk, inspired by a trip to Wuppertal, it occurred to me that I’ve actually been to several other very “steampunk” locations in Germany since moving here. As a country that boomed during the industrial era, it has a lot of these to offer, but they’re sometimes off the beaten track and not the first attractions listed among the ‘must-sees’ of a region (often displaced by castles or quaint villages, which I can completely understand!).
As a writer of science fiction and fantasy, however, these places filled me with a particular kind of thrill and wonder, as if I’d been transported into another century or stepped into the pages of a novel. Steam-era architecture, giant cogs, brass finishes, steel rivets, historic machines, old fonts… it all felt like fertile inspiration just waiting to be transformed into a steampunk tale or artwork.
It occurred to me that maybe other lovers of the genre, or just generally of historical places, might feel the same way. So in case anyone else finds themselves in Germany and looking for a similar experience, I thought I’d share a list of the most impressive steampunk-ish destinations I’ve visited, and highlight some fascinating things I learned about both the lighter and darker sides of their history:
Historic German postcard that imagines Berlin in the future, Bröhan Museum, Berlin.
I recently visited a city called Wuppertal in central Germany. It’s not your typical tourist destination, but I had my sights set on a particular, admittedly very nerdy, goal: I wanted to ride on the ‘Schwebebahn’, the oldest suspension railway in the world. This truly odd and unique structure was completed in 1901 and is still used today for local public transport… and from my first glimpse, I was charmed. Not only does the railway have an extremely historic “steampunk” vibe, it winds through a city that retains other remnants from that period – rustic old brick factories, billboards in archaic fonts, steel bridges, Art Deco stations.
The whole experience also made me reflect on the moment 6 years ago when I first heard about Wuppertal, which was also, not-so-coincidentally, the first time I fully grasped what steampunk is and why it exists.
Before then, I knew the basic definition of the genre, which Oxford Languages currently supplies as:
a genre of science fiction that has a historical setting and typically features steam-powered machinery rather than advanced technology.
a style of design and fashion that combines historical elements with anachronistic technological features inspired by science fiction.
I also recognised the aesthetics and elements steampunk entails. What I didn’t really understand was why enough writers and artists had imagined this alternative steam-powered future for there to be a whole genre based on it.
Why were people writing these anachronistic fantastical futures filled with cogs and wheels, hot air balloons, zeppelins, and bronze machinery? Why revel in the ‘tech’ of the 1800s and early 1900s and imagine worlds that maintained it? Why focus on a turn-of-the-century aesthetic, as opposed to say, any other period in history?
I haven’t updated my blog in a long time – 5 years to be exact. When COVID hit I let it slide, then got busy with life and other projects, including writing two novels 🙂 But I always intended to return to it “one day”, and it seems that day has finally arrived. I’m planning to start posting again once or twice a month, so I’m not sure how many of you are still out there receiving this message, but I hope you’ll continue this journey through the fantasy-verse with me!
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I was recently thinking about one of my favourite novels, Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, and it reminded me that there’s a quality some science fiction, dystopian and speculative fiction stories have—a rare one—that I absolutely love. It’s hard to describe, and perhaps even harder to achieve, but I’d characterise it as a tantalising sense of wrongness intertwined with mystery, often (though not always) occurring at the beginning of a story, which usually precedes a giant, reality-altering twist.
It’s that growing conviction that things don’t make sense in the world, that something very odd is happening, perhaps even something sinister, but you don’t know what it is yet. You just have this sense that the situation is off, wrong somehow, and that you, and perhaps even the characters, have a fundamental misunderstanding of the reality in which they find themselves. At the same time, you can feel in your bones that you are going to find out what it is, and that when you do, it’s going to be a hair-prickling revelation or a fantastically unexpected twist. This feeling seems to often be evoked when the initial story world, or simply the story we think we are about to be told, is increasingly questioned, then ultimately flipped on its head.
What always impresses me about these sorts of story openings is that usually, as a writer, confusion is the last thing you want to create. Conventional wisdom suggests you should clearly communicate the scenario at the outset, withholding some mysteries and raising some questions, but still grounding the audience as quickly and succinctly as possible in your world and characters. If they get lost in a sea of confusion or snag on inconsistencies and plot holes, they might abandon ship.
