The Steampunk Holmes Motorcycle

This is the Motorcycle that Sherlock Holmes rides in the Steampunk Holmes book series.  It was originally designed by Mikky Solifague of Solifague Design in Russia.  We licensed the likeness of this bike for use in Steampunk Holmes but also as The Big Ticket Item in our interactive steampunk catalog.

You will be able order this bike custom made and street legal through the Steampunk Holmes web site and eBooks!  Each order will be hand built by Putsch Racing of Dublin, Ohio.

If the name, Putsch Racing, sounds familiar it might be because - in addition to restoring and building custom motorcycles and cars - Putsch Racing built the World's only jet engine powered bat car last year, a feat of engineering covered by just about every major news outlet.

We are super excited to include the Widowmakr (originally named the Black Widow) in our merchandise catalog and we can't wait to see these bikes hit the road!  In the Steampunk Holmes stories the Widowmakr runs on steam power, but in real life they will sport a wickedly powerful petrol-fueled combustion engine.

Here an excerpt from the book, Steampunk Holmes: Legacy of the Nautilus, which explains how the Widowmakr got its name. This bike is not for the faint of heart.

Holmes' enormous motorized bicycle, the Widowmak’r, was his pet hobby, and so enamored was he with its power and terrific capability for speed, he could not keep his enjoyment of the vehicle to himself. The Widowmak’r got its name from the engineer Holmes employed to help him build it. The engineer, a cankerous old man but a genius with H202 steam engines, told Holmes that no good could come of such a machine. He called it a “Widowmak’r” because it would surly kill Holmes and leave his wife a widow. Holmes had laughed at that, and said he had no intention of ever marrying, but he immediately fancied the name Widowmak’r – or Widow as he called it for short –  and has used it ever since.  

Doctor Watson 1885

Supporting this kickstarter project will help make this bike a reality - without Steampunk Holmes there is no Widowmakr and that would be a crying shame.

Please support our project, Steampunk Holmes, at Kickstarter.com

Steampunk Holmes Interviewed by The Baker Street Babes

Yesterday, a podcast interview with the Steampunk Holmes team by The Baker Street Babes was released. It's a lot of fun to listen too!

If you want to understand how Richard Monson-Haefel (Producer), Daniel Cortes (Artist) and P.C. Martin (Author) developed Steampunk Holmes then check it out.  It's an intriguing behind the scenes look at the development and collaboration that has been so critical to the creation of Steampunk Holmes.

Please support our project, Steampunk Holmes, at Kickstarter.com

Where Did Steampunk Holmes Come From?

Since I launched our Kickstarter campaign to finance the Steampunk Holmes project, I've been asked by several people what inspired the entire project.  Not just the mashup of Steampunk and Sherlock Holmes, but the entire approach to this unique and large undertaking.

Looking back on my past blog posts it all started in December of 2009 when Guy Ritchie's moving, Sherlock Holmes was released to theaters.  I had never really kept up with Sherlock Holmes, but that movie rekindled my interest and I started reading Arthur Conan Doyle's stories again. I think a lot of people did.   I discovered in my adult years something I think I missed as a kid: how well structured the stories are.  I became a big fan and kept reading.

In February of 2010, specializing in the design of multi-touch applications, I was engaged by a company to create an interactive eBook reader for the iPad. What was interesting about this was that the iPad had not even been released when I was hired on. I was in Costa Rica on vacation, but when the iPad was announced I started working with it immediately and never looked back.  I found a blog post from that February where I talk about why the iPad was going to be revolutionary.  The work I was doing on that project never came to fruition because of the budget problems the client had, but by the time I had become steeped in the design of interactive books for tablets. To be honest, I had become somewhat obsessed with the idea. I kept designing and researching and blogging about it.

By June 24th of 2010 I had decided to marry my two passions, Interactive books and Sherlock Holmes, in a project I dubbed, Sherlock Holmes HD.  This was the first iteration of what is now Steampunk Holmes, but there was no steampunk in my vision at that time. It was just going to be a straight adaption with lots of cool features. That project never got past the design stages but the idea of an interactive book with Sherlock Holmes stuck.

I ended up getting involved in a company focused on interactive book app creation for children.  We created three interactive books - including Treasure Island which was featured by Apple as one of the Book Apps of the week for an unprecedented two weeks.  That project taught me a lot about how to manage a book app project, which is really more like a movie than a book. Treasure Island, for example, had audio narrative (7 Hours worth), artwork, software development and more.  I went on to develop two more interactive iPad books for that company before I left in February of 2011 to start my own company, Noble Beast.

By this time I had designed and developed a general ebook reader and three iPad children stories.  Although I love kids (I have 4 of them) I was more interested in speculative fiction for adults and Young Adults than I was children stories.  I had also recently re-read The Difference Engine, which I believe is the quintessential Steampunk book.  After that, adding Steampunk to my other passions, iPad book apps and Sherlock Holmes, came naturally.

