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Get you membership now, at the lower price!
Dear friends: steampunkers, science fiction fans, and train lovers — you can still get the reduced membership fee of only SEK 350. On top of that, you can help us by getting your membership early. All fees that come well in advance of the festival can be invested in making the festival better.
We will increase the membership fee by the turn of the year. NB: the first 50 members under the age of 26 will get the membership free!
As a member, you will have access to the museum after 5 pm (closing time), and to all of the programming: talks, panels, kaffeeklatsches, and workshops. You can also arrange your own program item, just get in touch with us.
You see, you don’t buy a ticket to our Steampunkfestival — you become a member. We count everyone as co-creators of the event: those who spend weeks preparing, and those who just come as they are and contribute to the atmosphere. The members are the heart of the festival. We come there to meet each other.
I hope that you will consider becoming a member now! And I hope I’ll see you in Gävle in June. Register here.
Anna Davour at the Railway museum. Photo: Björn Lindström.
Steampunk at Fantastika
Yes, we visited this year’s Swecon, Fantastika!
Steampunk panel: Lavie Tidhar, Nene Ormes, Anna Davour, Tommy Persson. Bild: Maria Turtschaninoff.
The Steampunk Festival @ Twitter
The official Swecon Twitter account belongs to us now! Follow us here: @Swecon2014
(We tweet mostly in swedish.)
New guest of honour
We gladly present our fourth guest of honour: Cory Doctorow!
Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author, activist, journalist and blogger — the co-editor of Boing Boing and the author of the bestselling Tor Teen/HarperCollins UK novel Little Brother. His latest young adult novel is Homeland, his latest novel for adults is Rapture of the Nerds.
Breaking News
We are next year’s Swecon!
(Every year, one of the local Swedish sf-conventions is elected Swecon, i.e. Sweden’s ‘most important’ con.)
At the Steampunk convention in Alingsås
We were there! The first large gathering of steampunk enthusiasts in Sweden was held in Alingsås the past weekend: Steampunk-konvent. It was a wonderful experience, with lots of happy and creative people. We participated in workshops, attended shows by Trix and the dance group Påfåglarna, and sat in the Café Ångpannan talking to new friends.
One of the highlights was the Saturday parade through Alingsås, from the convention venue at the Östlycke school to the Alingsås museum, with the marching band Tongångarne. At the museum the exhibition Retrofuture was opened with a ceremonial cut of a ribbon.
Foto: Ea Malmberg.
Foto: Berit Solberg Möller.
People of all ages were attracted to the convention. Probably a majority were around 30, but there were people much older and much younger, and the all seemed to feel at home.
Foto: Berit Solberg Möller.
More pictures from the convention for exampel in this Flickr set or on this photographer’s website. Steampunk i Sverige has links (in Swedish) to media coverage of the event.
“Locomotives are the original spaceships”
One of the great things about our Steampunkfestival is the environment, being at the Railway Museum with all of the beautiful old locomotives and carriages. A nice opportunity to put a spotligth on trains and railways in literature, and our interest is especially in the fantastic literature. From now on we will now and then point at interesting things relating to the intersection of trains and locomotives and science fiction, fantasy or horror.
The first now, an article in Clarkesworld Magazine: Beyond the Tracks: The Locomotive in Science Fiction Literature. Enjoy!
A Steampunk gala at Gröna Lund
Alisa Sterner. Foto: Kristina Isaksson.
In mid-September, a merry delegation from Upsala-Gefle Steampunk Society participated in a steampunk gala at the amusement park Gröna Lund in Stockholm. Gröna Lund´s newest ride Eclipse which was completed in early 2013, is built in the steampunk style, and the park management were so delighted with the result that they chose the same theme for this year’s gala for the employees of the entertainment group.
Since we´ve had a little contact before they asked us to send down some “steampunk experts” who would act as a costume jury and choose a winner of the evening´s best steampunk costume. So six of us from Uppsala, Gävle and Stockholm dressed up in our steampunk finery and travelled to Gröna Lund.
When all 700 party hungry people arrived on the red carpet we selected some likely victims to interview later. It was an overwhelming experience in every way when ululating red indians, super heroes, punks, steam punks, and many more were pouring in.
Those we thought were particularly nicely dressed were taken aside and interviewed about how they had constructed their outfit. There were many .. ahum .. creative interpretations of the theme steampunk, but also lots of very well-made and impressive outfits that stuck to the theme.
The venue was the restaurant Tyrol who was extravagantly decorated in steampunk style. My favorite was one of the balconies inside the premises which was redecorated to resemble a hot air balloon! Over the excellent three-course dinner the jury agreed that Alisa Sterner had the most stylish outfit, although there were many others who were very dashing. Hers was a notch above the rest though, and showed that she´d put a lot of thought, time and love on creating the outfit, and even thought up a little background story to match her persona.
Entertainment and curiosities in a steampunk style were supplied by Variétesällskapet Carnival. They will also participate in the Steampunk Festival in Gävle next year. The dinner was delicious and the atmosphere was on top throughout the evening, and when we left, it was in the hope of seeing many guests from the gala at the Steampunk Festival.
Back to Ketty Jay!
Today, The Ace of Skulls is beinn published. It’s the fourth part in Chris Wooding’s series about the airship Ketty Jay. As a Ketty-Jay-fan, Robert Nyström has been looking forward to tis day, and so we’ve asked him to tell us a little about what he likes most about the books. Robert, the floor is yours.
The Funny Side of Steampunk
For those of you who have been living in a kind of daze ever since the end of the TV-programme Firefly, Chris Wooding’s books about the Ketty Jay might make life a bit more livable. It is not a space-western, but the parallels between the two are very clear. Humour, adventure, and action are features of the whole Ketty-Jay-series. Beware, it’s not a series for you who is looking for a literary masterpiece. Ketty Jay is more of a party than a Nobel-banquet. It’s the funny side of steampunk: air pirates, conspiracies, magic, and the undead. But don’t think it lacks depth. In spite of them starting as alleged clichés, the characters develop quite well. Among guns and angry golems of iron, there is a bunch of sad characters with a history that is carefully brought out. Chris Wooding has created a detailed world with a lot of intrigue. Politics, aristocracy, and religions are well-elaborated and important, even though their role in the series is not so central. In the first book, Retribution Falls, the miscellaneous crew of the Ketty Jay, which consists of second-class smugglers, is introduced. The main reason why Captain Darian Frey holds his position lies in the fact that he owns the ship, and less so in the trust he gets from his crew. They make their way among many successful thieves and pirates, until they of course are made an offer they can’t decline. With a badly fitting crew for whom bad luck is part of everyday life, it can’t but go wrong. I don’t want to spoil too much, but the other books in the series continue in the same spirit. I have a weakness for anti-heroes, and the whole series about the crew of the Ketty Jay is full of them. I like its fast stride, and how Chris Wooding keeps the balance between action, humour, and earnest. Usually, I read books in order to be entertained, to laugh, and to dive into exciting new worlds. The Ketty-Jay-series has given me all of this, and I am looking forward to reading the fourth and last volume, The Ace of Skulls.
Books in the Ketty-Jay-series:
1) Retribution Falls
2) The Black Lung Captain
3) The Iron Jackal
4) The Ace of Skulls