Steampunk'd

This is an interesting collection of 14 short-stories covering a broad range of VSF themes. 

All the stories are by different authors and this collection includes contributions by Michael Stackpole and William Dietz.

Lots of rousing, steam turbine powered stuff and definately worth a read (with a good claret and a stilton, by the fire of course!)

Pax Britannia book reviews

In recognition of Mssr Blease's recent reviews here of the Pax Britannia books, erudite gentleman and author Mssr Green has posted a link to WWS at his own Blog here:
http://jonathangreenauthor.blogspot.com/2010/12/pax-britannia-book-reviews.html

But not only that, he has also posted a short story as a Christmas present to all, titled "SILENT KNIGHT, or, 'TWAS THE DARK KNIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS"
http://abaddonbooks.blogspot.com/2010/12/and-pax-britannia-freebie.html

Told you he is a smashing Chap!

Pax Britannia: Dark Side

Blooming Memsahib! Seems she toke umbridge about my reference to cook's Christmas Puddings yesterday and has banished me to the gardener's potting shed. Daft old bird... Fortunately with the snow laying all crisp and even I had the good sense to grab a bit of game pie, a bottle of brandy, my cigars and the latest Pax Britannia penny dreadful!

That wordsmith Green don't half knock them out you know? Dark Side is the newest Quicksilver adventure and what a hoot, definitely the best to date! Following his brother Barty to the her Majesty's colony on the moon, we meet up with characters from the short story Vanishing Point and have astronef, Martian separatist anarchists, asteroids, mechanical automatons on the rampage, more pesky Nazi Prussians, a plethora of fillies, a series of murders, infernal devices, selenites, secret bases, tragedy, vengeance and the possibility of the end of everything, everywhere! Blimey, one needed a stiff one after all that I can tell you!! Hats off to Mister Green for a highly entertaining romp...

As usual he treats us with a short Quicksilver story entitled Proteus Unbound. A tragic tale featuring two of the survivors from the Leviathan penny dreadful that brought a veritable lump to the throat and proof to gentlemen everywhere to be wary of what those medical quacks try and force down your throat to cure your gout of lumbago! I'll be making sure mine takes a quick swig first in future I can tell you!

Pax Britannia: Movies On The Moon

Shocking revalations appear to be afoot gentlemen, having accessed this chronophotographic record via my personal Babbage engine regarding the next installment of Ulysses Quicksilver adventures. I will be giving them a thorough investigation imminently and will report back toodle suite (as they say over the Channel). It looks like it could be our hero's most challenging adventure yet...

Pax Britannia: Blood Royal

Wonderful smells wafting from the kitchen this snowy morn' as cook prepares some grub for the festive feasting. Her brandy mince pies are jolly spiffing and I can't wait to get my hands on her Christmas puddings you know!

Whatever, whilst relaxing in the library with a nice snifter of sherry, for it is that time of the year, I finished reading another jolly jape from that wordsmith Green, this time called Blood Royal.

This volume follows on from the catastrophe that befell our fair capital in the last penny dreadful with London subject to curfew as strange beasties roam the streets. Our hero, Quicksilver, is soon drawn into intrigue following the kidnapping of a friend's daughter and an adventure follows that leads him to far flung places such as the Isle of Wight and Moscow. Airships, vampires, bandits, femme fatales and werewolves, this book is chock full of exciting derring-do and will certainly keep one on tenterhooks to see whether that dandy agent succeeds or not.

As ever there is a short Quicksilver yarn at the end entitled White Rabbit which is very, very strange. Obviously Green has been spending too many nights in the opium dens of Whitechapel and needs a good thrashing with a birch to beat this laudanum induced nonsense out of him! Jabberwocky indeed...

Pax Britannia: Evolution Expects

What ho chaps! Apologies for the lack of updates recently but I've been helping brave little Belgium in her efforts against the pesky Frogs! More on this another day but suffice to say those snail-eaters were soon beating a retreat to Paris with their tails between their legs.

Anyhow, I was pleased to find that the Memsahib had not only packed a fine bottle of brandy in my traveling chest but some of the most recent penny dreadfuls by that Jonathan Green wallah. Evolution Expects is the fourth Quicksilver yarn which sees our hero pitched into an adventure to save the capital from old enemies, whilst encountering all manner of strange friend and foe including Spring-Heeled Jack and the Limehouse Golem. A ripping yarn up to the usual quality and worthy of adding to any gentleman's library.

