Hello everybody.

A good friend of mine, Alex Jahnke of Clockworker.de and me need your help to win an award. Last year, we wrote a book in German about the Steampunk subculture, Steampunk – Kurz & Geek (the one in the right menu, with “Shameless Plug” written over it).

This book has now been nominated for a major German fantasy award in the non-fiction section and voting is now open. The website is only available in German, but I would be glad if some of my readers who do not know German could help me out with a vote, too.

So I have created this little guideline:

First, please go to http://dontapir.de/dpp/

Click on the link highlighted in the image below:

You will then see this:

this is simply a prompt to enter your email-address. DO NOT tick the box, just click UPDATE after entering your email-address.

You will see this (but without a code and the email-address is also not blacked out ):

Check your inbox, also your spam-folder. The email you are looking for is titled

Deutscher Phantastik Preis 2013 – Hauptrunde

Open it. You will find a code in this format:

»»» 234a18be7eeeb208fde448ep05a08d13 «««

Just copy the string of numbers and letters and paste it into the field “Bestätigungscode” as shown in the image above, again, click UPDATE. This will take you to the nominees. Feel free to take any pick you want, you do not have to vote for every category, the one we are in is the second from the bottom Bestes Sekundärwerk.

Choose Alex Jahnke & Marcus Rauchfuß: Steampunk – kurz & geek (O’Reilly)  in the category Bestes Sekundärwerk, thank you.
Click UPDATE again, and you are done. You should see something like this:

“Vielen Dank für Ihre Teilnahme” means Thank you for your participation. And now, in Cthulhu’s name, help a fellow Steampunk out. Thank you all!

Fifty years ago today, the Soviet Union put the first woman into space: Valentina Tereshkova. Back then, the USSR was still ahead in the Space Race. Right now, Russia is ahead once more, mostly because the USA does not have a manned space program. A fact I mourn every day.

I digress…

Today, we raise our glasses and toast the space pioneer Valentina Tereshkova!

And if there is something that clouds your mood today, remember, there is always something you can take to cheer you up!

Just quickly wanted to share this post for all those who do not regularly read the German version of this blog.
A week today, on the 19th of June 2013 I will be giving a guest-lecture on Steampunk at TU Dortmund. This is the official poster for the event, so if any of you can make it, I would be happy to see you there.

If all goes well, the lecture will be recorded and turned into a podcast, the lecture will be in English, so do not worry about not being able to understand it.

This looks pretty good in deed! Head-tip to Clockworker.de for posting it before and thus bringing the trailer to my attention.

J&J Miracle Mead – The first Steampunk-themed mead brewery needs your help!

And as somebody who not only enjoys mead but prefers it when it comes to toasting the gods, it is an honour to support this project and start-up.

Here’s some details:

Many a mead that will make you happy!

And this is what the masterminds have to say:

You can pledge your support right here.

So here it is, Leviathans in the Clouds (Space: 1889 & Beyond Season Two), the second Space:1889 & Beyond tale set on Venus and I was a bit weary. After the horrific Nazi-stereotype parade that was Vandals on Venus I braced myself for impact.

My fears were unfounded, I am glad to say. There is only one instance of germanophobic anachronism in the whole novel I come back to it later.

Now for the good bits and there are plenty of them.

Leviathans in the Clouds starts with a little jewel: Adonis Station. I love this place. It is the seedy space bar every space (or æther) pirate wants to visit, only it is not a bar or hideout at all. It is an official outpost of Her Majesty’s Navy. And it fit so well with the atmosphere on the Esmeralda with emotions running high: A half-crazy French scientist, Arnaud, Nathanial and Annabelle continuously teasing one another with Nathanial still unsure about his feelings and what he wants and Folkard caught between his future wife and his (I think grudging) friendship with Nathanial.
After a short stop on Adonis Station the adventure begins: Annabelle, Arnaud, Nathanial and the Lizard-man Thymon set out on an expedition in search of a geologist who may have gone native and who is a bit bizarre.
The whole trip from the descent into the clouds by glider to the trek through the jungles of Venus to the characterisation of the lizard-men is gripping and fascinating. Especially the glimpses on lizard-men culture we get via the conversations between Thymon and Annabelle are most enlightening, and Thymon also gets the best line in the novel:

“And humans looks likes the egg eaters to us. Is no problem. Just no eat eggs of
Skreelan, oh kay?”

That one made me laugh.
Leviathans in the Clouds is not all fun and laughs, though. Far from it. For one, the trek through the jungle distinctly feels like something from Heart of Darkness. Further, our protagonists stumble upon an ancient secret and uncover a monstrous secret which almost gets them killed and another one hinting at things in Venus’ distant past. I cannot say more for fear of spoilers.
I am also happy to say one thing: Thymon survives the novel. I feared he would be relegated “token native” and become a convenient sacrifice. Maybe we see him again later in the series.
Also, I was pleasantly surprised about the non-hostile treatment and portrayal of Germans in the novel. Sure, due to the rivalry between them and the British some nasty comments from our friends are expected but they are shown as humans who do not cross certain lines even when faced with starvation (you will see what I mean).

Leviathans in the Clouds gets nine out of ten Zeppelins

And this is the aforementioned single anachronistic germanophobic statement (regarding a German character of historical note, actually):

More prone towards pining over a flower than invading a country, one might say.

This statement makes no sense in the time frame. In 1889, the German Empire had not invaded a single country (and no, the French crossed the border first in the Franco-Prussian War, in case you wondered).

Please stop making Fawlty-Towers-esque mistakes like this, it is not funny anymore and rather insulting.

Following up on yesterday’s blog post, here’s my podcast on my visit to the Role Playing Convention in Cologne last Saturday. Also, I am talking about the Steampunk Soirée which followed the Convention in the evening and the people I met, most notably, Joe Dever and Anja Bagus.

Subscribe on iTunes

2013 is my 25th year as a role player. I started with D&D and various solo role-playing games. The very first solo adventure book I bought was Flight from the Dark by Joe Dever, the first book of the long-running Lone Wolf series.

I became and still am a massive Lone Wolf fan, I actually used “Vashna” as an early avatar name. The Drakkarim have also featured in several of my own AD&D campaigns, although in less evil capacity.

Over the course of several years I  tried to collect the entire original series but have thus far been unable, and I am aware that some of the ones I am missing are by now highly collectable and some of the ones I have are also highly collectable.

Long story short: The Mantikore Verlag in Germany is currently re-publishing the entire series and they had a stall at the RPC in Cologne this year. Their Guest of Honour was none other than Joe Dever himself. I have met Joe Dever! I also have a signed copy of Dawn of the Dragons, now! This has been the biggest fan boy moment of my life!

There will also be a podcast regarding my adventure at the RPC and more pictures on the German part of this blog, stay tuned.

Another Mammoth carcass has been found in the frozen wastes of Siberia. More specifically on Lyakhovsky Islands and the Mammoth, a female, was about 50 – 60 years old. What is most intriguing about this find: The scientists who discovered the carcass also found liquid blood, liquid at temperatures significantly below freezing.
The Mammoth itself was also in rather good conditions and now people across the globe are calling for an effort to clone Mammoths, myself included.
So, here is a thought of mine about Mammoths and cloning. Please enjoy.

Further reading:

Mammoth find: Preserved Ice Age giant found with flowing blood in Siberia

Well-Preserved Woolly Mammoth With Flowing Blood Discovered In Siberia