Guest Post: Magic vs. Steampunk by Stefan Bachmann + Giveaway

Hi everyone! The Peculiar Blog Tour (for the Philippines) is in full swing. If you’re still undecided whether you should pick up The Peculiar or not, this guest post might help you decide. The amazing and talented Stefan is here to talk about:

Magic vs. Steampunk

A guest post by Stefan Bachmann

So, as Kai mentioned in her awesome review (Thanks, Kai!), The Peculiar is a bit of a mash-up of Victorians and creepy faeries and steampunk. And while I researched Victorians a ton before writing the book, and read piles of European folklore, I had basically no clue about steampunk. I guess I still don't have much of a clue. I keep hearing how it's a whole way of life with rules and stuff, but for me it was just something I liked from Disney movies. Treasure Planet, Atlantis, The Great Mouse Detective. . . Who doesn't like those movies. ;) All I knew when I started the book was that I wanted clockwork gadgets, and smoky, industrial cities, because they were cool. 

Of course, that's not a very compelling reason and could have totally backfired, so about halfway through writing I realized I needed to really make it a necessary part of the world-building. Luckily, steampunk fits pretty well with the Victorian Era. Not so much with faeries, but I love the whole magic vs. mechanics thing. I also love the idea of two opposite worlds competing, so I decided England should be this kind of busy, coal-fueled world, and the faeries a wild, sinister, thorny people thrust into the middle of it. And the faeries don't like it there. At all. So battles and intrigues and all sorts of creepiness ensue. 

But the very first reason The Peculiar has steampunk in it was actually because my sister's friend PurpleCat made a clockwork bird and my sister bought it and gave it to me for Christmas one year. I thought it was so amazing it had to be in a book.  

So below is the original clockwork bird. That's how I imagined it in the book. The cover designer imagined it differently obviously, but that's ok. I think he did a great job, too.

Cool, no? Anyway, thanks for reading, and thanks Precious for having me here, and if anyone's interested, you can read more about the different types of faeries in The Peculiar in this Faery Encyclopedia we made for my website. Bye! :)

Check out Stefan talking in Filipino:

Tour-wide Giveaway (This is an international giveaway and Philippines is just one of the five countries/regions involved!)

So there will be one winner of a signed hardcover from the Philippines! Plus a grand prize of a signed copy of The Peculiar and a Skype Chat with Stefan Bachmann!

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