In June of 2011 I announced on my blog that I was going to create Steampunk Holmes.  I talked about hiring artists and writers and other things all of which came true.  Today, what you see on Kickstarter and this web site, is the culmination of all those events and influences.  I have had the pleasure of working with some of the best talent in the industry including Daniel Cortes, the artist, P.C. Martin, the writer, several voice actors including Gerald Price and Shash Hira, and many other talents. The outcome is fantastic; a level of quality that people see immediately.

The end of this journey is the development of Steampunk Holmes in a variety of formats including a Web book, iPad app book, audiobook, eBook and print edition.  It may have started as an iPad book but it has become much bigger than that.  To finally realize this vision I needed help and the only place to get that help is Kickstarter.

Steampunk Holmes has been two years  in the making and the past 10 months have been very intense.  I'm so excited to see people contributing to our Kickstarter campaign. I'm also very grateful to every one of the contributers. We have a lot to accomplish before May 3rd when the kickstarter campaign ends (8 days away!), so I hope you will help out by pledging what you can to make Steampunk Holmes a reality.

Please support our project, Steampunk Holmes, at Kickstarter.com

WANTED: Vendor-Partners for Steampunk Catalog

Steampunk Holmes, in all of its incarnations (iPad book app, eBook, Web book, and Print), will include a catalog of Steampunk merchandise.  We are actively looking for vendors of Steampunk jewelry, clothes, devices, art, etc - if its steampunk we are interested - for inclusion in our catalog.

In the interactive iPad and Web books will allow you to interact with the ads and follow links to the vendors.   For example, if you click or touch the add for Abney Park you can watch Abney Park's new video.  From there you can go directly to Abney Park's page on iTunes.

With the Widowmakr, the street legal motorcycle we will be marketing with the book, you click on the ad and up pops a 360 degree interactive model.  You can play around with the bike seeing it from many angles and then with a click/touch go to the web site to find out more information and even order the motorcycle!

For the iPad and Web books, The Steampunk Catalog is embedded directly into the book and can be accessed at any time by pressing the Store Icon in the upper left hand corner of the books menu controls.  For the eBook and the Print edition the ads will be in the back of the book with web site information (the eBook can actually allow for hyperlinks).

We are really excited about this concept of integrating non-intrusive advertising directly into the book itself. We are experimenting with a couple different business models one of which has the vendor pay percentage of sales (backend financing) the other is pay per click.

We have three products in the Catalog right now, Abney Park, the Steampunk Holmes audiobook, and the Widowmakr and we are looking for more partners so the catalog can have several pages of merchandise. If you sell Steampunk merchandise and are interested, please contact us at monsonhaefel@gmail.com.

Please support our project, Steampunk Holmes, at Kickstarter.com

Kickstarter Campaign: Help Us Spread the Word!

I'm really excited to announce that we have launched our KICKSTARTER campaign today. The objective is to raise $29,000.00 to help pay for application development, audio editing, typesetting, of Steampunk Holmes.  In addition, we need help paying for all the great work the artist, author, and voice actors have contributed.

I hope you will take a bit of time to go see our project on Kickstarter and, if you are able, help us fund the project.  We have some really great awards for all funding levels so jump in and join the party!

Just as important: Help us spread the word.  If you have a Twitter account, Tweet. If you are a blogger, blog.  If your on Facebook, Like us.  You never know what message is going to make the most difference - it might be yours!

The ePUB Edition is Here!

The First ePUB edition with new the cover can be purchased and downloaded from Smashwords.com today!  If you've been aching to read the story than go to Smashwords.com and buy it today!


The ePUB allows you to read the entire novella and is a finished product. It's different from the iPad edition in that there is no art work or animation - its pure text.


We are so dedicated to the ePUB edition that we engaged John Coulthart to design the book's cover. You've probably seen John's work before on the covers of such books as Infernal Devices, Morlock Night, and Flamming Zepplins.  (for all those Cthulhu fans out there John also does a lot of covers for works by H.P. Lovecraft ).


The ePUB edition of Steampunk Holmes: Legacy of the Nautilus will be released in the Apple's iBookstore, Barns & Noble Nook store, Sony Reader Store among others.  We'll also be releasing the book in the Amazon.com kindle book store - either through Smashwords or directly!  

Shash Hira as Sherlock Holmes

You've met three of the other actors including Gerald Price (narrator and Watson), Nicky Barber (Mycroft), and Hannah Melbourn (Victoria Valentine) - Today, I would like to introduce Shash Hira who is playing Sherlock Holmes.

Shash has done work on T.V. for Nickelodeon, Disney, Cartoon Network, Kerrang, MTV, as well as voices for radio and video games. His range is pretty incredible and for Holmes he settled on a voice that a bit like Jude Law but is unique to Sherlock Holmes.  We love it and we know you will too!

Abney Park New Single Includes Steampunk Holmes!

Abney Park's latest single, 'Steampunk Revolution', was just released and the music video includes scenes from Steampunk Holmes' trailer!   In addition to Steampunk Holmes, there are lots of other Steampunk personalities and projects represented. We are in the best of company!

The new song is simply excellent.  Watch the video and see if you can spot the  outtakes from Steampunk Holmes trailer.