Gloria & Audrey Harchar

Audrey and I have been looking at specific aspects of Steampunk. One site that Audrey found said that men and women are equal, that is, women don’t have the social and political stigma that you find in Victorian England.

Well, in Jay Lake’s Mainstream, (a steampunk novel) the hero thought that women were inferior until he got out into the world to find the secret to time. He realized that although society belittled women and didn’t let them have the freedom to go after the same professions as men, that women were incredibly smart. In Escapement, Paola was discriminated against in the village she grew up in, and in England. But she was a girl with great magical powers, which was cool.

Steampunk can be set in historical times, but it must be an altered history–where scientists haven’t discovered the atom. Or maybe they thought up the concept, but chose to go another direction–steam, hydrogen and helium power rather than nuclear.

A steampunk book can be set in the American West (as shown in the old TV series Wild Wild West).  Or it can be set during World War I, (like Scott Westerfeld’s new YA steampunk novel coming in October). Or it can be set in the future. Or in Victorian Times.

I think it’s important to get in the feeling of Imperialism that the real Victorian England had, where England wants to take over countries–and where English are very patriotic, (God Bless the Queen). I also think it’s good to have societies, where men and women create groups that theorize and brainstorm for new ideas in religion, economics, politics, or what have you.

And of course there must be airships, dirigibles, steam-driven trains, goggles, blunderbusses, bicycles, unicycles, tricycles, roadsters and old Model-T’s — well, you get the idea. A novel could even have modern conveniences like computers, except that the technology is different. Isn’t that the coolest–a gun made out of a clarinet?

This is a picture of our main character, Odessa Langston, created by Audrey.

Odessa doesn’t trust the male population, mainly because she’s been betrayed, then abandoned by her father. Not only that, but a patent officer stole her idea for a magical compass. And well, let’s just face it. Guys lie because they usually have a hidden agenda.

Unfortunately, she is living in a male-dominated, apocalyptic steampunk world, and she wants so bad to prove herself as a worthy machinist.

So when pirates come after her and her sister, Joy, is it any wonder that the not-surprisingly-cynical-teenage girl doesn’t trust the boy who conveniently comes to her rescue after her getaway roadster is mysteriously blown to pieces?

Welcome to our new site. My daughter, Audrey, and I are writing a novel together for teens. It’s a steampunk, which is a subgenre of science fiction. Have you seen the movie Mad Max? Or The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen? Or have you read H. G. Wells? A more modern example is Steven Hunt’s Court of the Air, and Jay Lake’s Mainspring. But we haven’t seen any steampunk for young adults, and we love it! Our book’s setting is a post apocalyptic world, where the survivors have returned to relying on steam for energy, (which makes it a steampunk). Everything is a mixture of Victorian England and New Age–another characteristic of steampunk. There’s magic too. I will tell you more about our writing journey as we travel down the road!

Audrey, in the meantime, has created the art for our site. Isn’t it beautiful? She worked long and hard on designing the girls who are sisters in our story. The first book we’re writing is mainly about Odessa, the girl with dark hair. Audrey continues to make different poses of them, and she recently designed the hero. For her to do this is fun for us both. She asks me if I envisioned Odessa like this or that, so it really helps us both to actually see her, and get to know her character better. She’s the protagonist in our first book. I can’t wait for you to meet her!