We’ve moved! (Sort Of)

snow_tracks

Some people have recurring dreams about it being finals week in college and not having studied, or showing up at work in their underwear. I have a stranger dream, in which I remember I have a house somewhere else that I’ve forgotten about. I’ve left a bunch of my things there and need to go get them. In other words, I must have moved without much forethought. This blog is a lot like that. When I started my new blog Steampunk Desperado, I stopped posting here, and didn’t even leave a forwarding address.

I assumed this blog didn’t have much of a readership since I posted sporadically and my topics were all over the place. I didn’t even bother to check the visitor stats on Godaddy. However, my son Lowell reminded me that one of his friends used to read this blog, and although he didn’t often agree with my weird opinions, he was always interested to read them. So it is for unsung readers like him that I post this forwarding address.

The idea behind Steampunk Desperado was that I’d try to stick to the topic of my writing and not get so far afield on political nonsense. (My wife Arlys scolds me that I’m alienating potential readers.) I’d also post every day, which I’ve done since mid-October. At least half of these articles are reposts from the Sedition blog, particularly if they were about steampunk or related sci-fi or historical topics. I’ve also reposted most of the articles Arlys has written so far about Victorian culture and recipes and crafts related to our books. In the ten weeks since Desperado’s inception, we’ve almost run out of these, so it’s going to be mostly new stuff from now on.

I’m not entirely ruling out posting again on “Sci-Fi and Sedition,” especially if I want to talk about political topics, such as some of the deplorable channels I follow in You-tube. The problem is that it’s tough to get a blog post out every day on my main blog without doing stuff here as well. It’s always possible, though.

Cool Summer Reading

KeepCoolIoneD

When I was a kid growing up in North Dakota, winter was the best time for reading a good book. Here in Arizona, however, the summer is the miserable season. This June has been a particularly hot one, with the temperature hitting 120. So when you’re lounging around in your air-conditioned house, what’s good to read? You’re in luck because Arlys and I are offering our e-book Professor Ione D. and the Epicurean Incident for FREE on Amazon this coming July and August. And if you happen to be attending Westercon 70 at the Tempe Mission Palms, come see us on our steampunk-related author panels on 11 AM Sunday and 5 PM Monday.

 

An Auspicious Announcement

SteampunkCouple

Just your average steampunk couple

This coming weekend, Arlys and I will be appearing on two steampunk-related panels at Westercon 70 at the Mission Palms Resort in Tempe, Arizona. To celebrate, we are offering a special promotion for our new e-book, Professor Ione D. and the Epicurean Incident. This is the newest our series of steampunk adventures featuring our feisty heroine as she attends the First Epicurean Exhibition in London. This e-book will be available for download absolutely FREE on Sunday and Monday, July 2nd and 3rd. We make only one request: if you enjoy this book, please leave a review on Amazon. Even a sentence or two would be great. It would help us generate publicity and we would very much appreciate it. (Link)

Panels featuring Yours Truly are as follows:

“The Future of Steampunk in Writing,” with David Lee Summers
Sunday 11 AM -12 noon
David Lee Summers has written over a dozen science fiction and fantasy novels, including the “Clockwork Legion” series of Western-themed steampunk.

“Steampunk before it was Steampunk,” with Katherine Stewart.
A discussion of “proto-steampunk” in books and media before the term was coined.
Monday 5-6 PM

We hope to see you there!

 

Ione D: Birth of a Steampunk Heroine

Professor Ione D

Angelique Endres as Professor Ione D.

Ione D began with an effort by my then-girlfriend Arlys to promote my new steampunk novel, Fidelio’s Automata. She conceived of the character as a young Victorian-era girl who would travel to places mentioned in the book and write about aspects of the local culture, especially the cuisine. Her “Ione D” Facebook posts featured photos of the meals she prepared featuring Cuban, French, Western, and Native American dishes. The name was an homage to her parents, Ione being her mother’s middle name and Dee being her father’s. To create a face for the character, Arlys photographed her daughter Arlys Angelique in steampunk regalia of her own design.

