The Bookman - A pre-release review

17.12.2009 by Traveler.

Lavie Tidhar was kind enough to honor me with an opportunity to review his upcomming steampunk novel The Bookman.

So here are my thoughts and impressions:

The Bookman by Lavie Tidhar

Since this is a pre-release review of The Bookman, I shall try to put as few spoilers into it as possible.

Set in an alternative version of 19th century earth, with a point of divergence to our timeline sometime in the early 16th century, The Bookman is without a doubt the most enjoyable, fascinating and captivating book I have read in a long time. It has managed to claim the throne as my favorite steampunk novel from Moorcock’s A Nomad of the Time Streams.

The Bookman is steampunk on multiple levels. Not only because of the plot and the world with its automatons, simulacra and the giant space cannon, it is also in itself an intricate work of art, very much like clockwork. The story’s depth is revealed piece by piece, gear by gear, during the entire length of the novel up until the end, which makes for a very exciting and captivating read.

The reason for its ability to have constantly kept my attention is simple: Whenever I thought I finally understood what was going on and what motivations the protagonists had, another layer of the plot was revealed, another important detail added. This way, a number of theories about what was really going on were shattered and The Bookman kept on surprising me.

It took me very much until the last chapter to piece all the details together, combine all the different gears and cogwheels to one beautiful apparatus, to grasp the full expanse of what was actually going on right from the start of the novel. Finally in the end I understood and was left with the images of a truly fascinating story and world in my mind.

But it is not only the depth of the plot, its many twists and mysteries which kept me glued to its pages, it is also the cast of characters and the many striking details of the world, which make this book so enjoyable.
Lavie Tidhar creates his own reality in which I, while following the main protagonist Orphan, met well known fictional characters and real historic people and sometimes the person and their fictional invention. Jules Verne plays a part in the story and is very much involved in the machinations of the novel’s namesake, the Bookman. He is accompanied by Robur and he takes Orphan on a ride on board the Nautilus and also The Nautilus.

Others are only mentioned in conversation, like Dr. Marbuse, Lovecraft’s Herbert West, even Sherlock Holmes.
Further real-world Victorian notables who play their part range from Karl Marx to Isabella Beeton.

Books, rather unsurprisingly, in many ways also play a significant role in this novel. Books lead the way, books are powerful and books blur the borders of reality. There is a room where Orphan investigates a bookshelf stacked with books that feel strange to him. The titles on the shelf include The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism and De Vermis Mysteriis.

Blurred reality, illusions and deceptions are recurring motifs in The Bookman. This too, adds to the fascination of this novel. After a while I knew that there would be another twist and another layer revealed, yet I could not say when this would happen and what impact it would have on the story and the development of the plot.

However, it is only the reader and the characters who get deceived. The plot itself remains coherent; all the events which unfold make perfect sense and reveal the complete picture in the end.

One final fascinating element of the novel I shall not go pass without mention is Lavie Tidhars use of mythology. Many elements of earth’s mythology, mostly from the ancient Near East, flow into the novel. Orphan also encounters a number characters who, for one reason or another, are in possession of acient secrets and long forgotten tales. Mentioned in the margins are surprising details of The Bookman’s version of earth and its history, which in combination create a whole new mythology with Les Lezards, The Bookman, The Binder and Orphan as the focal points and keystones.

At the end of the novel, there are still many unanswered questions and some events to which the story has built up towards finally happen.
Although the story of The Bookman is finished and Orphan has gained what he wanted, there are many things the sequel can latch onto.
I am looking forward to the next chapter of this saga: Camera Obscura

So, I can wholeheartedly recommend The Bookman to any and all Steamunks out there, it is one captivating read, set in a beautiful, strange world, not really like our own but also not too far removed.

Get it, you won’t regret it!

You can get it here:

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

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Grace has passed on to Rathalla

16.12.2009 by Traveler.

Yesterday, Grace passed on. I was her prefered human and I miss her terribly. The whole house and the rest of the pack is downcast.

Grace, say hello to your sister Audrey. We miss you both.

