Powers has taught fiction writing classes at the University of Redlands, Chapman University, and the Orange County School of the Arts, and has been an instructor at the Writers of the Future program and the Clarion Science Fiction Workshop at Michigan State University.
Powers lives with his wife, Serena, in San Bernardino, California.
Where Steampunk Started
Back in 1976, a British publisher thought it might be a good idea to do a series of ten books about King Arthur being reincarnated throughout history: one novel about Arthur sinking the Spanish Armada in 1588, for instance, another with Arthur chopping open Nazi tanks with Excalibur—that kind of thing.
I’m getting to steampunk, I promise.
K. W. Jeter, Ray Nelson and I agreed to write the books, and we divvied up historical periods among ourselves, and set to work; and we had each written several novels when the British editor decided he didn’t like the idea after all, and certainly didn’t want any books that we might already have written in the series. (Just as well—in retrospect it seems likely that the publisher would have issued all ten novels under one house pseudonym.) I don’t remember what segments of history Nelson had laid claim to, but I had drawn the early 19th century, and—portentously—Jeter had got the Victorian era, and had written Morlock Night.
But our peculiar King Arthur books were now without a publisher— orphaned!
Jeter and James Blaylock and I were in the habit in those days of going to a local bar in Orange, California called O’Hara’s, to plot stories and complain about rejection slips over many pitchers of beer, and Jeter told us about a terrific couple of research books he’d used for his now-homeless Morlock Night—Mayhew’s London and London’s Underworld, both by the eccentric 19th century social researcher Henry Mayhew. These two big books—even though they were inexpensive modern selections from Mayhew’s original vast three volume edition of 1851—were an absolute gold mine for details about day-to-day life among the brewers and costermongers and thieves and prostitutes of Victorian London.
All three of us had of course read the works of the Bronte sisters and Stevenson and Doyle and Dickens, and Jeter had even read a lot of more obscure Victorians like George Gissing and William Harrison Ainsworth—but the Mayhew books galvanized us to write books of our own set in that era; and since we all thought in terms of science fiction and fantasy, that’s the sort of plots we came up with. Blaylock wrote Homunculus, about the misadventures attendant upon an extraterrestrial’s visit to London, Jeter’s Morlock Night had H. G. Wells’ morlocks traveling back in time to Victorian London, and I wrote The Anubis Gates, which had to do with Egyptian sorcerers bent on killing King George III.
These didn’t all get published with their first submissions; I believe Morlock Night was rejected at least once before it was picked up by DAW Books, and my Anubis Gates was turned down by at least half a dozen publishers before it landed at Ace Books. But they did all appear within just a few years of each other, which gave them the appearance of being part of a trend.
And then we went on to write other sorts of things. Blaylock wrote contemporary fantasies set in California, Jeter wrote horror and science fiction novels, and I wrote books set in other places and historical periods; but in 1987 Jeter returned to the Victorian London setting with his novel Infernal Devices, involving a number of outlandish plot elements including a clockwork man—and he wrote a letter to Locus magazine in which he said, “Personally, I think Victorian fantasies are going to be the next big thing, as long as we can come up with a fitting collective for Powers, Blaylock and myself. Something based on the appropriate technology of that era; like ‘steampunks,’ perhaps. . . .”
Of course our books were by no means the first to set science-fictional adventures in Victorian England—Michael Moorcock’s Warlord of the Air (1971), and Harry Harrison’s A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah! (1973), for example, very clearly belong in the category Jeter was describing. But by coining a term for it, Jeter had, at one stroke, made it a defined sub-genre.
Our steampunk novels were not alternate histories—they took place in the actual history of this world, albeit with a lot of spectacular events that never found their way into the history books. But that was to change.
Soon William Gibson and Bruce Sterling collaborated on The Difference Engine, in which Charles Babbage succeeded in inventing a mechanical computer, with the result that information technology revolutionized 19th century England. Cherie Priest has followed with her Boneshaker, which serves up an alternate America in which Seattle has been destroyed by a mining machine and zombies prowl the ruins. And Jeter himself, in his recent novel Fiendish Schemes, posits an alternate 19th century England in which dealing with sentient oceans requires the use of walking lighthouses. More things in Heaven and Earth!
There’s Wild West steampunk now. Imaginary world steampunk. The peculiar retrospective glamour of the idea has expanded a lot since the days when Jeter and Blaylock and I drank beer in O’Hara’s and scribbled story ideas on napkins. In fact it has moved right out of printed fiction altogether, into the realms of costume, architecture, and even music. Paul Di Filippo (author of The Steampunk Trilogy) has written, “the medium where it all began—literature, stories, books—is now the least important aspect of the juggernaut.”
But that original setting is still potent. Stories of mysterious doings in Victorian London have been entertaining readers ever since there was a Victorian London—streetlamps and carriages at midnight, boats pursuing secret errands on the moonlit Thames, and why not a stray steam-powered airship ducking in and out of the clouds?—and they’re not likely to lose their allure. From a writer’s point of view, sources like Mayhew’s books have by no means been exhausted or superseded.
