Oh good grief yes – a while ago I read the book, Larklight by Philip Reeve (and David Wyatt) and found it to be utterly marvelous! A rip roaring Steampunk adventure of brave young upstanding members of the British Empire thrown into adventure when giant space spiders kidnap their aetherfish studying father from their rambling space dwelling, the titular Larklight. To put it mildly – I thought it was fantastic in every sense of the word!

So, my excitement is great and my anticipation hightened to read that the sequel, Starcross, will be out on the 1st (or 16th) of October of this year, and follows the terrible trials that face Art and friends when their holiday takes a turn for the worse in the asteroid belt, involving some terribly devious headwear! Will our hero, his sister and their piratical friend triumph in adversity? Find out in “Starcross”, or “The Coming of the Moobs!” or “Our Adventures In The Fourth Dimension! A Stirring Tale of British Vim upon the Seas of Space and Time!”. Also, Warner Brothers have ‘optioned’ the series for making as movies – that’d be something to see, and perhaps the Steampunk film I’ve been hoping for! (Starcross: UK/US Amazon. Larklight: US/US Amazon. These links are affiliated, just so it’s not thought that I’m trying to hoodwink anyone or be unscrupulous.)

Though it’s terrible to show off, I am pleased as punch that I’ve managed to get myself one of the limited edition miniature Man Melter rayguns from Weta that were on sale at Comic Con.  It is all down to the very kind offer and actions of Mr La Grasta who offered to be my raygun collecting secret-agent.  Thank you, Sir – I am very grateful!  It adorns the top of my computational engine at my place of employment, and looks very dashing – even if people do keep asking if it works.  chuckles

Mr Stephen writes to let me know that he is involved with a play being shown at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival until the 18th of this month called “Dr. Stein” by Leitheatre.  Telling the tale of what happened after the end of Ms Shelly’s story of Doctor Frankenstein, where the Doctor of the tale finds his way to that most murky, and yet ‘educational’ of cities – Edinburgh.  With a history of internationally renowned medical research and “no questions asked” research specimens, the good Doctor fits right in.  Reading a review of the show, it seems that this tale takes the far lighter side of the Doctor, and it should be classed as a comedy. Above, an image from the set showing just some of the pleasantly Steampunk items that the Doctor fits his laboratory with, and I am informed that should you attend the play and wish to take a closer look at any of the props, you should reveal yourself as a fan of Steampunk to one of the technical crew at the interval.

The internet seems afire with talk of this marvelously crafted Monowheel replica of a 1873 design, that was up on Ebay briefly. The description sounds auto-translated, but loses none of its facination for that and you can find it in full after the cut. Basically though, a French design from 1873 recreated with as many improvements as can be thought of, and the result is quite usable. I’d advise that should you find yourself riding one of these, to avoid the peril of the gerbil, when you accelerate or decelerate too quickly and find yourself all but spinning around the centre!

Lovely though, and it looks desperately well made. I wonder what happened to the auction? (It ended with no bids for the $13,000 item.) Thanks to Mr Huang, HappyCthulhu, Apikoros (you were quite right, and thanks for the signal), and Mr Siegfried, for keeping me informed. Monowheels must be up there in the top five Steampunk methods of transport.

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Oh Mr Max – you’ve found the most beautiful Steampunk things!  Above is one of five Adding Machines created by Mr Andy Aaron at Aaron Adding Machines – and they are perfectly stunning.  From the site itself:

“By means of an Aaron Adding Machine, a person entirely ignorant of Arithmetic, may perform tabulations such as Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication and Division, more correctly, and in much shorter time, than the most experienced Mathematician could calculate it.”

There are portholes, operational keys, brass numbers, engraved numbers, scorched numbers, pull handles, knife switches, side winding handles and more – they’re all so utterly perfect that I can barely stand it!  Worse still, I can imagine that the means for constructing something like this is within the grasp of many (though it pains me to think that they are ‘merely’ calculator casemods) – but it is Mr Aaron who was struck with the inspiration to make such ravishingly Steampunk variants.  One of these, for my desk, and I’d be looking for any excuse to further abandon my mental arithmetic!

While Stardust, the film, may be out in the US, I must wait a little while longer before the airship of Captain Shakespeare can brave the skies of the Atlantic and bring it to the UK shores.  However, in the meantime, I can amuse myself with the background information about the antics of the air pirates, and what it is that they actually do.  They harvest lightning, for the black market (of course).  It’s a simply fantastic idea (literally), and the airship seems to have webs and vanes of metal attached to the sides to act as lightning rods to collect this powerful side-effect of nature which they store in a jar.  (Leyden, perhaps?) I’m still looking forward to this, and if anyone over the ocean has managed to catch this, please feel free to let me know in the comments what you felt of the film – though preferably with as few spoilers as possible.  Thank you!

Over at BoingBoing, they’ve posted about a simply lovely, somewhat Heath-Robinson looking clock created by Flickr user Amahl_Shukup.  With a working telegraph key, parts of a Model-T Ford, and a 1910′s clock surround, it’s got some wonderful parts that make a simply stunning whole.  It even tells time!  chuckles  Wonderful stuff, and I’m sure it’ll look very handsome indeed on a mantelpiece.

Several of you will have noticed that Mr Datamancer has been featured in a Wall Street Journal Online video on Steampunk!  Congratulations, Mr Datamancer – it’s a great interview and your workshop is most certainly to be envied!  With particular focus on the lovely Steampunk laptop that he’s been putting a great deal of love into, as well as the keyboards that were originally Von Slatt inspired, but he’s most certainly made his own distinct flavours of now.

With talk of where Steampunk originated, as well as what particular design elements often feature in Steampunk creations, it’s not only a good sneak peek at what goes on in a Steampunk inventor’s inner sanctum, but a good introduction to the Steampunk practical arts for those who’ve never encountered it before.  I also am particularly tickled that Brass Goggles (as well as Von Slatt’s site and BoingBoing) as shown briefly as examples of Steampunk on the internet.  Thank you, Datamancer.

Thanks also to Ms Martin, Mr Branwyn, Doc, Ms Brumfield, Crabfu, and Mr Hendrickson.

The Raku Rayguns of West Magoon have been posted about before, and some of you may have seen them at Comic-Con recently, but there are several new additions to the line including the above, Narwhal inspired Mothra Transmogrifier!  This particular raygun is headed to Japan for the 65th World Science Fiction Convention at the end of this month.  It seems to me that the land of giant monsters could put these handsome devices to very good use indeed.  Thank you, Ms Libolt!

Well, this is a definitely interesting idea – using the thermoelectric effect from a small burner to charge batteries. I mean, I realise this is really what is going on when we plug a battery charger into the wall, but it’s still unusual to see it in such a small contained form – especially one that has been apparently cobbled together with parts the creator found easily available!

The Seebeck effect, that a bar of metal with a temperature difference across it has a voltage, was discovered in 1821 by a German-Estonian physicist, Thomas Seebeck. The above application uses that, as well as the converse Peltier effect (that you can create heat difference from voltage) to generate 3V, 1A, and that’s enough to trickle charge the batteries and power the heatsink fan to keep part of it cool. Quite a clever trick, but I dread to think how inefficient it is chuckles. I’d love to know more about this particular contraption, but going to the parent page doesn’t seem to provide any information. Delightfully DIY, this is Steampunk in an unexpected place indeed. Thankyou Mr A Lewis!