Artwork by lizspit.

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Riese the Series - Claustrophobia meets… you’ll see

14.12.2009 by Traveler.

The next episode of Riese was just released. The first scene is quite funny, in a way. Riese manages to avoid a guard, taking advantage of him taking an (obviously relieving) leak again a nearby wall. It is all downhill from here, as far as fun is concerned.

Leaving out the spoilers, I can say this: This is the most haunting, claustrophobic episode so far and one of the most nerve-grinding pieces of entertainment I have watched recently. It is not simply because of the action that is taking place, it is also because of the implications regarding the goods stored in the warehouse.
The almost physically present feeling of a world teetering on the edge of the Abyss reiceives yet another facette.

Please enjoy:

On a lighter note: The big fluff Tundra, pardon me, the fierce, scary Fenrir returns after two episodes of absence.

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From HebrewPunk to Steampunk

13.12.2009 by Lavie.

Today The Travler’s Steampunk Blog welcomes its first guest author, Lavie Tidhar, check out his site, who will soon release his first Steampunk novel The Bookman,  which was hinted at in an earlier post and for which a review will go up on this blog soon.

For his first post, Lavie explains how he came to writing a Steampunk novel, so, without further ado, let’s listen to Lavie:

Lavie Tidhar:

Back in 2007 I released a collection of four linked stories, given the somewhat tongue-in-cheek title HebrewPunk. My intention with the four stories inside was simple: I wanted to take the kind of traditional pulp fantasy story and put a different spin on it – to use Jewish elements in tales that always saw, for instance, vampires turning back in horror from holy water and crucifixes. I never understood that about vampires. The underlying assumption in these tales, of course, is that Christianity is the one true religion – which is why holy water and crucifixes work in those stories.

I wanted to do something different but, also, I wanted to have fun.

The longest of these stories, “The Dope Fiend”, is also the closest to being steampunk. It takes place in 1920s London, involving ghosts, flappers, opium dens, the sewers, secret societies and much more besides. And I’ve always loved steampunk.

How do you get from one to the other?

The truth is, I didn’t initially set out to write a steampunk novel. I set out to write an ambitious, secondary-world fantasy trilogy that was, like HebrewPunk, based on Jewish – rather then Western European, or Celtic, or Nordic – mythology. Like HebrewPunk, I thought it would have dybbuks in it – and golems – and kabbalists. It would also have chases, and adventures, and a quest of some sort. It would have been great…

Only, somewhat to my surprise, it sucked.

It wasn’t the Jewish element, of course. To a large extent, it was me. I was trying to take on too much – too soon – and to do it, moreover, without joy. I didn’t enjoy it. and if the writer doesn’t enjoy the book they are writing, why expect the readers to?

So I left it. Maybe I’ll go back to it one day. There was a good story in there, somewhere. And so there I was, rather low in spirit, having just abandoned – a book and a half into my trilogy – the entire thing. What to do?

‘Write something fun,’ an editor friend told me. ‘Write something you enjoy.’

And that was the problem, you see. I forgot I was supposed to be having fun.

And so, not worrying about selling, not worrying about markets – all the things I was doing with my aborted trilogy – I began writing The Bookman.

For fun.

It would have all the things I love, I decided. Automatons and airships, poetry and magic, the underworld – and the London sewers. It would have chases and escapes! And a quest, of sort, done for love.

And so I wrote it. Like my hero, Orphan, I did it for love. And I had fun doing it…

It was the sort of book I could research by drinking in pubs. Old pubs. Old pubs that made it into the book! Great research!

And then I finished the book, and wrote The End, and that was that. I left London and moved to a remote island in the South Pacific, travelling by boat, climbing volcanoes, living in a tiny bamboo hut on the beach, planting tomatoes, speaking the pidgin English of that place. London seemed very far away… and I was writing other things, at least when I had electricity (which wasn’t often).

