steampunk – K. M. Alexander

November 14, 2022

Raunch Review: Carnival Row

Raunch Reviews is a series about profanity. Not real profanity, but speculative swearing. Authors often try to incorporate original, innovative forms of profanity into our own fantastical works as a way to expand the worlds we build. Sometimes we’re successful. Often we’re not. In this series, I examine the faux-profanity from various works of sci-fi and fantasy, judge their effectiveness, and rate them on an unscientific and purely subjective scale. This is Raunch Reviews. Welcome.

The Author: René Echevarria, Travis Beacham

Work in Question: Carnival Row

The Profanity: “Critch”

In the world of Burgue from Amazon’s fantasy-fueled steampunk fairytale Carnival Row, humans live alongside mythical creatures who have fled their war-torn homeland. As you expect with any setting featuring this sort of mass immigration of refugees, there are examinations of xenophobia, bigotry, classism, and segregation. Most humans dislike these newcomers, and throughout the series, the viewer witnesses it from a variety of perspectives that of the commoner, law enforcement, and the elite.

As you’d expect, this plays out often in language, particularly with the word “critch.” Like any language designed to dehumanize, “critch” is the catchall term for any non-human species. It’s derived from “creature” and wielded with a particular venom by the various bullies throughout the series.

This is an interesting slur, focusing more on a class of people rather than a particular species. However, those species-specific insults are also in Carnival Row’s world as well: “Puck” being faun-specific, “Pix” for the Faerie, “Brute” for the Trow, and so on. And in many ways, these work better because they focus on each species rather than a random group. So “critch” exists in an odd space, clearly meant to harm and degrade, but it’s also so broad it loses some of the edge, which would make a slur like this so pernicious. Falls a little flat under scrutiny.

Final Score: 3.5

🤬 Previous Raunch Reviews

Have a suggestion for Raunch Reviews? It can be any made-up slang word from a book, television show, or movie. You can email me directly with your recommendation or leave a comment below. I’ll need to spend time with the property before I’ll feel confident reviewing it, so give me a little time. I have a lot of books to read.

May 26, 2020January 14, 2023

Zatta: A Free 18th Century Cartography Brush Set for Fantasy Maps

Ever since launching Lehmann in 2018, I’ve wanted to revisit the era of the hachure map. The middle-19th century is easily my favorite era of cartography—a transition from rough representation towards accuracy had begun. Representing physical geography with flat top-down perspectives meant that maps would require a new way to display relief and hachures filled the transient space between hill profiles and the modern topographical maps we use today.

All my Map Tools will always be free. Want to help support this work?
Click here to learn how.

With that in mind, I’m excited to announce the launch of Zatta, my latest free hachure-focused brush set for you to create your own fantastical map for your books, games, or whatever creative cartographical project you want to tackle.

Hachure maps didn’t really see popularity until the 19th century, so finding extensive use in a map from 1775 meant I was able to capture them in their early transitory stage. This set comes from L’Estremadura di Portogallo a 1775 map of southern Portugal created by Italian cartographer Antonio Zatta as part of his Atlante Novissimo. (Fun fact: large portions of the maps contained in this atlas still use hill-profiles.) It’s a beautiful map, and the set that emerged from it is perfect for flintlock fantasy, steampunk, or anything that sits on that edge between the 18th and 19th centuries.

I did my best to organize the hachures in a way that would make sense—in this case, I organized them in the cardinal and secondary-intercardinal directions they “pointed.” But! The best part is hachures don’t really care what direction they point, and you can easily rotate the brush to orientate your relief whatever direction you want. (Use the left and right arrow keys in Photoshop to turn them by a degree – or use shift-left and shift-right to rotate them by 15º increments.)

You still find plenty of profile-style signs intermixed with the hachures. It creates a fantastic interplay between the symbols. Symbols for forests, towns, and villages all have a familiar look where the larger fortified settlements have opted for the top-down orientation to better fit within the contours suggested by the hachures.

Those little fortified settlements are interesting, as well—sometimes they were labeled as cities, and other times they bore the label “castel” and sometimes “villa.” Like the hachures themselves, I see these working as a bridge between historical symbols and modern top-down approaches to settlement boundaries. The distinctiveness between each of these signs allows for their use variety of applications—they can easily transition into whatever role you need them to play.