Back at that booth at O’Hara’s on so many long afternoons in 1976, Blaylock had the advantage of actually having been to London; Jeter and I had nothing but the facts and impressions and occasional misunderstandings we’d picked up from books. But steampunk owes as much to freewheeling invention as it does to real geography and historical fact, and we had stumbled on a milieu, a motif—an evocative sort of world, to stick to English—that has evolved and gone on to capture a wider audience than was dreamed of in our philosophies.
Hellfire on the High Frontier
written by
David Farland
illustrated by
ROB HASSAN
* * *
Steampunk stories often explore such issues as “What would the world be like if this technology had been invented earlier?” or “What if history had changed in this way?”
While many of these tales are set in the Victorian Era in the mid-1800s, I’ve seen some fine ones that go back into the early Renaissance. For example, in one story last year, a young William Shakespeare lived in a steampunk universe where he ran afoul of an Egyptian goddess. So we have the whole breadth of history and the span of the world as our canvas.
“Hellfire on the High Frontier” began as a kitchen-sink story. I have an ancestor named Hellfire Morgan, and I always wanted to use him in a story. But I had other things that have intrigued me—feral angels, cities in the clouds, and so on. So for fun, I wrapped them all into this story. Enjoy!
about the illustrator
Rob Hassan is a freelance artist based in the Chicago area. He is a former quarterly winner of the Illustrators of the Future award. His artwork was published in L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 14.
His studio offers an eclectic mix of art styles. In tribute to his myriad graphic skills, he likes to use the handle “GraphixRob.”
For all practical purposes, Rob is a self-taught artist. He has attended several traditional drawing and painting courses over the years, with the pinnacle being at the School of Visual Arts (NYC). Rob has found that “independent study” is by far the most beneficial for him. He feels keeping on top of the latest art, artists and techn
iques via the internet is the best way to stay creative and fresh. Most recently he has focused on his computer graphics art education and has incorporated several 2D and 3D software programs into his traditional workflow.
Rob’s artistic experience includes but, is not limited to, character design, storyboards, virtual product prototype design, concept artwork, portrait art and comic book cover art.
Rob draws inspiration from many sources, including a wide variety of traditional and CG artists, modern fantasy painters, science fiction books and movies, classic (Universal) monsters, contemporary art, comic art and graphic novels.
Many of Rob’s original science fiction, comic art and fantasy creations are held in personal collections both domestically and internationally.
His artwork has also been presented in an exclusive line of etched glass art and reproduced in a limited run poster collection. Rob’s artwork has been used in website design, featured on book covers, in comics and magazines, and has been seen on music and movie DVD covers.
His artwork has been displayed in several Chicago area art galleries and has received art awards and honors in Chicago, IL; Hollywood, CA; London, England; Brisbane, Australia; and Trieste, Italy.
Hellfire on the High Frontier
Wyoming Territory, Circa 1876
Morgan Gray sat alone, peering into his crackling campfire, eyes unfocused, thinking of girls he’d known. In particular, there was a dancehall girl he’d once met in Cheyenne. What was her name—Lacy? She’d had red hair and the prettiest smile—so fine he almost hadn’t noticed that she’d worn nothing more than a camisole, bloomers, and a green silk corset while she lay atop the piano and sang.
Out here on the range, there was little more to do than cook his beans over the campfire and remember. For weeks now, he’d been trailing a skinwalker, a renegade Arapaho named Coyote Shadow, but the skinwalker had taken to bear form and lost Morgan in the high rocks of the Wind River Range.
A schoolmarm murdered, her child eaten. Morgan hadn’t been able to avenge them.
Sometimes you lose a trail, he knew. Sometimes you lose the fight. You have to figure out how to keep fighting.
He downed some coffee, as bitter and cold as the trail.
Out in the rocky hills, a wolf howled. It sounded wrong, a little too high. Could’ve been a Sioux warrior, hoping to count coup. Morgan would have to watch his horse tonight, sleep with one eye open.
The burning ponderosa pine in his campfire smelled sweet, like butterscotch boiling over in a pan. Some pitch in the heartwood popped. A log shifted, and embers spiraled up from the fire. They rose in balls of red, and seemed to expand, dancing around one another as they sped toward heaven.
Morgan watched them drift higher, wondering when they’d wink out, until time stretched unnaturally, as if the embers planned to rise and take their place among the stars.
Suddenly, The Stranger took form across the campfire, a shadow solidifying into something almost human, sitting on a rock.
Morgan had met him only once, seven years back: a man in a black frock, like a traveling preacher. He wore his Stetson low over his eyes and had a wisp of dark beard. The spurs on his boots were made of silver, with glowing pinwheels of lightning. The cigar clenched between his teeth smelled of sulfur.
Could’ve been an angel. Could’ve been the Devil. Morgan’s gut told him that The Stranger was something different altogether.
“Long way from Texas,” The Stranger said in a deep voice, lips hardly moving.
Morgan had no authority outside of Texas. So he kept his ranger’s badge in his vest pocket. “Justice shouldn’t be bound by borders,” he said. “The whole world’s gone crazy.”
The Stranger smiled. “Got a job for you.”
Morgan should never have asked this stranger for help seven years back. Might have been better to just let his horse, Handy, drown in the quicksand. With folks like The Stranger, there is always a price.
