Weekly Update #93

Editor's Note

So yeah the steampunk contest might be cancelled for this month, but you can still get a taste of automatons and bucking stuffy social mores through Echelon Press' upcoming anthology: Once Upon a Clockwork Tale. Your handsome editor (I'm talking about myself in case you are wondering) has a short story appearing in Clockwork Tale, scheduled to come out this week. All this month I will be giving you updates on the anthology, plus interviews with my fellow authors. I hope you all get a chance to read it and remember feedback is appreciated.

And now the news...

New Release: Inceptio by Alison Morton

Friend of The Update, Alison Morton (author of Sample Something a Little Alternative) celebrated the launch of her new novel last week, Inceptio. Here is a brief description from Amazon in case you missed it:

New York, present day. Karen Brown, angry and frightened after surviving a kidnap attempt, has a harsh choice - being eliminated by government enforcer Jeffery Renschman or fleeing to the mysterious Roma Nova, her dead mother's homeland in Europe. Founded sixteen centuries ago by Roman exiles and ruled by women, Roma Nova gives Karen safety and a ready-made family. But a shocking discovery about her new lover, the fascinating but arrogant special forces officer Conrad Tellus, who rescued her in America, isolates her. Renschman reaches into her new home and nearly kills her. Recovering, she is desperate to find out why he is hunting her so viciously. Unable to rely on anybody else, she undergoes intensive training, develops fighting skills and becomes an undercover cop. But crazy with bitterness at his past failures, Renschman sets a trap for her, knowing she has no choice but to spring it...

She has been working hard promoting it. You can catch excepts of it on her blog or watch the book trailer. Amazingly the book has only been available in a few markets and it is already winning awards, such as  'We've Got It Covered' competition. So congrats to Alison I certainly believe all her hard work will pay off...especially when she guest posts on The Update with an article concerning the alternate history behind her universe. In the meantime you can check out some examples of her blog tour to promote Inceptio.

Coming Soon: Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl by David Barnett

A recent author who has caught my attention is David Barnett, whose novel Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl is coming out later this year. Here is a description from his website:

In an alternative 1890, the British Empire’s reach and power is almost absolute, and from a technologically-advanced London where steam-power is king and airships ply the skies, Queen Victoria presides over three-quarters of the known world – including the east coast of America, following the failed revolution of 1775.

But London might as well be a world away from Sandsend, a tiny village on the Yorkshire coast, where Gideon Smith whiles away his days fishing on his father’s clockwork gearship and dreaming of the adventure promised him by the lurid tales of Captain Lucian Trigger, the Hero of the Empire, as presented in Gideon’s favourite “penny dreadful” periodical, World Marvels & Wonders.

When Gideon’s father is lost at sea in highly mysterious circumstances, Gideon is convinced that supernatural forces are at work. The writer Bram Stoker, holidaying in nearby Whitby, fears that a vampire from Transylvania is abroad on English soil, but is the dark agency that killed Arthur Smith and his crew even more ancient and foul – murderous, mummified creatures from the shifting sands of Egypt?

Deciding only Captain Lucian Trigger himself can aid him in his search for answers, Gideon sets off for London, and on the way rescues the mysterious mechanical girl Maria from a tumbledown house of shadows and iniquities.

Looking for heroes but finding only mysteries and unanswered questions, it falls to Gideon Smith to step up to the plate and attempt to save the day… but can a humble fisherman really become the true Hero of the Empire?

The novel has already gained the attention of major SF blogs like the award-winning SF Signal. I feel Barnett is someone we all need to check out.

The Relaunched AH.com Podcast

Another contributor to The Update has a new project. Junior Editor Jake Schenberg, author of Alternative Elections: 1844, has revitalized the AH.com podcast. You can listen to the first episode on YouTube:

Submissions Wanted

FYI, the submission period for The Alchemy Press Books Of ... Astrologica, Pulp Heroes 2 and Urban Mythic ends on 31st March 2013. Meanwhile, PodCastle is also looking for "science fantasy" submissions (sorry, not many details to report other than what you see here).

So get moving and if you need any help writing check out Suzanne Lazear's article on sounding steampunk and Juliette Wade article on creating alternate social and cultural norms in a fictional world.