Zatta is a decent sized set, with over 500 brushes I’m sure you’ll find plenty here. The full set includes the following:

25 ⬆️ North Facing Hatchures
25 ↗️ Northeast Facing Hatchures
35 ➡️ East Facing
50 ↘️ Southeast
60 ⬇️ South
25 ↙️ Southwest
30 ⬅️ West
15 ↖️ Northwest
10 ⏺ Crowns
20 Small Settlements
10 Towers
30 Small Towns
30 Towns
70 Fortified Settlements (Castles? Forts? Cities? I provide! You decide!)
50 Trees
20 Unique
2 Cartouches

The button below links to a ZIP file that contains a Photoshop brush set (it’ll also work with GIMP and Affinity Photo) as well as a set of transparent PNGs in case you’re using a program that doesn’t support Adobe brush files. I’ve separated them by type: Landforms and Settlements and Flora. They’re black, and on a transparent background, so they’ll look broken if viewed in Chrome, but trust me, they’re all there.

DOWNLOAD ZATTA

As with all of my previous brush sets, Zatta is free for any use. I distribute my sets with a Creative Common, No Rights Reserved License (CC0), which means you can freely use this and any of my brushes in commercial work and distribute adaptations. (Details on this decision here.) No attribution is required. Easy peasy!

Enjoy Zarra? Feel free to show me what you created by sending me an email or finding me on Twitter. I love seeing how these brushes get used, and I’d be happy to share your work with my readers. Let me see what you make!

🌏 Zatta In Use

Want to see this brush set in use? I put together a sample map, and you can see the results below. There are three versions, a black and white version, one colored, and a decorated sample. Click on any of the images below to view them larger. Perhaps this will inspire you as you get started on your own projects!

Support this Work

Brushes and tools released through the #NoBadMaps project will always be free and released under a public domain CC0 license. If you’d like to support the project and help me cover the cost of hosting, research, and tool-set development, I’ve put together three ways you can help, and all are detailed below.

Buy My Books→

I’m not just a map enthusiast. I’m also a novelist! The easiest way to support me (and get something in return) is by purchasing one of my cosmic horror urban fantasy novels.

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Buy Me a Coffee→

A simple and quick way to support the #NoBadMaps project is through a one-time donation of any amount via ko-fi. Your support helps keep this project going and is appreciated.

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Join my Patreon→

If you want to continually support the #NoBadMaps project through a reoccurring monthly contribution, consider joining my Patreon and get sneak peeks into what’s coming.

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More Map Brushes

This is just one of many brush sets and map tools I’ve released. You can find it and other free brushes covering a wide variety of historical styles on my Fantasy Map Brushes page. Every set is free, distributed under a CC0 license, and open for personal or commercial use. I’m sure you’ll be able to find something that works for your project. Click the button below to check them out!

view more Fantasy Map Brushes

Dead Drop: Missives from the desk of K. M. Alexander

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November 12, 2018

I’m Obsessed with La Machine

The French production company La Machine has been producing urban operas since the early 1990s, and to put it simply: they’re stunning. Using wood, leather, copper, or glass, they create enormous mechanical marionettes with a surrealist bent and a bit of a steampunk aesthetic. (This is particularly noticeable in their Elephant marionette.) The movements are precise and that breaths life into the machines. These creations are then used in multi-day operatics with light, sound, steam, music, and even weather effects. I find myself awe inspired every time they perform. But you can just see for yourself in the videos below.

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#LongMa🐎🐉, Queen of #ottawa2017 #ottawa #LaMachine

A post shared by Compagnie La Machine (@compagnie_la_machine) on Jul 29, 2017 at 5:51pm PDT

It’s so cool. New bucket list item: see one of these productions in person. This year’s show was The Guardian of the Temple held in Toulouse, France—it was an interpretation of the myth of Ariadne, who helped Theseus defeat the Minotaur. Each production typically lasts through several acts played out through a city and performed over several days.

You can learn more about La Machine on their website. (I’ll link to the English version.) Be sure to follow them on Facebook and Twitter. They also share much more content over on YouTube and on their Instagram. La Machine has upcoming shows scheduled for Nantes and Calais in France.

I’m excited to see what they do next.

