Dark Sky by Beglib |
The steampunk world of The Blackburn Chronicles is a dangerous place. Its tales are those of dark heroes, fantastic devices, and unbreakable love.
In book one of the YA series, The Tremblers, 1885 America is vastly different from the one you and I read about in our history classes.
A Great Calamity has fractured the whole of America toppling the government and killing millions across the entire nation. From the embers rose The Peaceful Union, with its symbol of the dark phoenix that promises protection and order from the chaos and death outside the city-states.
Charlotte blackburn, is a daughter of this new society that huddles beneath the massive churning steamworks of the electric Tesla Domes.
The thought of a city caged with an electric grid was so fantastic. And yet, it was not unheard of.
Creating the carefully cloistered city-states was an idea that began several years ago when I read about a proposed project to dome the city of Houston, Texas.
The Victorian Era in America was era of technology on the cusp of unimaginable innovation. Captains of invention moved our nation forward in communication, electrical advancements, and mechanical might. Steam devices and railroad steel dominated.
Now imagine all those great minds pushed by a panicked populace to invent and create at breakneck speed. Not for the expansion of knowledge, but for survival. A population rocked by massive disaster would advance differently.
Charlotte's story takes placee in a vastly reimanged history. Massive machines to clear rubble churn in the cracked roads of Manhattan. Rebuilt landmarks sparkle with metal facades and ornate decoration. Steam-powered carriages and power cycles roar along the avenues. And yet, outside this electrical marvel, the wasteland teems with poison vapors, sand storms, and bright flaming chasms.