30.1.2010 von Traveler.

The classical Steampunk era,  i.e. when the grand old masters were still around (the lifetimes of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells etc.), also featured a lot of then-contemporary authors who wrote about supernatural occurences. Dracula and Frankenstein comes to mind. Now, what I have found so far, although most Steampuks would not deny the influence of the likes of Bram Stoker and the later pulp authors like Lovecraft on the genre, the Paranormal Investigator seems to be rather underrepresented in the scene. Most people I have met in real life or online seem to be of the Airship/Zeppelin Crew (various ranks), Airship Pirate crew, adventurer or mad scientist/tinkerer persuasion.

Has the paranormal fallen out of fashion or is this a facette so well represented in the “common goth scene” that it never really  took root in the Steampunk scene? Any oppinions on the matter?

It may also well be that I am simply hanging out with the wrong sample crowd and you get a lot of paranormally inclined Steampunk characters in other places…

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29.1.2010 von Traveler.

Right, for a number of reasons I have decided to do a little bit more Steampunk related things in German. I have therefor started another blog (in German) which, unsurprisingly, is also named Daily Steampunk.

The Blog can be seen here Daily Steampunk auf Deutsch.

It is not much yet, just one post and I will very likely not do as much on the German blog as I do here, but I made a similar announcement some weeks ago, regarding the novel I am working on. So let’s see how my German Steampunk Blog is going to turn out.

And here’s a cross post from the blog, another Zeppelin:

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28.1.2010 von Traveler.

Do you want to write a novel? Are there ideas dancing in your head, yeth they will not crystalise into a plot? Are you suffering from writer’s block or are you simply unable to come up with anything?

In all these cases, there is hope for you (yes, YOU!).  Clickon the Wondermark Fiction Generator Logo below and marvel at the wonderful plot it generates to spur your career as a writer to unknown and unknowable hights, trajectories… Whatever… Just try it, it’s fun and safe to play with:

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27.1.2010 von Traveler.

According to various sources, the US military plans to deploy a high-altitude spy blimp for missions you need a spy-blimp for… As a Zeppelin Enthusiast™ I am looking forward to it and am quite excited about it.

As a military ley person, I ask myself: What can this expensive piece of equipment do that satellites and drones do not cover already?

Oh well… Government spending. Here’s a visual overview of planned capacities:

And as an added bonus for today. Check out this futile game (and tell me how often you played it before you gave up…)

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26.1.2010 von Traveler.

What I consider really interesting, is the comperatively large number of videos on Youtube with a Dieselpunk theme. Quite a sizable fraction of thse deal with matters pertaining to World War II.

One such jewel was pointed out to me in the Smoking Lounge (see previous post) and it would be a shame not to share it here. Please note the quaint American accent of the German officer…

1945a

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25.1.2010 von Traveler.

In the late 1990’s, oh dear, that’s already over a decade ago, I was a big fan of the games Myst and Riven. I just had a look at the two games again recently and one thing just jumped at me:

There are loads of Steampunk elements found in the game. I did a little bit of reading up and I am obviously not the first person to discover this. It would have been a shame if I had been the first… I also found out Myst was partially inspired by The Mysterious Island which obviously adds to the overall steampunkness (is that a noun?).

As my final point opf joy I discovered Myst is available for my iPod Touch, so now this very steampunk game really is right in the Third Millenium.

I leave you with some images which prove the point:

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24.1.2010 von Traveler.

Check out Bob Basset’s site. You will find a lot of cool if rather pricy stuff there, like this:

Reminds me of a Steampunk Tie-Fighter pilot’s helmet.

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23.1.2010 von Traveler.

Special Steampunk Holiday for airship and zeppelin enthusiasts

On this day in 1911 the Siemens-Schuckert I took to air, it was semi-rigid and therefor something of a transitional form between previous airships and the zeppelins that have become so iconic in steampunk.

And it proves: Evolution works in fields other than nature.

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23.1.2010 von Traveler.

Today we held our first Munich Steampunk Get Together and decided it was not going to be the last. So here is the very short version of what happened:

We met in the Victorian House at 10 o’clock for a late breakfast (which, unfortunately, was less enjoyable than the last time, the waiter was a little bit out of his depth or something), we in this case is:

Glaurin Perdata

Robbie a.k.a. Captain Norad (yes, it was him!)

Martina

Horatio von Wirephil

Jason Crow

Myself (here’s my profile in the same community)

Lila (my wife)

Timo (good friend of the family)

I should also note that initially, we thought it would be four people. With some forsight I decided to order a table for six and we ended up being eight. This is, I guess, quite a success.

First topic of the day was: Tesla coils and practical applications of. Nota bene: This was OOC, we were talking about real people who really built Tesla coils and put them up in their

a) Living room

b) as above but as a Christmas Tree kind of thing

c) car

d) back yard

Oh yes, some people really take tinkering to the extreme. There are several Youtube videos around which tell the stories far better than I can. Some people really make the most out of Steampunk.

Around that time, breakfast arrived, so the conversations became slightly muffled. Topics than changed to general handycrafts from soldering to knitting and we all agreed that some skillin modifying stuff is a good thing to have. We also all agreed that most of the things you learn concerning knitting and similar things in school is basically tripe while the things you learn in metalwork (Technisches Werken, to use the proper term for the subject in school) actually can be used later in life.

Next we found out who came to Steampunk via which route. Interestingly, there were only two different ones present (both somewhat connected to internet searches): One via LARP, the other via the Goth scene. LARP is another thing, all people present had in common. So the third big topic was LARP and our various experiences with. Since Glaurin and Robbies house is equipped to house sci-fi LARPS, they had organised some, Lila has organised some LARPS and we all found each other to be quite likable persons, we also decided to repeat this event.

If we are lucky, there might also be some form of Stempunk RPG coming to Southern Germany in the summer, right now, this is just an idea, though. No reason to get overexcited yet. I will keep you posted, obviously.

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22.1.2010 von Traveler.

Here are two images of my favourite and most steampunk of all webseries: Riese.

I can hardly wait until chapter two starts, especially after viewing the very exciting trailer a few days ago. But for now, here is one image each of Herrick and Fenrir:

The evil, scary and fascinating Herrick:

 And the loyal and ferocious Fenrir (doesn’t he look just marvelous in that shot? Well done, Adam Blasberg!)

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