September 8, 2017November 2, 2017

So, Coal Belly is Done… Sorta

Last weekend, after a year and eight months, I finally hit print on the final chapter of my latest novel, Coal Belly. The first of what I hope to be a trilogy. Right now, it weighs in at 190k words, and I expect it to grow.

Long time readers know this isn’t the first time I’ve written Coal Belly. The original manuscript emerged in 2010/11—a few years after I moved to Seattle and around the time I started working at Google. In fact, this blog began right after I finished the manuscript as an attempt to document my journey. That first version was around 130k words, and in the end, nothing came of it. It languished on shelves and hard drives for years. Always nagging at me as I worked on and published other projects. I knew there a was a better story there, I just hadn’t found it yet. It wasn’t until early 2016 that I felt I was ready to give it another go.

Coal Belly, Draft Zero, along side pre-manuscript ritual islay scotch and a cigar. — *Behold! Coal Belly*, Draft Zero sitting alongside my post-manuscript ritual: Islay scotch (in this case Laphroaig 10 yr., often Lagavulin 16 yr.) and a Cuban cigar.

It’s the longest I’ve ever worked on a book. Some elements have remained the same, steamboats still feature prominently in a world covered with rivers, and its weird-west aesthetic persists. But the themes between books are very different. Characters have become something greater, plotlines are better defined and much more complex, and the stakes are personal. Looking back it’s obvious now, and I’m glad I put it aside. That first version was akin to raw ore, and this new manuscript is the refined mineral. It’s a better book in every way.

“That first version was akin to raw ore, and this new manuscript is the refined mineral.”

As always, I took some time over the weekend and commemorated the occasion. I spent most of this last week reflecting on the work, and I’m excited. Coal Belly draft zero is done. The editing lies before me. I go on vacation next week, but soon it’ll be time to delve back into the work while my steam is up.

How Passenger Airships Worked

For years I didn’t understand the steampunk community’s obsession with airships. I understood that they were transportation ephemera of a sort and that they harkened back to a bygone era, but I always thought they were too small. This was due in large part to my misunderstanding of their construction.

I was further confused when I realized I didn’t understand how mooring masts worked. The giant spire atop the Empire State Building was initially designed to be a mooring mast, but I could never understand how passengers would get down from the gondola. Ropes? Ladders? Either way, it sounded like it would be dangerous.

It wasn’t until I read Larry Correia’s novel Hard Magic in January that I decided to look further into dirigibles. His book utilizes them a great deal, but I was having a difficult time picturing the spaces described, so I began to research. It turns out my assumptions were very wrong. Airships had decks! Passenger cabins! Lounges! Promenades! As I started asking my friends, I discovered that I wasn’t alone in my ignorance. I blame The Rocketeer.

So where were these accommodations? This surprised me as well. As the illustration below describes, they were most often inside the ridge frame of the airship itself.

A 1928 drawing by S.W. Clatworthy showing the accommodation aboard the R100

For years, I operated under the assumption that passengers were as crammed into the tight space of a gondola (similar to military dirigibles.) But the tiny gondolas that dangled below looked uncomfortable for a long flight across the Atlantic. It turns out they were the exact opposite of cramped. When I realized they had more in common with starships, ocean liners, and riverboats, my perspective changed. They became something much more, and I immediately understood the obsession.

My research led me to The Airship Heritage Trust, which had a collection of images of the British R100, one of the premiere passenger airships of its day and similar in design to the famous Hindenburg. There you can find photos, ship plans, flight logs, and much more. If you’re looking for details, I highly recommend browsing that site.

I was fascinated by the layout, and the passion began to make sense. Below is a collection of images and some deck plans I have found relating to the interior and passenger spaces of airships. These come from the British R100 and R101 and the Nazi LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin, LZ 129 Hindenburg, and LZ 130 Graf Zeppelin II. I also included a photo at the end showing passengers boarding the R101 so you can see how mooring masts worked. Makes a lot more sense than what I had in my head. In some cases, I did some minor color correction and cropping to give the gallery some unity.

Maids in the main lounge of an R100.

Passengers gathering outside the LZ 129 Hindenburg.

Cutaway of a R101.

Passengers on the promenade of the R100.

Diners eating in the dining room of a half-built R100.