But, hell, Morgan had loved that gelding.
“A job?” Morgan asked. “I catch ’em. Don’t necessarily kill ’em.” He’d seen too much bloodshed in the war. After more than ten years, the scars were just beginning to heal.
Morgan wasn’t afraid of a fight. Once you’ve stared death in the face a few times, nothing riles you. Yet . . .
“He’s good with a gun,” The Stranger said. “Few men would stand a chance against him. He’s a clockwork gambler, goes by the name of Hellfire. Shooting one of them . . . it’s not the same as killing flesh and blood humans. . . .”
It should be more like stomping a pocket watch, Morgan realized. Clockworks were all springs and gears inside. But Morgan had known a clockwork once, a soldier by the name of Rowdy. Morgan swore that the thing was as alive as any man of flesh and blood. Rowdy had once joked, “Us clockworks, we got souls same as the rest of y’all. Ours are just wind-ups.”
“What did this gambler do?” Morgan asked.
“Fought alongside Jackson at Chancellorsville,” The Stranger said, as if to ease Morgan’s mind. “Is that enough?”
Morgan had always hated slavers. “The war’s over.”
“But this old soldier still kills,” The Stranger said. “Not sure why. Some say he took a knock from a cannonball in the war. When the gears turn in his mind, he cannot help himself. The last victim was a boy, sixteen years old. Hellfire called him out. Before that, he shot a Chinaman, and before that, a snake-oil salesman. Each killing is four months apart—to the minute.”
The Stranger spat into the fire. His spittle burst into flame, like kerosene, and emitted a rich scent that reminded Morgan of blackberries, growing thick on the vine beside a creek.
Morgan suspected that The Stranger was right. This gambler needed to be stopped. But killing a clockwork wouldn’t be easy. Their inner parts were shielded by nickel and tin, and you never knew where their vital gears hid. Thirteen Comancheros had had a bout with one down on the border a couple years back. Rumor said it had taken twenty-three bullets to bring him down. Eleven Comancheros died.
Clockworks were quick on the draw, deadly in their aim. The Stranger called this one a “gambler,” but clockworks had been created to be soldiers and guards and gunslingers.
“What brand is he?” Morgan asked.
“Sharps.”
Morgan ground his teeth. He’d hoped that it might be some cheap Russian model, built during the Crimean War. The Sharps clockworks had a reputation. Going up against one was almost suicide.
Yet Morgan had taken a handout from a stranger, and he’d known that there would be a day of reckoning. “Where do I find him?”
“Heading toward Fort Laramie . . .” The Stranger said. “The gambler is like a bomb, with a fuse lit. In four days, six hours, and seven minutes, he will kill again.”
The Stranger turned into an oily shadow and wafted away.
Morgan hardly slept that night. Gold had been discovered in the Black Hills, and prospectors were crawling all over the wilderness north of Fort Laramie, the biggest supply depot in the West. Tens of thousands were riding in on the new rail lines.
The Indians didn’t like it. After getting pushed around for years, Sioux holy men like Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull were on the warpath, trying to drive off the miners, much as they’d tried to hold off the homesteaders and buffalo hunters.
Only this time, the way Morgan figured it, there was going to be a bloodbath. You can only steal so much from a man before he has to push back. Morgan didn’t fancy blundering into such a mess. Some Sioux had big magic.
At dawn he rode east toward Frenchman’s Ferry, climbing over the hills. A day later, he found a single skinwalker’s track between two boulders, in a land covered by worn sandstone rocks and sparse grasses. The creature had been leaping from boulder to boulder, hiding its trail. But it had come to a place where the rocks were too far apart.
Like many
skinwalkers, Coyote Shadow had turned himself into a beast once too often, and now he’d lost himself. His print was something halfway between a human foot and a bear’s paw. Coyote Shadow had become only half a man.
Much like me, Morgan thought. He’d carried a torch for Sherman, had forced womenfolk from their houses and set entire cities aflame. Sometimes folks had refused to leave their homes, and he’d heard the women screaming in the fires.
He forced down the memories.
Morgan slid from his saddle and studied the print. The dusty ground here had given easily, yielding a deep track with crisp ridges. The track looked fresh—hours old.
Morgan searched the bleak landscape: sandstone thrusting up from broken ground, dry grass and sage, and little else.
During the heat of the day, any sane Indian would have stopped in the shade, though there wasn’t much of it here to take solace in.
Morgan’s mare nickered and shied back a step, as if she’d caught a dangerous scent.
Morgan sniffed. Between the iron odor of rocks and dry grass, he smelled an undertone—like garlic rubbed in fur.
A skinwalker.
He’d been hunting the creature for months, and now he resented finding it. He was on his way to kill the clockwork gambler.
But justice demanded that he finish this monster.
He searched uphill. A pile of sandstone boulders stood at its crown, with a single rock jutting up from it in a small pinnacle. Yucca plants and a few junipers grew tall in the pinnacle’s shadow.
The skinwalker is up there, Morgan realized. He could be watching me.
Morgan studied the shadows. Nothing stirred. Perhaps the skinwalker was sleeping.