Coming Soon: My new Steampunk novel, Clouds of Authority
I am very excited about my newest book!
The first novel of my Steampunk series, called The Vapor Rogues, will be coming out in the next few days. I am particularly excited about this series, because it is, I believe, a rather unique entity.
Back in 2012 I was given my second opportunity to have a short story published. Like the first that was published in the anthology Rum and Runestones, the topic was pirates and magic. Since I was newly into Steampunk, I determined that this would make a great background.
And so The Vapor Rogues came into being, published in the anthology Spells and Swashbucklers. I spent quite some time building a really elaborate, unique world for this story, mixing together elements of fantasy and science fiction into the wide open mold that is Steampunk.
As an author, I tend to write out my scenes and my story, and somewhere along the way the world comes together. But with The Vapor Rogues, I laid out a pretty elaborate world in the beginning.
But just one short story in that world was not going to satisfy the work I put into its construction.
So I began the first novel, and Clouds of Authority was born. I revisited the characters of The Vapor Rogues short, and expanded not only their story, but the story of the world three years after their first adventure.
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Clouds of Authority – A Vapor Rogues Novel:
Over eight hundred years ago, war raged across Amasheer. In an act of unspeakable violence, a chemical agent was unleashed, poisoning the atmosphere. To contain the spread of the toxin, the magic wielding, dark skinned Maju-Orcericians created a perpetual cloud layer to hold the poison beneath it. The Maju-Orcericians took as many people as they could to the highest peaks of the world, above the cloud. The survivors constructed immense floating cities over the next eight centuries, starting new lives and rebuilding the population…and a new era was begun.
But the eight centuries of stability created and maintained by the Maju-Orcericians is faltering. Technology has changed only very slowly over the years. The people have been relying on steam, solar and wind for the majority of their power, and dirigibles and biplanes for travel. The scion of an old family line is employing new technologies, and using them to gain control of multiple floating cities.
A young Maju-Orcerician may represent the next evolutionary step of her people. Unaware of her importance, she seeks her own destiny.
The prospector crew of the former warship Thunderbolt lead fairly normal lives. Yet they have in their explorations uncovered secrets from the surface below that could change life for all above the cloud.
The winds of change swirl through the clouds of authority. The world above the cloud will be forever altered, but no one can predict if it will be for good or ill?
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I have REALLY enjoyed creating and playing in this world. I think the world I have built for The Vapor Rogues is pretty unique.
What’s different about this Steampunk story from others?
I have worked to blend the Victorian England elements of Steampunk, like the costumes and dirigibles and fantastical steam-powered technologies that never quite got built, with sci-fi elements like cold fusion, floating cities, energy weapons and computer technology, along with the fantasy element of sorcerers wielding unique powers.
Clouds of Authority is the first book of a planned series. The second book, Clouds of Destiny, is complete, but as-yet unedited.
Clouds of Authority – A Vapor Rogues Novel will be available for print and Kindle shortly in just a few more days!
PS: Special thank you to George LaVigne (for those in the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) you know him as Don Orlando Sforza). I commissioned art work for the cover, and what he delivered exceeded anything I could have hoped for. Not just one of my favorite fencing buddies, he’s one of my favorite artists, too.