As usual Green provides us with a short story after the main course and this little triffle, entitled Conqueror Worm, is set two hundred years before the time of our usual hero and recounts an adventure of some filly called Cassandra Tyrell, a female secret agent would you believe, dealing with a secret cult at a stately home. Bit different one must say, but a jolly wheeze and one would certainly like to encounter that Cassandra filly again, harrumph!

Warlord of Mars

Now as any good officer knows intel is paramount when up against pesky natives, especially when serving off planet. Now thanks to those good chappies at Dynamite Publications we have some more resource to help subjugate the bally Martians in the form of an intelligence briefing cleverly disguised as a comic book (no doubt to fool the French).

Warlord of Mars is apparently a prequel to those briefings from that Burroughs chappie and is available this month so get the man servant to pop out and pick up a copy, though make sure he puts it in a plain paper bag as it is unlikely the Memsahib will appreciate the fact that those dusky Martian maidens aren't so keen on wearing clothes and get the wrong idea, harrumph!

Pax Britannia: The Ulysses Quicksilver Omnibus

Jolly good news for any gentlemen (or young boys of a strong disposition) who have missed out on the penny dreadful tales of derring-do from the wordsmith Jonathan Green about hero of our future Empire Ulyssess Quicksilver. The publishers of these wonderful adventures have compiled a number into one large omnibus volume simply entitled The Ulysses Quicksilver Omnibus (obviously to prevent confusion with servants from the lower classes one might send to purchase it when it is released in November).

This omnibus contains the following penny dreadfuls:

Unnatural History - missing professors, dinosaurs and mad anarchist plots in London.

Leviathan Rising - aquanef, underwater disaster, murder, revenge and giant squid.

Human Nature - missing mermaids, vicious beasts and incompetent police officers in Whitby.

The omnibus also contains the following short tales:

Vanishing Point - spiritualism, mad science and Nazi agents in a stately home.

Christmas Past - murder and St. Nick in Oxford.

Unfortunately the bally publishers types have forgotten to include the other Quicksilver short story Fruiting Bodies which is a lamentable oversight and they deserve a jolly good thrashing for this! That said at least a gentlemen can enjoy his sprouts without too much worry if he has not read this shocking tale.

Pax Britannia: Human Nature

In our enlightened age there is nothing much more pleasing for a gentleman and his memsahib than a jolly trip to the seaside to enjoy the bracing sea air, gets salt in your whiskers and looks at the waves we rule!

Upon the out latest trip to Clacton, the memsahib picked up the latest penny dreadful in the Pax Britannia collection for me from a vendour on the pier which I read on the train back to the estate.

Another cracker from that Green chappie entitled Human Nature, it starts as a jolly innocuous wheeze for the dandy Ulysses Quicksilver, investigating the theft of the so-called Whitby Mermaid but soon becomes a rum adventure with our hero beset by nefarious coves, a wild beast on the moor, murder, shocking discoveries of medical insanity and to top it all a terrible fate befalls our hero! (one had to have a stiff brandy and sit down at this stage).

The volume also contains another top notch short story entitled Christmas Past. All I'll say is if this Saint Nick pops down my chimney, he'll be getting both barrels of my twelve bore up him!

Pax Britannia: Moving Pictures

Genetlemen, it has been brought to my attention that those of you of a more modern disposition are able to view a short "movie" (I think that's the term) made with one of those chronophotographic cameras on your personal Babbage engine about the Pax Britannia penny dreadfuls.

Personally one would rather watch Così Fan Tutte down the Garden but there is no accounting for taste.

Pax Britannia: Leviathan Rising

Spiffing day out by the mere today chaps, snagged a couple of trout which chef is now preparing, so I'll sit down in the drawing room with a fine malt to warm the bones and tell you about the third Pax Britannia book.

Leviathan Rising is another Ulysses Quicksilver by that Green chappie and a jolly wheeze it is too, the best of the three penny dreadfuls I've read so far.

