I am a worldbuilder. I cannot help myself. It’s simply so easy to be sucked into a new writing project and lose myself in the possibilities of a new setting. That is very fun, but it causes problems. Getting lost in the worldbuilding is the writer’s equivalent of getting lost in the weeds. You think…
I have a fondness for aviation and naval stories, especially in dieselpunk. So when I saw a cover of a World War II B-17 shredding a German ME-262 while approached by two World War I biplanes, I was intrigued. In many ways, I’d call this an aviation-focused version of The Final Countdown. A B-17 crew…
Welcome back to the third part of my discussion and thoughts on dieselpunk. I have no specific plans for the length of this series, as it’s probably going to be an ongoing conversation as I find new things or have new thoughts. Today, focusing in on my dieselpunk project- Iron Horizons. If you’ve seen my…
If you liked Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series but wanted more magic, this is the book for you. That pretty much sums up the entire review, honestly, although this is very much a work of nautical fiction. While the details and jargon are not as complex as Patrick O’Brian’s work, there’s still to get lost in….
(I received an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for honest feedback) I freely admit that I am not usually a cyberpunk fan. In the past, it all felt dated to me, as if the authors were so enamored with the ’80s and ’90s style that they never updated it. Worship the Image did not have…
In the last post, I discussed what makes something a genre or not, relying on the fuzzy set theory of fantasy and applying it to the three main punk genres- cyberpunk, steampunk, and dieselpunk. Today, we’re looking at the two main thematic concepts I see across all of these genres- technology and society, and the…
This post has been stewing in my mind for quite some time, especially after seeing a few different Tumblr posts and some YouTube videos that try to tackle the distinction between the ever-growing array of genres labelled as somethingpunk— most frequently, steampunk and dieselpunk. I, of course, write dieselpunk, so that is a conversation that…
Why Færspell? For those of you who have known me elsewhere on the internet, you probably know that for a while I always used Faerwalder Press as my online branding. I started using that, or at least, Faerwalder in various forms sometime during high school. I don’t remember specifically when, but it was from a…
(This post was originally published on my previous blog and includes an affiliate link to DriveThruRPG where you can buy the Genesys Core Rulebook) Some of you know that I not only write fiction, but also material for tabletop role-playing games (including a 5e one-shot you can buy here). I only have the one-shot at…
So. Protests, civil disobedience, and acts of “disorder” are once again on the public’s mind. And that brings me to this book which I first saw randomly on my library shelves and was very curious- both by the title and in the incongruous cover art. So, after simmering for a while, I eventually borrowed the…