But in the meantime I got myself an agent, and my agent loved the book – though he ruthlessly made me cut it and chop it and re-shape it, to remove all the fat, and the self-indulgence, and make it as good as it could be – and the he sent it to Angry Robot, the new genre imprint from HarperCollins that was just starting up – and they liked it enough to offer to buy it, and two more books set in the same world.

And suddenly, and somewhat unexpectedly, I had a book deal.

And two more books to write!

So here I am. As I write this, the second book – Camera Obscura – is nearly finished, too. And I had fun with that one too – lots of fun. There’s a girl with a machine gun for an arm, and a murder on the Rue Morgue…

But it’s not to say I left HebrewPunk behind, either. In 2010 Apex, the same publishers who did HebrewPunk, will be putting out my very strange novel Martian Sands, an unlikely mix of Total Recall and Schindler’s List.

It looks like, for the moment, I get to do both.

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Imagine London…

7.12.2009 by Traveler.

… with a cannon that will propel the first expedition to Mars.

Imagine the city haunted by a strange villain hiding bombs in books and only one poet with any chance to stop him…

Sounds like one Steampunk story if there ever was one? I think so, too. The book is called The Bookman by Lavie Tidhar and I shal tell more of it some time soon…

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Exclusive Interview with Kaleena Kiff of Riese the Series

4.12.2009 by Traveler.

A few weeks back I was offered the opportunity to conduct an interview with the creators of Riese the Series. An opportunity which I obviously took. So here is the interview between Daily Steampunk (Traveler) and Kaleena Kiff, co-creator/director of Riese the Series.

This Interview will very likely be available on this blog for only a limited amount of time before being transfered to the Gatehouse Gazette. Afterwards, it may also resurface in a dedicated section of my main page.

But for now, without further ado, here is the interview with Kaleena Kiff, co-creator and director of Riese the Series:

DS: How did you discover Steampunk?
KK: We both were familiar with steampunk beforehand, but didn’t realize we were creating a ’steampunk’ world until well into Riese’s development. Ryan and I were working with an artist, Jay Senetchko, on concept drawings for Riese. The more we described this world, and Jay’s drawings brought it to life, the more familiar it seemed. People began to identify it as steampunk, so we invesigated the genre further to learn more. It turned out that while we weren’t following steampunk to a ‘tee’, we were drawing heavily from it. Our world is extremely anachronistic, much like steampunk, but does not take place in a Victorian-era, for example. After that we began to infuse the genre more and more into our own world. We never want to claim to be purists by any means, but we hope to pay homage to the genre, while still remaining true to the original story we developed.

DS: Why did you choose a Steampunk setting for Riese the Series?- What do you consider particularly attractive about a steampunk setting?

KK: Steampunk is such a beautiful and inspiring world, and I’ve yet to see an episodic, mainstream series incorporate it. Moreover, we didn’t want to write a post-apocalyptic scenario. Instead we imagined a world like ours, but not ours, as if World War I never happened. Similar to how steampunk blends Victorian and Futuristic esthetics, we’re blending Norse mythology, pre-apocalyptic eerieness, and an almost fascist environment.

 

DS: What other influences apart from steampunk and post-apocalyptic have found their way into the series?

KK: Again, the Norse mythology has offered us a wealth of inspirations. From the Vikings to the Celts, the stories are rich with drama. We preferred to go pre-apocalyptic to make Riese more of a cautionary tale told in the middle of the story, rather than after the fall. It’s so much more interesting to watch people descend into darkness rather than view the wasteland they created after they’ve turned on one another.

 

DS: Could the force behind The Sect be described as a Lovecraftian Horror?

KK: I think that remains to be seen. Perhaps a bit Orwellian, but The Sect is more of a comment on the dangers of fanaticism or fundamentalism in general.

 

DS: In what other works have you been engaged previously, is this material available on the net?

KK: Ryan has directed 2 short films (Awkward Silence and Time Before the Light) while I have directed about 11 short films, most recently The Morning After (available online), and Alice & Huck (available online at allisonmack.com)

 

DS: Is Riese the Series an open project or is there already a fixed number of episodes?