As always good luck.

Things to do

Only two big events to announce:

March 4-9, 2013: Steampunk version of the Tempest in Fairfax, NZ.

March 10, 2013: Wild Wild West Con II Steampunk Convention in Tuscon, AZ.

May 8-11, 2014: World Horror Convention will be held in Portland, OR. Boo!

And because I am lazy and don't want to write all of this out, go check out Tor's list of steampunk events in the month of March.

Have fun!

Links to the Multiverse

Articles

23 State Mottos (Revised for Statistical Accuracy) at Cracked.

Doors to Anywhere by Norman Spinrad at Asimov's Science Fiction.

Embracing the Impossible: The Fantastical Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Rajan Khanna at Lit Reactor.

Feature: Galen Dara on Illustrating Oz at Oz Reimagined.

FREE EXCERPT: “The Mongoliad: Book Three” by John DeNardo at SF Signal.

Historical Jenga by Steve Newman at Foyles.

Steamfunk by Ray Dean at Steamed!

TOC: ‘Tales of the Wold Newton Universe’ edited by Win Scott Eckert and Christopher Paul Carey at Sf Signal.

Book Reviews

Automatic Woman by Nathan L. Yocum at Thinking about books.

The Coldest War by Ian Tregillis at Falcata Times.

Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger at Falcata Times.

Night & Demons by David Drake at Thinking about books.

Sharon Gosling's top 10 children's steampunk books at The Guardian.

Films

Malcolm McDowell straps on a steampunk eyepatch for Cowboys & Engines by Meredith Woerner at io9.

Oscars in an Alternate Universe Where the Academy Loves Sci-Fi by Anna Pinkert at Spin Off Online.

Games

10 Greatest Science Fiction Board Games of All Time by Katharine Trendacosta at io9.

Revitalized Steampunk Saga Edge of Twilight Starts on iOS by Mike Fahey at Kotaku.

Steampunk Cthulhu Playing Cards by Robert C Kalajian Jr at Purple Pawn.

Steampunk Fathom gets Kickstarted by Paul Younger at Inc Gamers.

Interviews

Seleste DeLaney by Steampunk Scholar.

Podcasts

Steampunk R&D Podcast 06: Thomas Willeford Behind the Scenes of Steampunk Reality Television by Austin Sirkin at Steampunk R&D.

Television

Alternate history Sixth Gun finds its Becky by CB Droege at TG Daily.

JJ Abrams is coming back to the small screen by Samantha Henry at Amazing Stories.

Review of Elementary: Season 1, Episode 17 at Thinking about books.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger on Amazing Stories and a volunteer editor for Alt Hist magazine. His fiction can be found at Echelon Press, Jake's Monthly and The Were-Traveler. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. You can follow him on Facebook or Twitter.

Alternative Elections: 1844

Guest post by Jake Schenberg.

The importance of the presidential election of 1844 is overlooked as often as the man who won it. James K. Polk, an important yet largely forgotten president [Editor's Note: Hell yeah!], oversaw the fulfillment of Manifest Destiny, expanding the United States from ‘sea to shining sea.’  But what if he had been defeated by Henry Clay, a man famous for his many compromises? Would the United States still have gone to war with Mexico, the very conflict which historically resulted in Mexico’s cession of California and the New Mexico Territory?

President John Tyler had been pushing for Texas Annexation since he took office after the death of William Henry Harrison. Clay’s Whigs, who opposed the expansion of slavery and hostilities with Mexico that Texas annexation implied, defeated a treaty of annexation which Tyler had previously negotiated with the Texas government in June of 1844. Determined for Texas to be the feather in his cap, Tyler announced the formation of a third party, the Democratic-Republicans, as a vehicle for his reelection. In actuality his goal was to force the Democratic Party to nominate a pro-annexation candidate rather than the favorite, Martin Van Buren.  The ploy worked and the hitherto unknown James K. Polk was nominated instead.

Polk went on to win the election by a very narrow margin. Had Clay managed to win over five thousand more voters in the state of New York, perhaps from the abolitionist Liberty Party which was closely aligned with northern Whigs, he would have won the Electoral College and become the nation’s 11th President at a turning point in American history. Under President Clay, no joint resolution for the annexation of Texas would have been considered by Congress, which means no Mexican War (at least not this early) and subsequently a halt to westward expansion. The consequences of such a scenario are too numerous to explore completely, but a number of interesting possibilities present themselves when imagining President Henry Clay’s administration.