Quicksilver is invited to join the party on board a giant passenger aquanef on its maiden voyage, but before you can go "watch out for that iceberg" we're on a rollicking adventure with ocean bed cities, inquisitive ladies of the press (a bit too inquisitive for some - hurrumph!), nefarious oriental agents, giant squid and a plot of murder and sabotage that would thwart that Holmes bod!

As with the previous volume we get another cracking short story with Quicksilver entitled Vanishing Point, full of weird science, that bally spiritualism Conan Doyle blathers on about and some of those pesky Nazi Prussian types.

Overall gentlemen, heartily recommended and a must be found in any discerning fellows library.

Pax Britannia: El Sombra

The Memsahib picked up the second Pax Britannia penny dreadful for me which I've sat down and read after my evening constitutional. I must say that despite a fine tawney port and spiffing cheese board I did not enjoy this yarn as much as the first.

Entitled El Sombra and written by some chap called Al Ewing, it is the story of some Mexican chappie who wears a mask and battles some baddies called Nazis (a kind of even nastier than normal Prussians with steam weapons) in Mexico. The Nazis are so bad that obviously any gentlemen would defeat them, even one who is not British. Despite having gargantuan steam conveyances, automatons, flying baddies and lots of derring-do it was not as good as the previous volume Unnatural History but passed an evening away.

The good news though was the inclusion of a jolly exciting short story at the end of the penny dreadful called Fruiting Bodies written by wordsmith Jonathan Green. This sees the return of our hero Ulysses Quicksilver (hurrah!) in a mystery set at Kew Gardens that threatens the Empire. I won't spoil it for any gentlemen planning to read it but suffice to say I won't be entering the arboretum without the twelve bore in a hurry!

Pax Britannia: Unnatural History

After a hard day's work defending the Empire or out hunting there is nothing more than a gentleman likes to do than sit down with a good port, a fine cigar and a cracking H. Rider Haggard adventure. Sadly with Haggard being dead and all, he won't be writing any new yarns and one can only read King Solomon's Mines so many times without becoming a tad bored. Fortunately the old Memsahib has come across a new series of penny dreadfuls that she spotted whilst looking for the latest bodice-ripper.

Under the banner of Pax Britannia, the first one I read was called Unnatural History by a wordsmith called Jonathan Green (who is a teacher during the day and hopefully gives the whelps in his workhouse a jolly good thrashing before meals). The novels are unusually set at the end of the twentieth century in a world where the sun never sets on the Empire and Queen Victoria still sits on her throne (hurrah!). There is some weird scientific romance stuff to explain all this including babbage machines (a kind of thinking typewriter) and aerial ships.

The hero of our adventure is one Ulysses Quicksilver, on the surface a bit of a dandy, but secretly an agent for the Queen. His mission is to track down the Professor of Evolutionary Biology who has gone missing from the Natural History Museum, but soon he is fighting villains on the London Overground, hunting down escaped dinosaurs through the streets of London, fighting anarchists in flooded Underground tunnels and uncovering corruption in the heart of government and a threat to Her Majesty!

All in all a spiffing tale to be enjoyed by gentlemen (and boys of an appropriate age) after dinner in the drawing room once the Memsahib has retired, preferably with a glass of port or a stiff brandy (for the gentlemen only).

International Journal of Naval History

I found this great resource today:

The objective of the International Journal of Naval History is to provide a pre-eminent forum for works of naval history researched and written to demonstrable academic standards. Our hope is to stimulate and promote research into naval history and foster communication among naval historians at an international level.

http://www.ijnhonline.org/

Wars of Empire...in Cartoons!

Qued by an entry at TMP:

WARS OF EMPIRE IN CARTOONS
by Mark Bryant

the publisher's page says:

At the beginning of the Victorian era it seemed that the sun would never set on the vast British Empire which spanned the globe. However, the Pax Britannica was not all that it seemed and the forces of Her Imperial Majesty were frequently called upon to fend of aggressor nations and quell rebellions in Britain’s many colonies.

