WHERE: Pincher Creek & District Municipal Library
WHAT: Author Talk by Christopher Hoare on his new book, Steam & Strategem
From the author:
"Welcome to the Steampunk World of Regency…
…where the power of steam has already passed from the age of
unsatisfactory experiments to the first country-spanning railways and ships
that no longer sail at the whims of weather. Roberta Stephenson is the daughter
of the ‘Father of Railways’…a girl almost raised in the engine works and
through her experience, and education in the most advanced halls of Miss
Mather’s Academy for Girls, is fit to become manager and designer at her
father’s steamship yard on the Clyde.
And Britain needs Roberta’s expertise, for fate in this world has dealt
more kindly with Napoleon, allowing him to extricate most of his army from
Moscow in 1812, and granting him at least a draw at Leipzig in 1813. With
developments of the steamships begun in France in 1783 he is ready to take one
more gamble to rid himself of the interference of Perfidious Albion, and the
island’s safety may depend on the steam powered rams Roberta is offering to
their lordships of the Admiralty.
Complicating Roberta’s professional life are her romantic suitors: Lord
Julian Bond, man about town and Admiralty spy; the enigmatic Symington Holmes;
and Engineer Lieutenant Alfred Worthington RN. It seems that Roberta is
destined to choose one of these gentlemen, but will she choose wisely?
- See more at:
http://tychebooks.com/books/steam-and-stratagem/#sthash.Bmz2rTnY.dpuf
Bio
I was born an inauspicious three months before the Second World War
started, and my father soon moved his new family to South Devon, close to his
parents, for safety. I have since seen various maps of planned invasions of
Britain that show our home as the location of the far left flank landing site
in the Werhmacht's battle plans. I haven't always been that lucky, but I did go
to secondary school after the 1945 Labour Government instituted the Butler
Education Act, that opened the best schools to any of us rabble who could win a
scholarship---which was as beneficial as not catching a jackboot up the
backside.
At school, we were always reminded that we were the country's hope for
the future, which was somewhat responsible for me soon heading out into the
world of oil exploration and leaving Blighty forever. Postwar Britain just didn't
have the knack of building hopes. Not that I didn't try...I had a go at
engineering but I had missed that boat by about fifty years; and I joined the
artillery, but the generals couldn't find a war while I was in. The only
ambition I had ever formed was being a writer...so here I am.
Having no other outlet for an inquisitive mind I use all my varied life
experience to create adventures for fictional people. I am rather fond of
depicting strong and clever young women, especially when I can portray them in
desperate situations that they handle better than their male superiors. The
juxtaposition of Regency and steam in "Steam and Strategem" has been
a good prompt for novel adventures, and having a completely anachronistic young
protagonist match her wits and intelligence with a world of chauvinistic males
has been fun. And don't mistrust my rendering of the steam in the
steampunk...operating steam plant has been one of my varied waypoints."
For more information:
http://christopherhoare.ca
http://tychebooks.com/books/
http://thewildcatsvictory.
http://www.xinxii.co.uk/
For more information:
http://christopherhoare.ca
http://tychebooks.com/books/
http://thewildcatsvictory.
http://www.xinxii.co.uk/
For those interested in learning a little more about the Regency and the world of "Steam and Stratagem" the publisher has populated a Pinterest page with pictures of people and things that appear in the novel and its sequel.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pinterest.com/tychebooks/steam-and-stratagem/