Posts Tagged ‘Steampunk’

Three Trailers for Movies Howard and I Will Be Reviewing

Monday, July 18th, 2011

Since trailers for two of the films Howard Waldrop and I will be reviewing for Locus Online have recently dropped, I thought a trailer roundup was in order:

Cowboys & Aliens, directed by Iron Man‘s Jon Favreau, is up next on the guitar:

In November we’ll be reviewing Hugo (AKA Hugo Cabaret, based on Brian Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret), a steampunk children’s fantasy from Martin Scorsese:

Which begs the question: Will Hugo be up for a Hugo?

Next year comes John Carter, AKA John Carter of Mars, AKA A Princess of Mars) directed by Pixar’s Andrew Stanton from a script written by Michael Chabon:

A Gentlemen’s Duel: Full of Rich Steampunky Mech Goodness

Monday, October 4th, 2010

From Blur Studio.

ApolloCon 2010 Pictures

Sunday, June 27th, 2010

Some pictures from the 2010 ApolloCon in Houston, just concluded today:


The lovely and talented Stina Leicht, celebrating her forthcoming novel by going blue in both ocular and follicular realms.


Gabrielle Faust, putting on her best “Who, me?” expression.


The dealer’s room. Neither Willie nor myself dealt there this year, meaning Edge Books was the only real bookdealer there this year.


SF Signal’s John DeNardo. I think the smug was entirely unintentional.


Scott Cupp, no doubt contemplating some book he’s owned, or will soon own, both of which are extremely target-rich environments.


GOH Catherine Asaro. This photo doesn’t show her high-heels. Without them, she’s actually only 3’6″.


Karen Burnham, searching her tattoos for the identity of the killer she’s hunting.


A fairly interesting tabletop boardgame featuring smooth pucks that you flicked to knock out your opponent’s pucks, sort of a cross between marbles and shuffleboard, except there are some screws around the circle in the center that you can bounce the pucks off of and which provide something of an obstacle. The name was “crocsomething,” but not crocodile. Please note that searching for “game” and “screw” is probably not something you should do at work.

Updated to add: The game is called “crokinole”.


Clockwise from lower left: Judy Crider, Lou Antonelli, Bill Crider, Scott Cupp. I think we were talking about bad movies yet again.


A pair of con-goers decked out to the nines in Steampunk attire. This takes an extraordinary amount of dedication. In Texas. In summer. Wait, did I say “dedication”? I meant “complete insanity.”


The Shrine O Dolls found at the “in-room convention party.” Sadly, there were no book dealers there either…

The Latest Literary Abomination Mashup

Monday, June 14th, 2010

Ben H. Winters and Leo Tolstoy’s Android Karenina

My powers of prophecy are unparalleled, even when I’m joking…

Books Read: Kage Baker’s The Women of Neil Gwynne’s

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

Kage Baker, The Women of Neil Gwynne’s
Subterranean Press, 2009.

By now you’ve probably heard that Kage Baker died of a particularly aggressive form of cancer on January 31 of this year. I did not know Baker (I may have said hello in passing one Armadillocon), and thus have no particular insight into her as a person. Her death probably makes The Women of Neil Gwynne’s, the tale of a bordello in the employ of a cabal of Victorian Steampunk inventors, a prohibitive Hugo and Nebula favorite.

Alas, I have the same response to this that I had to Or Else My Lady Keeps the Key, another Subterranean novella from her I read last year: Competently executed work that largely failed to engage me. Not everyone can be Tim Powers, but there’s an art to writing mock Victoriana, and Baker just didn’t nail it here. There’s a certain dry English reserve, but nothing from Ben Johnson/Oscar Wilde axis of cutting dry wit that really makes a work of this sort sparkle. Plus it doesn’t help that the real plot doesn’t get started until a third of the way into the book.

World War II: Now With Giant Mechanical Spider

Monday, January 25th, 2010

Embrace the anachronism arachnoid mechanism.

Postscript: And as long as we’re linking to films about big-ass mechanical things attacking people, check this out.