I found the character to be so charming that I decided we would write a novel to give Ione D her own adventures. First was the matter of backstory: Ione would be the daughter of a US ambassador living in London, which would allow her to be a world traveler at an early age. Her mother is French and provides the impetus for her interest in cooking. Then there was the matter of the surname, which Arlys had envisioned as the initial “D” only. I discovered that there is a Welsh river which is called Dee by the English and Dfrdwy (differ-dwee) by the Welsh. Although most Welsh people have English family names, we decided that Ione’s Welsh-American father would be an exception, and take his difficult-to-pronounce name from that river.

I had always intended to list Arlys as my co-author, since she created the character, and gave her veto power over the character’s actions. To my delight she embraced an equal role in the writing, tirelessly editing and rewriting the manuscripts. Though the story lines and settings are mostly of my creation, Arlys has written a significant portion of the dialog, and she’s conceived many of the scenes that appear in the Ione D books. Without her participation, these stories would not be half as good as they are. She keeps me from going off into boring explanations and exposition and provides the woman’s perspective that we need to successfully write a first-person female character.

Epicurean Incident was my idea for the first book, but it proved to be more challenging than I’d expected. First of all, it is based on a cooking contest, something that’s largely outside my area of expertise. We re-wrote the original draft several times. In the interim, I stumbled upon a sci-fi folk tale competition and decided to write a short story in which Ione encountered magical artifacts in ancient ruins. By the time I was halfway done with this, I realized I’d misunderstood the contest parameters, and that what we had written didn’t fit them at all. That didn’t matter, because Miss Ione D and the Mayan Marvel, a novella featuring the adventures of a 19-year old Ione in Guatemala, had captured our heart. It became the first published Ione D book, predating Epicurean Incident, which is set in 1901, when Ione (born 7/7/1877) is 24 years old and the youngest female college professor in America.

Once Mayan Marvel was finished, we returned to the matter of finishing Epicurean Incident. One factor that helped us was watching the popular anime Food Wars, which features teenagers competing for dominance in an elite cooking school in Japan. It convinced us that a story line involving cooking could have an audience. We also decided to make it a murder mystery, which provided an additional challenge. The original story was too linear, containing none of the misdirections that a mystery novel requires. We needed to learn to think a bit more deviously.

Now that Epicurean Incident is completed and posted to Amazon’s Kindle Direct, we can’t help but look forward to Ione’s next adventure, this time on the island of Crete. Ione is intelligent, spunky, and kind, but not infallible. She does not hesitate to speak her mind, but she is often indecisive in matters of love.

Search “Vaughn Treude” on Amazon.com. Ione’s new adventure should be available shortly. It’s a great read for young adult and other age groups.

 

Happy (Real) Victoria Day!

Queen Victoria, Photograph by Alexander Bassano, 1882

Queen Victoria, Photograph by Alexander Bassano, 1882

Today is the 198th anniversary of the birth of England’s celebrated Queen Victoria, namesake of the Victorian Era, which lasted from 1838 to 1901. It’s an official holiday in Canada, though they’ve adopted the American custom of moving people’s birthdays to Monday, so it was not observed today. It was also celebrated in the United Kingdom as “Empire Day” and later “Commonwealth Day,” until they moved it to March for some reason.

It’s also the day on which Arlys and I had planned to release the second Ione D adventure, Professor Ione D and the Epicurean Incident, in e-book form. It is exactly a year since we released the first Ione D book. And to answer the obvious question, Victoria Day seemed to us like the ideal day to promote a steampunk book. Sadly, we’re delaying the release, because we’re not quite done with the final edit. We estimate this should take us about a week. Stay tuned for more info, and Hail Victoria!

See our book Miss Ione D and the Mayan Marvel, available as both e-book and paperback on Amazon.

Ione D – the paperback arrives!

Ione D paperback, cover and interior

Ione D and the Mayan Marvel

When I got home today, there was a box by our door – our first carton of our new steampunk novel “Miss Ione D and the Mayan Marvel”! As much as I appreciate the convenience of e-books, there’s something about holding the real thing in your hand for the first time. It’s like a newborn baby, except that it doesn’t pee all over you.

