You can get autographed copies of all three released books in Selene Reborn (Artemis Rising, Celestial Accord, Forging the Chain Breakers) or Mirim’s First Christmas at the Keller Crawfish Krawl Saturday.
Cataract surgery made it difficult for me to read the computer—so no blog post or email last week.
Mostly worked on the re-write of the end of Antarctic Honeymoon. I think it is much better, and my beta readers agree. I only have the Epilogue to rewrite and I’ll be done—probably just in time for the rewrites from Sandra on Selene Unchained.
The SS Great Eastern, launched in 1858, was 692 feet long and 18,900 tons. Even decades later (1891) it was spoken of as the largest ship ever built.
In the 1890s, Buffalo, New York was the world center of grain elevators. Buffalo harbor on Lake Erie had individual elevators that could handle 1-2+ million bushels each. The massive timber crib structures of earlier in the century were transitioning to iron and steel systems with steam-powered conveyors. It was the grain-handling capital of the world at the time.
Chicago was one of the largest lumber markets in the world in the 1890s, the largest in North America. Galveston was the largest import/export hubs for Gulf Coast timber and the Caribbean trade.
Silviculture is the science and practice of growing, managing, and cultivating forests. Basically agronomy for trees. It was practiced in Germany and France in the 1890s.
The Antarctic Treaty that set Antarctica apart from the usual scramble for land and resources set aside Antarctica as a place of peaceful scientific research only. It banned military bases, weapons testing, and fortification. It said it would be open to all nations, encourages cooperation between instillations, and requires sharing of data and results. The original treaty froze all claims and forbade sovereignty enforcement and allowed for inspection to ensure compliance. Subsequent agreements also severely restricted mining and other resource exploitation. I figure that is a bridge too far for the Great Powers of the late 19th century, but the Vulcan nations might have been willing to have a similar treaty.
Alexander Herrmann aka Herrmann the Great was a Victorian Stage Magician whose peak fame was the 1870s-1890s, just before Harry Houdini became a big name. What is this important—because it is the name of a wand wielder that Walter and Eleanor would be familiar with.
I got a little sidetracked with the next book, Martin Phoenix. I do have a much clearer idea of a couple of the characters, however. This is Miss Scarlet and her patron, Contessa Peacock. If pictures are worth a thousand words – the three at the top of the page are about 4% of Martian Phoenix…
One of the significant scenes in Martian Phoenix involves Beulah going to a Martian dress shop to try on dresses. I used the opportunity to practice a little more with AI image generation and came up with a montage of her experience.
Advertising: 4 sales so far in April. 1 paper and 3 ebook. $29.96 in revenue. $146.90 ad costs. I’m going to try a price countdown for Artemis Rising ebook and see what that does.
Artemis Rising is #97 in Steampunk Science Fiction (Kindle Store), #297 in Alternate History, and #576 in Alternate History Science Fiction (Books). If you don’t have yours yet, you can get the paper version here or the kindle version here. There is also an audiobook version here. Six reviews for Artemis Rising. More will help others find the series as well – if you’ve finished the book and haven’t left a review, please do so here.
Celestial Accord is ranked now. #269 in Steampunk Science Fiction (Kindle Store), #323 in Steampunk Fiction, #783 in Alternate History. If you don’t have yours yet, you can get the paper version here, the kindle version here, or the audiobook version here. One review so far. If you’ve finished the book and haven’t left a review, please do so here.
Forging the Chain Breakers is #272 in Steampunk Science Fiction (Kindle Store), #327 in Steampunk Fiction, #789 in Alternate History. If you don’t have yours yet, you can get the paper version here, the kindle version here, or the audiobook here. No reviews yet. If you’ve finished the book and haven’t left a review, please do so here.
Mirim’s First Christmas is #6,823 in Colonization Science Fiction, #10,282 in Alternate History Science Fiction (Books), and #12,841 in Science Fiction Short Stories. You can find the paper version here or the kindle version here. No reviews yet. If you’ve finished the book and haven’t left a review, please do so here. I’m still working on getting free versions to be available on my website.
If you want to get early access to chapters in the current book, write a nice review for one of the current novels on Amazon or Goodreads, and email me that you’ve done it.