…and here is another post that could have probably just been on Twitter.

…I’m at Odd Shots, talking about the music for the Guardian series.

And in case you missed it, I put up an excerpt for Demon Blood (it does include spoilers for Demon Forged, so if you haven’t read that yet, be warned.)

Here’s a snippet from the Burning Up novella (I am LOVING the steampunk, but it’s also why I’m not posting here often.):

Her heart pounding, Ivy held still as Mad Machen crossed the distance between them. His dark face lowered, stopping with his lips a breath from hers. He murmured, “Here in front of my men, or in my cabin. That is your choice.”

“Your cabin.” Frustration shook through her whisper. “And damn you to a kraken’s belly.”

His brows rose, and a surprised laugh broke from him before his mouth suddenly covered hers, his long fingers cupping her jaw. Not a hard kiss, and not tender—it was a statement, she realized, for the men watching them. A claim, pure and simple.

A claim that went on until Ivy had to employ all of her willpower to refrain from biting him.

He finally lifted his head, and turned to the boy. “Duckie, escort Ivy Blacksmith to my cabin. See that she wants for nothing.”

“Yes, sir.” The boy gathered her satchel from the captain, and looked expectantly to Ivy.

Plastering on a smile, she pulled at her trouser legs and curtsied to Mad Machen. His laugh followed her to the stairs—and Ivy decided she could make a statement, too. A brass finial shaped like an egg decorated the end of the banister. Ivy closed her gray hand around it. Metal shrieked as she crushed the finial between her fingers.

His laughter stopped.

She released the mangled brass, and called over her shoulder, “I await your mighty prick, sir!”

I’ve got a post up at Odd Shots featuring the trailers of several paranormal-ish movies that I’m looking forward to (once I get caught up with my writing.) I’m not online much, and I expect that this blog will be pretty quiet through the end of February, but I’ll always be at Odd Shots on Fridays.

So far, my 2010 release schedule looks like this (full descriptions below the cut):

DEMON BLOOD (excerpt added), July 2010
“Here There Be Monsters” in BURNING UP, August 2010
THE IRON DUKE, October 2010

I expect to revamp the site around March or April, and I should have more information regarding the Iron Seas series up then, along with excerpts. I hope everyone is having a fantastic New Year!

Click to see the full descriptions of the upcoming books…which I totally copied from the “Upcoming” page on this site, heh. Cut and paste blogging, you gotta love it.

On Twitter, I was asked about steampunk — specifically, what is it? I’m copying this from an explanation I did a few weeks ago (because there’s really no one definition of steampunk, honestly. But this is the way I’m approaching it.)

Steampunk is essentially historical science fiction — and for steampunk, the advanced technology is usually steam-based technology (steam engines and locomotives, for example) but also with various other forms of tech: clockwork machines are common, steam- or clockwork-powered automata (these can be small, like a singing mechanical bird, or a giant robot).

Which probably sounds more confusing that it really needs to be. Basically, if you look at something like J.D. Robb’s In Death series (I’m just using it as an example because so many people are familiar with it), you can see how the technology and the cultural issues of today influence Robb’s vision of 50 years from now. Most of the technology is based on computers, but they are really GOOD computers. Everything runs on electricity or batteries. Mixed race and same-sex marriages are common. Food is primarily soy based.

Those are all speculative on the author’s part, but you can definitely see where the ideas are rooted in the reality of today’s world. It’s the same thing for steampunk, except that instead of rooting the reality in the year 2009, you go back 200 years, and speculate what the world might be like if the technology they had in the Regency had advanced in a different way than it did.

So you have a historical setting — in my books, that’s a world that resembles a late-Regency/Victorian era, but steampunk can be in any historical era — but there’s a twist. Something changed along the way, and both the culture and the technology are slightly different. I think anyone who reads historical romance will feel right at home, though, just as reading an In Death book is a step or two outside what we’re familiar with, but not TOO far.

***

So, IMO, steampunk isn’t just the gadgets — it’s the technology and the effect that has had on the culture. Think about the impact the Industrial Revolution had on the western world … and now speed that up and multiply it. That’s where I’m going with mine (and also with some post-colonization issues, thanks to a technologically advanced culture that invaded all of Europe several hundred years before the books begin.)

Questions? Feel free to ask below.

Monthly Contest: I’m giving away WILD THING and DEMON MOON, and the last day to enter is Aug 31st. Click on my contest page for the entry form.

Cover contest: Don’t forget to nominate your favorite 2009 covers at the Cover Cafe! They are also running polls on covers that have been nominated.

MUST LOVE HELLHOUNDS releases next week. Will I be back to regular blogging by then, or does the summer not officially end until Labor Day? Hmmmm….

Other news: I have a title for the 10th Guardian book: DEMON BLOOD. No details yet, because the description is kind of a spoiler for DEMON FORGED.

The first of the Iron Seas books will be a novella, “Here There Be Monsters,” (subject to change) in a not-yet-titled anthology releasing August 2010 in mass-market. The novella is a lightly-connected-but-standalone story, as will be all of the books in that series.

Meljean Brook’s DEMON DAWN, in which two Guardians must put aside their own tragic history after a terrifying betrayal by one of their own, to Cindy Hwang at Berkley Sensation, in a four-book deal [..] by Roberta Brown of the Brown Literary Agency.

These aren’t four Guardian books, but actually two Guardian books and two in a new steampunk romance series that I’m calling the Iron Seas series. I’m not sure of the pub dates yet; I should get those before too long, I imagine.

And, heh, this is also why I will probably a bit more scarce around here in the future. But it’s a good trade-off, no?