In an age before computers, television, radio and the cinema the impact of cartoons and caricature was considerable, especially when the only sources of information were posters, newspapers and books. To a news-hungry public, anxious about world affairs, it was the cartoon, with its immediacy and universal accessibility – even to the barely literate – that could speak the message mere words could never convey.During the Crimean War it was John Leech and his colleagues at Punch who drew their own satirical version of events. And who could take Tsar Nicholas of Russia, Paul Kruger of the Transvaal or the Mad Mahdi of the Sudan at all seriously when the artists of Fun, Judy, Moonshine, Vanity Fair and others cocked a snook at all they held dear? However, Britain’s enemies also had a wealth of talent laboring to counteract imperial propaganda and there were frequent, often vicious, attacks on Queen Victoria and her generals, admirals and politicians in French and German satirical magazines such as Simplicissimus, Le Grelot and Lustiger Blatter.

Wars of Empire in Cartoons is divided into chapters covering the main conflicts of the second half of the 19th century year-by-year. Each chapter is prefaced with a concise introduction that provides a historical framework for the cartoons of that year. Altogether some 300 drawings from both sides of each conflict have been skillfully blended to produce a unique visual history of the wars of the British Empire.

Specifications
9½ x 12¼. 160 pages, color & b/w images throughout, $34.95, hardback,Grub Street Publishing
Order it from Casemate Publishing here:
http://www.casematepublishing.com/cgi/titleinfo.pl?sku=9781902304403

And let me know whats its like if you get one - please!

Into the Abyss

A short story by..

H.G. Wells

In the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, we are not alone...

http://www.horrormasters.com/Text/a1047.pdf

King Solomon's Mines

by Rider Haggard
Published 1885

Wikipedia reports that "The book was first published in September 1885 amid considerable fanfare, with billboards and posters around London announcing "The Most Amazing Book Ever Written". It became an immediate best seller. By the late 19th century explorers were uncovering lost civilizations around the world, such as Egypt's Valley of the Kings, and the empire of Assyria. Africa remained largely unexplored and King Solomon's Mines, the first novel of African adventure published in English, captured the public's imagination."

It was also the best selling book of 1885 and is arguably the first of the "Lost World" genre of fiction. I love the book's dedication, which reads:

This faithful but unpretending recordof a remarkable adventureis hereby respectfully dedicatedby the narrator,ALLAN QUATERMAIN,to all the big and little boys who read it.

And of course any novel with a Naval Officer named "Captain Good" cant be bad at all!

http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/H/HaggardRider/prose/kingsolomonmines/index.html

Sketchmap of the route to King Solomon’s Mines

CRYPTO-CRITTERS Anthology Series

CRYPTO-CRITTERS I

A terrific new collection of stories featuring crypto-zoological subjects from around the world! Everything from Big Foot to pink elephants is tackled in this one, and the most fun for visitors to this website, of course, is the fact that CJ has two stories in this one.

CRYPTO-CRITTERS II

In remote parts of the planet they lurk, the unknown, the unsuspected, the sometimes rumored ... they are the creatures of myth and legend, until someone finally finds one and pulls it whole and breathing into the modern age. This is it, the much anticipated follow-up to the original smash hit, Crypto-Critters, and it’s packed with the best crypto-zoological sci fi, fantasy and horror stories of all time. Join Bruce Gehweiler, Patrick Thomas, James Chambers, John Sunseri, Edmund R. Schubert, Diane Raetz, Scott Thomas, Graham Watkins and, as you might suspect, our own C.J., who brings three tales to this stunning sequel!

http://www.cjhenderson.com/store_anth.html

The Zeppelin Destroyer : being some chapters of secret history

by William Le Queux (1864-1927)
published in 1916

This book reflects Le Queux's paranoia during the war years with British national security at grav risk, and the potential utility of secret services in furthering the aims of 'total industrialised warfare'.

Read it online here:
http://www.openlibrary.org/details/zeppelindestroye00lequuoft

Its listed with other great books featuring dirigibles here: http://spot.colorado.edu/~dziadeck/airship/fiction.htm

A Visit to the Moon

another piece of classic Astronef style fiction, from 1899!

A Visit to the Moon
by George Griffith

An Account of the Adventures of the Earl of Redgrave and his Bride on their Honeymoon in Space:

Well, we shall see a good many marvels. and, perhaps, miracles, before we come back, but I hardly think we shall see anything that is forbidden. Still, there's one thing we shall do, I hope. We shall solve once and for all the great problem of the worlds--whether they are inhabited or not. By the way, he went on, "I may remind your ladyship that you are just now drawing the last breaths of earthly air which you will taste for some time, in fact until we get back!

http://www.gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0602321h.html