KK: At this point we have 5 Chapters planned, though the story has multiple ways to carry on from these original 5 (which are comprised of 25 episodes)

 

DS: Will Riese the Series involve some romantic elements?

KK: I think we will, though I’d prefer not to say who will be having the fun. We have a number of new characters joining the cast for Chapter 2, RAND (Ryan Robbins), ALIZA (Emilie Ullerup), GARIN (Alessandro Juliani), in addition to our current cast, so there will be a lot more potential moments for such things.

 

DS: Fenrir’s out-of-character name is omitted from the official website, would you care to tell us?

KK: He is mostly played by a wonderful wolf-dog hybrid, Tundra. Occasionally we do use other wolves with additional skills to flesh out the performance.

 

DS: Do you have any idea yet how big Riese’s world actually is?

KK: Will we see many parts of the world during the course of the series? Eleysia itself is a large country, about the size of Spain or Germany, but its borders are constantly growing under Empress Amara’s reign. Each Chapter’s title reflects the place Riese journeys to, so there will be 5 distinct areas that she explores within this season. In addition, the nxt episodes also delve deep into other characters’ lives as well, creating a story that has the potential to take place all over this expansive world.

 

DS: You mentioned a booklet/pamphlet of the Sect which you handed out at ComiCon, is it available somewhere?

KK: We’ll be selling them in our e-store soon, though in a limited run. We don’t plan to reprint them.

 

DS: Who funded the project? Is it possible to support you?

KK: The show is entirely privately financed, so any support we can garner from fans would be a great help in paying back our generous backers! If we can recoup the costs of the first 10 episodes through online sales (HD downloads and/or merchandise), ad revenue or sponsorship, we’ll be able to continue making the series.

 

 

DS: When can we expect to see airships?

KK: If you look closely in Episode 2, over Amara’s right shoulder, you can see 2 at a dock. We hope to be inside one sooner than later!

See this post on this blog, they were spotted, obviously, here’s the screenshot once more:

 

 

DS: Who did the casting? Was there in deed a casting or are the actors involved also friends who showed interest in the project?

KK: It was a mixture of both auditions and offers to friends that are accomplished actors. Vancouver is blessed with an amazing talent pool of actors, and we’re lucky enough to have worked with many of them before on other projects. They all loved the story and wanted to be a part of bringing it to life.

 

 

DS: Who designed the costumes and scenery?

KK: Our costume designer is the massively talented Megan Leson, who has years of theater experience. She builds each costume from the ground up using found materials and gifted seamstresses. She lets us feel a part of the process by allowing us to tweak bits of leather here and there, which is so much fun. The production designer is Chad Krowchuk who combined his two talents as a successful painter and an actor to become an inspiring and tireless designer, crafting Eleysia by hand. He has a motley crew of ingenious builders, artists and craftspeople that help him tinker.

 

 

DS: Are there any concept drawings available online?

KK: There are concept drawings on our Facebook fan page in the photos section.

 

 

DS: What is the inspiration behind The Sect? Any Real Life cult?

KK: No real life cult inspired The Sect, though we did love a lot of what Jeunet and Caro did in City of Lost Children. Again, its more of a comment on allowing fanatics to rule people.

 

 

DS: Will we learn anything about the Eleysian religion prior to The Sect takeover?

KK: We plan to slowly introduce more and more of the Eleysian history as we proceed deeper along Riese’s journey.

 

 

DS: Will there be more parties, cults, interest-groups introduced during the course of the series?

KK: There is a Resistance movement that will surface in Chapter 2. They will have their own inner-strife to deal with. Moreover, Eleysia is simply one nation - there’s an entire world outside of these borders. So, yes, we’ll be seeing a number of different groups springing up in Eleysia.

 

 

 DS: Thank you for your time and for making this interview possible.

 

 Also, check out another interview with Kaleena at my friends from Clockworker.

 

 

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Zeppelin!

2.12.2009 by Traveler.

Courtesy of my good friend and fellow Zeppelin enthusiast Luftschiffharry, I bring you this very nice contemporary photograph (there are a few more, but they will have to wait right now):

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