Map of North America when President Clay assumes office in March 1845.

Clay ran on a platform which included his constant support of the American System, a threefold plan which pushed for a strong central bank, high tariffs, and internal improvements funded by the sale of federal lands in order to promote commerce. In 1841, Clay championed an effort to charter a Third Bank of the United States, to be called the Fiscal Bank of the United States. President Jackson destroyed the second in 1836, prompting the Panic of 1837 which led to widespread bank failures and massive unemployment; the United States did not emerge from the depression until 1843. President Tyler vetoed the 1841 bill, but a Clay administration backed by a Whig congress and with the memory of the recent depression still fresh on everyone’s mind should be able to push through the Fiscal Bank of the United States in 1845.

The existence of a regulatory agency would have prevented the subsequent Panics in the 19th and early 20th century, assuming of course it were allowed to remain in place for its chartered twenty years and renewed consistently afterwards. In reality the issue of a central bank would again be a central campaign issue in the decades to come. The Jacksonian Democrats would not abide the existence of the thing their progenitor had destroyed, an entity they viewed as unconstitutional and felt threatened by. Thus, the narrative of the 1848 campaign may have shifted away from Manifest Destiny and towards domestic policy.

Interestingly, the term “Manifest Destiny” may not have been coined in this timeline. Newspaper editor John L. Sullivan first used the phrase in an 1845 essay urging President Polk to annex the entirety of the Oregon Territory. That argument must be seen in the rhetoric of the time; expansionists proclaimed “54’ 40 or Fight!” as Polk played hardball with Britain over the Oregon boundary dispute. By contrast, President Clay by nature would have been much more ready to compromise. He likely would have used President Tyler’s original proposal, which placed the border at the 49th parallel and ceded Britain the island of Vancouver and navigation rights along the Columbia River.  Such an easy settlement would have allowed Clay to focus on implementing the other two points of his American System.

In 1842, the Whigs pressured Tyler into signing what became known as the Black Tariff, which raised tariffs on imported goods to nearly 40%.  However, Clay was not able to push his program of federal land sales to fund internal improvements through congress.  Assuming as president he succeeded in doing so, the northern states would have industrialized even quicker due to more and better canals and roads linking the western Great Lake states to Atlantic ports.  Such a trend towards a more industrialized North at an earlier time would only accelerate the divergence between northern and southern interests while increasing the North’s political clout at a faster pace.

A growing North would vocally have supported Clay in opposition to the historical Walker Tariff of 1846, which entailed immense reductions in the tariff rates. This policy of continued high tariffs, coupled with a central bank unpopular among farmers who profited on speculation and a system of internal improvements which favored the industrialized North would seem to lead to early sectionalism in American politics. Clay certainly would have fared poorly in the south in 1848 and would need to carry most of the North to win a second term.

The issue of slavery in the territories would have reared its head earlier without expansion below the 36’ 30 (Missouri’s southern boundary). In our timeline, free Iowa and Wisconsin were admitted during what was Polk’s presidency after the slave state of Texas joined the Union.  Without Texas, any attempt by territories in what was the Louisiana Purchase to become states would be blocked by Southern legislators, unless a new compromise could be made. Henry Clay, the Great Compromiser, may have allowed slavery to spread farther into the northern territories, but abolitionists were growing in strength politically during this period and would certainly raise hell over such a compromise, if they could not stop it themselves.

What is clear is that the two halves of the ostensibly United States are moving farther apart in this timeline much sooner than they actually did. A civil war in the 1850s could take on an entirely new character. Whether it would be more or less successful is difficult to ascertain; this point of divergence gives wings to so many butterflies that a determined author could produced any outcome he or she wants.  Those butterflies run amok not just within the shrunken United States, but across North American.  I hope to cover some of these possibilities in future installments.

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Jake Schenberg is a student and aspiring writer. When he isn't staring at blank pages in Word, you can usually find him out running miles or inside curled up with a good book.