Asylum

I am back from the wonderful Weekend At The Asylum – thank you very much to the wonderful organisers of the Victorian Steampunk Society for providing us all with such a splendid time. Lincoln is a lovely city and all the steampunks and interested locals were very friendly.

An awesome mechanical birdcage from the Gadget Exhibition. Readers of Firebrand will understand why I was so delighted to see this.

Me looking mildly dubious beside the Fantabulous Travelling Steampunk Yarnbomb (whose page seems to be on Facebook, so due to not having a Facebook account I can’t make sure I’m linking to the right thing, but anyway, just google it.) I am not in any way dubious about the art installation, which is indeed fantabulous; I think I was just making faces at my husband. I made the dress I’m wearing there out of the remains of two other dresses, a box of Dylon, and about £15 worth of lace and ribbon.

The husband in question, who will be referred to in future as Dear Isambard.

I can make my hair do this in ten minutes with no mirror. And I did, on Saturday before the ball.

The photos of Saturday’s ball outfit are all unfortunately full of me making faces, so I’m going to see whether there are any better ones on Dear Isambard’s phone before I post.

Anyway, I had a brilliant time. Particular highlights were getting a hug from Robert Rankin (I’m going to say that again. I GOT A HUG FROM ROBERT RANKIN) and the fascinating costume panel, at which I stood up at the very end and blithered in a caffeine-fuelled way to the effect that all those steampunk artist who draw the same woman in the same chemise, bloomers and goggles over and over again should come and take an actual look at us. I didn’t seem to give out many business cards but came home to a small spike in sales anyway.

And now off to look up all the people who said ‘We’ve sold out of that, but you can find us on the Internet’ and to attempt to chase the various ideas for Emma Dread and other possible steampunk projects to the back of my head so I can get on with revising Heavy Ice. Which contains people struggling to get by with a mixture of newly invented rifle-level tech and elderly cranky spaceship-level tech and has a plotline involving some dead Emperors (and their ceremonial bears) so might just squeak in, if not as steampunk, at least as ‘if you like steampunk you might also enjoy this’, I suppose.

Also, a quick reminder: ten more days to contribute to the Sounds of Steam Indiegogo project! I can particularly recommend the perk including Crimson Clocks ‘Ingeniously Evil’ EP, as I bought the EP a few weeks ago and have been listening to it on repeat ever since.