Cover photo: Arlys Endres. Illustration by Ben Gill.

Order your copy today from Amazon.com!

The Glory of Retro Design

RoverBoys

A vintage cover: The Rover Boys On Land and Sea, by Arthur M. Winfield, 1903.

While doing a web search for steampunk art, I came upon a site which displayed a number of pre-made covers for sale to independent authors. I can’t criticize their quality, as they featured high-res photos of attractive models in top hats, goggles, and bustiers. As good-looking as these designs were, they were too modern. They didn’t seem appropriate for a genre that celebrates the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. That kind of cover says 21st Century, not the Victorian era. That’s why I favor custom covers, in an attempt to simulate the look of an old-fashioned leather-bound volume. I contracted out the designs for the covers of my first two books, but for Ione D, I tackled the job myself. Though I’m no artist, I’m good at the Gimp (the Linux equivalent of Photoshop), so thank Cthullu for my collection of antique books whose copyrights have passed into the public domain. For Miss Ione D and the Mayan Marvel, I adapted a 1918 German-language Artsongbook which I inherited from my grandfather. The attached image is we’d call a “young adult” novel, published in 1903, which I plan to use as the model for the cover of Professor Ione D. and the Epicurean Incident. Watch this site for updates and previews of future Ione D and Fidelio releases.

Steampunk Fashion Extravaganza

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Brittney Reed as Professor Ione D’s childhood friend, Mrs. Emma Farrington

My co-author Arlys once again proved her creativity and fashion sense in a steampunk photo shoot held at our house this weekend. In the above photo, Brittney Reed portrays Ione D’s best friend, Emma Farrington, from the upcoming second book in the series. Titled Professor Ione D and the Epicurean Incident, the story revolves around Ione’s visit to the First Royal Epicurean Exhibition in post-Victorian London. A number of mysterious mishaps arouse the suspicions of our intrepid heroines. Are nefarious parties conspiring to disrupt King Edward’s culinary initiative, or is it just bad luck?

brittney2

Arlys’ character-based photography sessions have been a fun and imaginative way to create graphics for our book covers and publicity releases, as well as provide guidelines for our artists’ illustrations. Professor Ione D and the Epicurean Incident is tentatively scheduled for publication next Victoria Day, May 24, 2017. Watch this site for updates and previews.

brittney3

 

Coming Soon: a New Ione D Adventure

Ione D in Steampunk Hat

Arlys Endres as Professor Ione D

While we prepare the Mayan Marvel paperback for production, my multi-talented co-author Arlys has been preparing for the second book in the series, Professor Ione D and the Epicurean Incident. Its publication is tentatively scheduled for Queen Victoria’s 198th birthday, May 24, 2017. Here we see our model Arlys Endres playing the globe-trotting young Professor, Ione Dyfrdwy. This time, we’re getting a jump on getting the illustrations for the novel ready ahead of time. We’ll be keeping you informed of our progress.

 

Announcing a New Flash Fiction Anthology

Announcing “Christmas in Love: A Flash Fiction Anthology” edited by George Donnelly and featuring a story by Yours Truly. This new collection of short works is now available on Amazon.

The Kindle version is available FREE for a limited time so act now!

From the description on Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MQVG0JL

From an unexpected twist on a classic Christmas tale and a soldier returning home from war to a pair of girls waiting for an unlikely Christmas wish to come true and a creepy evening in a museum, fill your briefest moments with this collection of 18 flash fiction stories.
Commuting to work? Grabbing a quick coffee? Each story tells a complete tale in but a few short minutes with the added promise of a lifelong introduction to new indie writers.
You never know, you might just find your next favorite author.
Christmas in Love, the third anthology in the Flash Flood series, is a hand-picked selection of master works in romance, science fiction and fantasy themed for Christmas and guaranteed to keep you engaged.

If you like Christmas and science fiction, this would be a perfect (and frugal) gift for yourself or friends and family.