Tor is knee deep in steampunk month and as I do enjoy a good steampunk novel, I've been visiting daily which is how I discovered the very interesting Whisper Merlot. Here is the most zen definition of the genre/lifestyle I've ever read:

For me, the steampunk mindset is about following the adventure whatever it may be. I am more true to myself and my goals, weirdly. Going to cons, doing panels, making a comic, dressing up, dressing down, making an alter-ego, throwing parties, watching movies, reading books, organizing photoshoots, ditching the creature comforts, jumping into a van, and bringing steampunk wherever I can go. Over time, my steampunk has become less about what props and costumes I’m showing off, and more about helping other people find this subculture so that they can start enjoying it too.

She's pretty much fulltime steampunk and just knowing she's out there with her friends makes me smile.

My new favorite book title is The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance by Elna Baker. Brief description: "It's lonely being a Mormon in New York City. So once again, Elna Baker attends the New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance — a virgin in a room full of virgins doing the Macarena. Her Queen Bee costume, which involves a black funnel stuck to her butt for a stinger, isn't attracting the attention she'd anticipated. So once again, Elna is alone at the punch bowl, stocking up on generic Oreos, exactly where you'd expect to find a single Mormon who's also a Big Girl. But loneliness is nothing compared to what happens when she loses eighty pounds...and falls in love with an atheist."

Baker is guest posting at Powells next week and I'm looking forward to it.

Jeff Vandermeer interviews Bill Schafer from Subterranean Press at Omnivoracious. Sub Press is one of my favorite small presses (actually favorite publishers in general). He publishes gorgeous books with killer covers, has a very eclectic list of fiction and NF all centered around fantasy and SF and he loves Kage Baker and Connie Willis and Ray Bradbury and Wil Wheaton and, well, I could go on and on.

And speaking of Sub Press I'm finishing up Kage Baker's two latest, both early pre-Company titles and LOVING them. More to follow in a few days.

Finally, I find it interesting that while a book about Charles & Emma Darwin can make it into the final five for the National Book Award (Young People category), a movie about him can't find an American distributor.

Creation, starring Paul Bettany, details Darwin's "struggle between faith and reason" as he wrote On The Origin of Species. It depicts him as a man who loses faith in God following the death of his beloved 10-year-old daughter, Annie.

However, US distributors have resolutely passed on a film which will prove hugely divisive in a country where, according to a Gallup poll conducted in February, only 39 per cent of Americans believe in the theory of evolution.

Creation is based on the Annie's Box by Darwin's great-great-grandson, Randal Keynes. I have a copy downstairs but have not gotten to it yet, but certainly plan to quite soon.

Oh, and if you're not reading Maud Newton's blog regularly then take a moment to read this entry about her mother's half sister, the Depression and diphtheria. It will break your heart while also, in just a few words, impress the hell out of you.