Like a Wisp of Steam, Thomas Roche [list of e readers txt] 📗

Like A Wisp of Steam: Steampunk Erotica by Cecilia Tan, J. Blackmore

Circlet Press

www.circlet.com

Copyright ©2008 by Circlet Press, Inc.

First published in 2008, 2008

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Like A Wisp of Steam: Steampunk Erotica by Cecilia Tan, J. Blackmore

CONTENTS

Introduction

The Innocent's Progress

An Extempore Romance

Hysterical Friction

In the Flask

Steam and Iron, Musk and Flesh

* * * *

Welcome to the Circlet Press ebook edition of: Like a Wisp of Steam

Steampunk Erotica

C.Tan & J. Blackmore, Eds.

Copyright © 2008 Circlet Press, Inc.

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Introduction

Steampunk is sexy. It just is. Sturdy girls in dirty lace and goggled ruffians and heroes committing indiscriminate acts of derring-do are the stuff of great adventure and epic fantasy.

You would think that steampunk erotica would simply be the next logical step. And yet, even though I represent many readers who are hungry for this genre, there's little out there to be found. Like a Wisp of Steam is a collection of stories by people who can dream in sepia, and want to share their visions with others. I hope that, by unleashing this collection on the world, we will inspire more writers to grow the budding genre.

The nineteenth century, especially its latter half, was a time of contradictions and hypocrisy. In Britain, technology bounded ahead at an astonishing rate, and with it came all the other sciences. This was the time of Tesla and Edison, of Curie and Pasteur, when science and its pursuit was something of a religion unto itself. But even the light of science could not dispel the darkness of militant "morality,"

and scientists, then as now, were often laboring under a political or social agenda. Vanessa Vaughn's story "In the Flask" is a tale of two such tame scientists, and what happens when they are let off the leash. No matter how hard those who lead us may try to control our appetites, there is no governing force, and no work of science, that can control the power of simple human lust. It seems inevitable that studying the body, and the way the mind works on it, would inspire steampunk scientists in ways they never could have expected.

The scientists weren't the only ones inspired by their new wealth of technology. Victorians, in general, loved their gadgets. The Industrial Revolution brought with it a mania for electricity and clockwork and all that those things could make possible. Doctors tired of manually treating women for

"hysteria" eventually turned to a device that could achieve in minutes what it took them hours of work to bring about: the G-spot orgasm. The vibrator was considered the miracle cure for all that ailed the Victorian woman. The advertisements promoted them for back health, and headaches, but they also mentioned vibrating chairs ... Thomas S. Roche gives us a look at what might have been in "Hysterical Friction," which stars a very nervous lady, an overly-helpful nurse, an ardent doctor devoted to his craft, and an extraordinary bicycle. Here we're allowed to look in on the model Victorian marriage, and the science it took to maintain it.

Maybe while the grown-ups were cheerfully vibrating away their troubles, their children were playing with gear-driven toys and dreaming of one day taking to the skies. Thank you, Jules Verne, wherever you are. You brought us improbable vehicles run on steam and gears, and the harrowing adventures they led to. All the submersibles and balloons led us to the grandest quest-seeker of them all: the airship. The dream of flight was a heady one in the nineteenth century, and mastering the skies was the great dream of men (and some women) everywhere. It's only logical that our heroes of the time-that-never-was would gallivant over Europe in ships run on sheer will. Who could crew such magnificent vessels but the most sturdy and able-bodied men and women the Victorian era wishes it produced? In "Steam and Iron, Musk and Flesh," Kaysee Renee Robichaud gives us Trista, the brilliant and lusty engineer, who stumbles into the kind of adventures one can only expect from an airship pilot. In the nineteenth century-that-should-have-been, adventurers like Trista navigated a country and community of flight, whether in service of their government, or in rebellion against it. They were soldiers, adventurers, rogues, and scoundrels. And, well, there's something about a woman in leather hanging from the rigging...

Which leads us to corsets. So many corsets. And, as if the corset isn't hot enough, now put a kind-of-emancipated woman in it and give her a revolver. The women of steampunk are not interested in parlors and dance cards: they have inventions to finish, terrain to cross, or men to save. And damn it, they're going to look good doing it. Peter Tupper