Guest Author Day with KZ Snow/Excerpt

Tendrils of Steam

Steampunk, that is.  Well before I began writing my m/m steampunk erotic romance, Mongrel (just released by Dreamspinner Press), I'd heard about this relatively new genre and been intrigued by it.  Then, when I looked up actual definitions of "steampunk," I was intimidated.

Phrases like Victorian-era Britain, anachronistic technology, and science fiction kept turning up. So did other criteria.  Yikes!  As much as I was drawn to the concept as well as the ambience of steampunk fiction, I was no longer sure I wanted to try writing it.  The genre seemed as rigid as a tightly laced, whalebone corset.  Who could possibly get all those elements right?

Sez who? I thought.  More reading and poking around made me realize that steampunk has a number of offshoots and is only as restrictive as an author chooses it to be.  Sure, it has certain conventions, but as is the case with any genre, it's possible to honor those conventions without writing from a how-to manual.  In fact, it's desirable to stretch and bend literary conventions.  If that doesn't happen -- and I think m/f urban fantasy is a good case in point -- we get nothing but an endless stream of copycat fiction. 

Once this realization hit, my mind was made up.  Away I went!

I wrote Mongrel the way I wanted to write it: without boxing myself in. I didn't tie the setting to Victorian-era London because that's been done to death.  Instead, I made it an alternative-history amalgam with a distinctly American flavor.  The novel doesn't have a heavy emphasis on science and machinery, either. Since I find living creatures more fascinating than mechanisms, I veered down the fantasy-steampunk path and added an unusual supporting cast (which includes, of course, the Branded Mongrels of Taintwell -- beings who are part human and part unidentified creatures with various paranormal abilities or superhuman traits).  Finally, I took some liberties with the traditional steampunk timeline and let the age of electrical power impinge a little, but only a little, on the age of steam power.

Here's the blurb for Mongrel.  You can read the entire first chapter by clicking on the link above.  Thanks for stopping by!

~ K. Z. Snow

http://kzsnow.blogspot.com

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Hunzinger's Mechanical Circus, a rollicking seaside carnival where imagination meets machinery, seems like the only bright spot in the dreary city of Purinton. But a shadow is cast there one day by a tall, cloaked figure striding down the boardwalk and behaving in a most eccentric way -- a man with strange eyes and strange ears and a mark at the base of his throat. He's Fanule Perfidor, commonly known as the Dog King, and he isn't welcome at the Circus. No resident of Taintwell is. They're all Branded Mongrels, and they're officially shunned.

So it's understandable that Will Marchman, a young patent-medicine salesman, is wary when Perfidor approaches his stand and begins asking questions. Much to his chagrin, Will is beguiled as well. When the two men meet again at a public house in the city's seediest district, all prejudice falls away. Lust takes over, then affection. An affair is born.

The naive but plucky pitchman soon becomes embroiled in a dangerous quest. Fanule suspects that Alphonse Hunzinger and Purinton's civic leaders are responsible for the disappearance or incarceration of countless Branded Mongrels. But why? As Will's passion and regard for his tormented lover grow, he's determined to help Fanule get answers and prevent any further persecution . . . or worse.

With the aid of a dead and dismembered witch, a vulgar bounty hunter, and a dapper, voracious vampire, Fan and Will take on a group of ruthless enemies. If only they can stay together and stay alive long enough to see their plan through...