Diners at tea in the dining room of a half-built R100.

Main lounge of the R101.

Cutaway of the LZ 129 Hindenburg.

Cabin onboard the LZ-130 Graf Zeppelin II

Kitchen onboard the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin.

Passengers on the promenade of the R100.

Dining room of the LZ 129 Hidenburg.

Passenger cabin on the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin.

Maid prepares a meal in the kitchen of the R100.

Lounge onboard the LZ-130 Graf Zeppelin II

Dining room on the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin.

Another cutaway of the LZ 129 Hindenburg.

Passengers boarding a R101.

[!] Note: While one of the most successful dirigibles, the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin had a different layout than the others. It crammed passengers and crew into a large forward gondola that extended partly into the ship’s frame. You can see its design and deck plan here. The larger LZ 130 Graf Zeppelin II moved passengers into the frame.

While airships won’t be appearing in my writing anytime soon, I now understand the attraction. They’re an ocean liner in the sky, a home to their crew, and a hotel to their passengers. They’re not at all cramped. I can see why they’d be the transportation choice for pulpy adventures. Just make sure you have your ticket.

November 21, 2014

Friday Link Pack 11-21-2014

Friday, Friday, FRRRIIIDDDAAAY! That means it’s time to share a few links I’ve found over the last few days. Some of these I mention on Twitter, if you’re not already following me there, please do! Have a link I should feature in the upcoming link pack? Let me know! All right, let’s get to it.

Tanzania:

Community Starts With You
My friend Brandie Heinel is moving to Tanzania to build an orphanage, foster home, and community center. She needs your help. Instead of buying that coffee or a beer today, please take time and donate.

Writing:

Burying The Coin By Setsu Uzume
Do yourself a favor and listen to the latest short story from my friend Setsu Uzume over on PodCastle. If you’re looking for a steampunk romp with a little more punk, then you won’t be disappointed. Not only is the writing great, Amanda Fitzwater does an excellent job with the reading.

‘Am I Being Catfished?’ An Author Confronts Her Number One Online Critic
Strange tale of an author seeking her biggest Goodreads critic. This was making the rounds for a while, but it’s worth a read if you missed it. Thanks to J. Rushing for suggesting I add it. Oh, and I should add, never, never, never do this.

The Book That Writes Itself
In which Hugh Howey asks the question: when will machines start writing books? Don’t think it could happen? Think again. It’s an interesting exploration on the advancement of artificial intelligence and humanities future.

Grimm Brothers’ Fairytales Have Blood & Horror Restored In New Translation
You’re probably aware that the old fairy tales were much different than the ones we know today. In the mid 19th century they were cleaned up for children and deviated significantly from the original stories. Well, good news! In the latest edition, those tales have been restored to their terrifying glory, and now I know what’s going on my Christmas list.

Art:

Thierry Cohen’s Darkened Cities
In this series photographer Thierry Cohen explore landscapes we rarely see. Modern cities usually alive with artificial light, lit only by the stars.

Surreal Pencil Drawings Of Lips By Christo Dagorov
Switzerland-based illustrator creates fascinating imagery and landscapes within the texture of human lips.

The Weather Diaries
A book and short film made to celebrate Norwegian Fashion Week that goes above and beyond. Surreal and haunting imagery that is stunningly beautiful. Thanks to my own favorite painter, Kari-Lise (who else), for sharing this.

Random:

Norway’s Sleek New Passports Contain A Surprise Design Feature
As I said on twitter, I think Norway is going to win “Best Looking Passport.” Is that a thing? We should make it a thing.

Cory Doctorow: Information Doesn’t Want To Be Free
I debated putting this in writing, and opted here, because information is much broader than just the written word. Anyway, Doctorow makes a case that digital locks are worthless and access is better in the long run (and people will pay for it.)

Ancient Egyptian Handbook Of Spells Deciphered
Here’s your fascinating archaeology news of the week, a 1300 year old manuscript deciphered. They claim it contains spells to cure possession by spirits and various ailments, or to bring success in love and business but let’s hope no one conjures up a First, eh?

Lovecraft Story of the Week:

The Book
“As I hurried home through those narrow, winding, mist-choked waterfront streets I had a frightful impression of being stealthily followed by softly padding feet.”