Yet these particular types of stories seem to offer just enough grounding for us to understand what’s happening on the surface, while at the same time introducing just enough dissonance to make us aware things aren’t adding up… a perfectly calculated dose of confusion that promises you’re on the cusp of a fascinating resolution.
I adore the goosebump-inducing curiosity this mixture evokes… a kind of “Wait what? Something’s not right here…” that has me hungry to figure out “the truth” of the situation. But what is it about these stories that creates this tantalising feeling?
The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt by Andrea Wulf
I actually wrote this post several weeks ago, before the corona virus crisis hit on a world scale… but given it’s about the importance of scientists and human beings connecting with and inspiring each other, be it in person or from afar, it actually feels somehow appropriate. So in case anyone’s looking for a positive break from reading about pandemics, here it is:
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I don’t normally read a lot of non-fiction, but I recently picked up The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf. Aside from informing me about a brilliant scientist and author called Alexander von Humboldt – who I knew very little about – it got me thinking again about a topic I’ve found myself mulling over often in the past year: namely, how much writers are influenced by the work of other writers who’ve come before them, or even those who are writing at the same time.
In the past, I’ve tended to to look at famous historical figures in isolation, focusing on the unique feats they achieved and how different it was to everything that had come before. Last year, however, when researching for a blog series about popular fantasy books in different decades, I was repeatedly fascinated by how many writers had been inspired by, or even been good friends with, other writers on my lists. Continue reading →
I’ve been a bit absent online these past two months, both because of the holiday period but also because I was trying to finish editing my novel-in-progress before the new year. It took longer than expected, but in the end I managed to send it off to beta readers just after Christmas, so that’s at least one resolution achieved! (even if others fell by the way side).
Now that I’m finally back to blogging, I figured I’d start the new year by looking at my favourite reads from the last one. I picked up many great books in 2019 but I’m only going to list the 5 that most impressed me, and I’ll do my best to keep my ramblings on each brief and spoiler-free (if you want to know more about any of them you can click the links to see the blurbs on Goodreads). Continue reading →
Back in June I set myself the goal of reading as many of the finalists for this year’s Hugo Awards as possible, and in the end I was pretty happy with what I managed. So on the awards night at Worldcon I bustled into the auditorium, ready to cheer for my favourites… and not a single of my top picks won! I wasn’t too crestfallen, since I also liked the ones that did win, but it goes to show you how varied tastes are when it comes to awards. Apparently some of the categories were decided by a slim margin of votes, so there was stiff competition.
In light of this, and since everyone always talks about the winners, I thought I’d take this opportunity to give a shout out to some of the finalists which didn’t win, but which I personally thought were fantastic. Continue reading →
“Welcome to Dublin 2019: An Irish Worldcon” reception area sign, Dublin CCD
Between trying to read as many books before the Hugo voting deadline as possible, finalising a draft of a novel, going to Worldcon, going on holiday, and getting all my wisdom teeth out (a nice treat I saved for my return home), it’s taken a while to find the time to blog again… but I’ve finally managed it, so I thought I’d share a few pics and experiences I took away from my first World Science Fiction Convention.
I often like to look at which books get nominated for fantasy and science fiction awards. A nomination doesn’t always mean I’ll like a book, because I’ve come across winners I’ve loved and others I’ve hated, but I enjoy finding out whether I agree with the choices. I rarely actually vote in any awards, either because I can’t, or because I don’t have time to read the shortlisted entrants before the deadline, and I don’t like to choose without having considered them all.
This year, however, I’m going to WorldCon, so for the first time ever I’m able to vote in one of the biggest SF&F awards out there: the Hugos! I’m pretty excited about it, so I decided I’m going to try to read the finalists in as many categories as I can before the online ballot submission closes on July 31st.
I’m a slow reader, so I don’t know how many I’ll manage, but here are the main categories I’m going to attempt: Continue reading →
So this post is coming ridiculously late in the year, after everyone else has long finished their reflections on 2018… but I got so side-tracked doing that fantasy decades series that I never gave a shout out to my favourite reads from last year, which seemed a shame. So I figured: better late than never!
I read lots of wonderful books, but I’ve chosen the 5 that most impressed and bewitched me. For each I’m just going to say why I loved them (in a spoiler-free way), so if you want to know in more detail what they’re about, you can click on the links to read the blurbs on Goodreads. Continue reading →
