Steampunk Holmes: Frankenstein to be illustrated by Yun Ling!

Yun Ling, Random Paint, October 2011

Sometimes things happen for a reason.  As you know from this website, the art work that Daniel Cortes did for Steampunk Holmes: Legacy of the Nautilus is outstanding.  He is a fantastic artist, so we were really sad to discover that he wouldn't be able to do all the art for Steampunk Holmes: Frankenstein.  We had to find a new artist to do mechanicals and illustrations.

We looked at literally hundreds of artists, gave up for awhile, looked some more, gave up again, and finally we found exactly the right artist in the work of Yun Ling.  Ling is the Senior Concept Artist at Volta, a computer games company, and is originally from China.  His work is very well regarded and Daniel Cortes was absolutely thrilled that Ling will be picking up where he left off. So are we!

The second book in the series, Steampunk Holmes: Frankenstein, is a dark book about humanity, or our lack of it, and the art needed to reflect a certain darkness.  Yun Ling's style is a perfect mix of elements that are just downright scary. It's perfect - and having looked at the work of so many other very talented artists we were thrilled when Yun Ling agreed to join the project.

In addition to doing the big scenes, Yun Ling will also be doing the new mechanicals drawings. Some mechanicals will be familiar to readers (such as Watson's Arm and the Widowmakr) but there will also be a lot of new devices all rendered in Yun Ling's unique style. 

Yun Ling, Concept Art, Volta

For the portraits, Daniel Cortes will return to the project - the scope of that work is small enough that he can handle it in addition to all his other work.  We are thrilled to be working with Daniel again and to be working with Yun Ling for the first time.   Get ready this winter for Steampunk Homes: Frankenstein – it’s going to be fantastic!

An Update on All versions of Steampunk Holmes

Steampunk Holmes will be distributed in many formats this year: paper book, ebook, web book, audiobook, and iPad. The paper edition is at the printer right now and should be available to ship by the end of this month. You can pre-order it on Amazon.com.  The eBook has been available for a while on SmashWords, but now you can also buy it from Amazon.com.  The audiobook is just now getting ready for editing - it will probably be ready within a couple months but no promises on that yet.  We are still looking for a capable team to develop the Web book site, which will provide access to all the books as interactive web pages on an annual subscription basis.

Development of the iPad book app edition is going to take a while – four months at least – but the guys at Floodlight Software - that's the company programming that book app for us - are already off to a stellar start. 

This past week Floodlight Software delivered a portion of the functionality, which we used as a demo, at the BookExpo America (BEA) – the largest book fair in the United States.  Our Chief Marketing Officer, Julie Brannon, presented the demo of our iPad book app to more than 100 different publishers at the BookExpo and the response was overwhelmingly positive! The demo was rock solid, and although limited compared to the final product, it was of the highest quality. No unexpected error screens or hiccups during the dozens of demos Julie gave at the BookExpo. 

We'll continue to blog our progress with all the different editions of Steampunk Holmes. The goal is, and always has been, to release all five editions (i.e eBook, paper book, audiobook, iPad book app, and Web book) by the end of November.

The Paper Edition Available in June!

On Wednesday Noble Beast (the publisher of Steampunk Holmes) and MX Publishing sealed a deal that will bring the first paper edition of Steampunk Holmes: Legacy of the Nautilus to the world this June!  Thanks to the generous support our backers the paper edition of the book will be in your hands very soon!

We are really excited about partnering with MX Publishing, one of the largest Sherlock Holmes publishers in the World, to publish the paper edition. MX Publishing has dozens of new Sherlock Holmes novels, short stories, and biographies of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 

Winners of the 2011 Howlett Literary Award (Sherlock Homes book of the year) for ‘The Norwood Author’, MX Publishing counts among its dozens of titles these best sellers:

• The Lost Stories of Sherlock Holmes
• Sherlock Holmes and The Whitechapel Vampire
• My Dear Watson
• The Secret Journal of Dr Watson
• Sherlock Holmes and The Plague of Dracula
•  Sherlock Holmes and The Lyme Regis Horror

For those backers who are not getting the paper book as an award you can pre-order the paper book directly from MX Publishing or Amazon UK.  The paper book should be available on Amazon USA within the next couple of weeks for pre-ordering as well.  I’ll send an update when its available. Other Amazon outlets should be quick to follow.

When we receive the printed copies for backers, we’ll have a Shipping Party to box up all 400+ copies to delivery to backers who pledged for them.  I’ll be sure to send out another update before we package books so that folks that have moved since our survey can give us their new addresses. 

Of course, the paper edition of the Steampunk Holmes book is only one of several different channels.  The book is already available as an eBook on Smashwords.com and soon on Amazon and we will have exciting news about the iPad, audiobook, and Web book editions for you in the coming weeks! 

Although important updates will be sent to you through Kickstarter emails, you can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more frequent news -- and to connect with others Steampunk Holmes backers.

Steampunk Holmes: Frankenstein

We've met our goal on Kickstarter for Steampunk Holmes: Legacy of the Nautilus and so now we have a new challenge for the rapidly growing Steampunk Holmes Community:  Help us meet our stretch goal so we can produce Steampunk Holmes: Frankenstein this year as well!

If you've read the original Frankenstein by Mary Shelley than you know its nothing like the blockheaded creature-flick made famous by Boris Karloff. Frankenstein is one of the greatest works of science fiction (not to mention one of the earliest)  because it is a masterpiece of literature.  The creature in Mary Shelley's book is not a mindless, clumsy monster, he is a character of immense depth and sorrow. An antihero if there ever was one.

In Steampunk Holmes: Frankenstein you can expect an equally deep character which will challenge the mind of Sherlock Holmes, the humanity of Doctor Watson, and the life of Mycroft Holmes.

 If you love this concept as much as we do, and we love it as much as Legacy of the Nautilus, then help support us by spreading the word. We need a big push in the next 12 hours to make Steampunk Holmes: Frankenstein a reality for December 2012.

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

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