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Book Review: Steamborn
Amazon Cover
Steamborn (Steamborn #1) by Eric R. Asher
BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON
A supernatural swarm. A treacherous scheme. A tinker’s apprentice may be the village’s only hope…
Jacob has yet to meet a gadget he couldn’t fix or an adventure he could resist. With trade routes to his remote Lowlands town cut off, Jacob must exchange his boyhood adventures for petty theft. After all, his wages at the tinker shop aren’t enough to pay for his father’s medicine.
But it soon becomes clear why few merchants brave the nearby roads as a plague of terrifying creatures descends upon the town. With the Lowlands under siege, Jacob and his friend have no choice but to run for their lives. When their escape uncovers a terrible secret, Jacob learns there are those who’ll stop at nothing to make sure the teen takes the scandal to his grave…
Steamborn is an inventive YA fantasy novel with a heavy dash of steampunk. If you like dystopian settings, killer insects, and resourceful characters, then you’ll love Eric Asher’s gear-turning tale.
MY REVIEW
The junction where Battleship Troopers meets Weird West is where Steamborn lives. This post-apocalyptic steampunk mash-up is hip deep in insect monsters. I’m not 100% sure, but I think this is occurring on Earth – but planetary location doesn’t matter as much as the deeply rich, layered world of steampunk science, political decisions driven by civil war and elitism facing off against the can-do survival of the west, and the young-adult focus on a 15-year old boy with his support system of adults and best friend.
While technically a YA because of the age of the main character, it is YA in the way Ender’s Game is YA – which is to say the genre – in this case Weird West / science fiction / steampunk – matters a heck of a lot more than the age of the protagonist. If you love bug battles OR steampunk OR layered worldbuilding, this is the book for you.
(Note: very male-focused with all the female-presenting characters in traditional roles. I think I remember one of the Knights being female, but be prepared for the women to be caregivers, nurses, and teachers and the men to be the fighters, political leaders, and craftsmen. Loss of a star for lacks of female agency – otherwise a 5-star manuscript.)
Writing Exercise: Story got Sad
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I know last month we talked about B is for Bleed. This week could be entitled T is for Tears. Explore the emotion of grief / loss. It doesn’t have to be loss of life; there are many things devastating to lose.
WRITING EXERCISE: Create a scene where “the story got sad all by itself.” You know that story you told yourself once that went somewhere you never expected. Five hundred words or less. Good luck!
My attempt: Last month I mentioned the Ymir’s Songs duology.
Z is for Zoozve
ZOOZVE ON A SOLAR SYSTEM POSTER The children’s Solar System that features Zoozve, Venus’s quasi-moon.
Image: Alex Foster / Latif Nasser (from the interweb – space.com)
Did you know that Venus has a moon? Well, sort-of, not really, but kind-of. Venus has a “quasi-moon”, something that had been predicted, but never spotted out in the universe until 2002. How quasi-moons work: they are an asteroid that stays within a planetary body’s orbit instead of fully orbiting the local star. Instead they develop a complex orbit where the planet’s and the star’s gravity fields interact.
Below – Blue is earth, Green is mercury, the center is the sun, white is Venus and the purple is 524522 Zoozve. (Source: Data source: HORIZONS System, JPL, NASA, Heavily influenced by the work of Phoenix7777 — This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. (Wikipedia))
The quasi-moon also doubles as a near-Earth asteroid, since it crosses Earth’s path, and because of its size, “Zoozve is considered a potentially hazardous object, although it is not predicted to impact the Earth.” (Howells)
How Zoozve got its name is truly delightful. The astronomer, Brian Skiff, discovered the quasi-moon in 2002 – and the designation of “2002VE68” was applied. Later (I can’t find when, google failed me, but later than 2002 and before 2024), Alex Foster was hired to draw a Solar System poster. During research preparing for the poster trying to get the names of all the moons of the solar system, he ran across the mention of a moon for Venus and wrote 2002VE 68 in his notes. I guess his handwriting isn’t as good as his drawing – because when he went back through, he copied the name as Zoozve and put the object beside Venus marked like the other full moons had been marked.
Latif Nasser, a co-host of the science podcast Radiolab, saw the poster in his young son’s room and noticed what seemed to be an error and after confirming Venus did not have a moon with NASA because he knew a gal … and then finding out about the quasi-moon situation, he contacted Brian Skiff and proposed a name switch. The discoverer said “sure” and sent it off to the naming body for celestial objects on October 12, 2023. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) okayed the change in February 2024. (Ravisetti)
Zoozve was the first quasi-moon to be discovered. Others have been discovered and joined the category since then, including several in Earth’s plane.
Well, that ends this year’s A-to-Z blog tour. Thanks to everyone for visiting and y’all have a great year.
Bibliography
Howells, Kate. “What is Venus’ quasi-moon Zoozve?” The Planetary Society. 2024 February 12. (https://www.planetary.org/articles/venus-quasi-moon-zoozve – last viewed 5/21/2024)
Ravisetti, Monisha. “Zoozve – the strange ‘moon’ of Venus that earned its name by accident.” Space.com. 2024 February 6. (https://www.space.com/venus-quasi-moon-zoozve-radiolab-nasa – last viewed 5/21/2024)
Wikipedia. “524522 Zoozve.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/524522_Zoozve – last viewed 5/21/2024)
Y is for Yesteryear
I’m traveling for the end of A-to-Z, adding a level of difficulty for visiting people (sorry folks), but today I got the perfect “Y” while visiting a museum. The Museum of Texas Tech University has a temporary exhibit “Thread of Tradition: Erlandson Collection of 18th and 19th century quilts” through mid-August, and since Lubbock was on the way to where I needed to go but about the distance I would need to take a break, I grabbed the opportunity. (Other temporary exhibits include Watercolor and Symbols of the Borderland, which I will post on a later date.)
I’m going to start with the most unusual of the quilts. Some of my A-to-Z visitors may be aware of the Victorian tradition of saving hair of loved ones. Usually the created mementos were things like hair wreaths or hair jewelry (rings, etc). In this case, Eliza Burt Walton of Chesterfield, New Hampshire attached netting holding coils of hair to the quilt. The center block is inscribed “This album is composed of tokens of remembrance from old friends, associates and school mates in Chesterfield, New Hampshire, October 1854”
The pieced blocks all bear names and are set on point. I love the square edges creating a diamond-like fringe.
This first quilt was an Album quilt. This is when each of the blocks is a unique design. I took pictures of two more album quits. The first is a 1862 applique quilt, where red squares are in the corner of the sashing between the blocks. The second was created in 1846 by Esther S. White of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. She was a Quaker. I love the green sawtooth boarder and the symmetry of the motifs.
I did several up-close looks at the stichwork. The ones marked with pencil and/or pen make me feel better about my skill set. (Yes, that really is pencil marks) — I also got a close-up of where four pieces of cloth come together.
Two designs elements fascinated me: Princess Feathers and Double T. The name Princess Feather comes from the similarity of this motif with heraldry that honored the Prince of Wales and is a variation of “Prince’s Feather.” The circa 1860s quilt was created by (or for) Margaret Kearney from Auxvasse, Missouri. The Double-T pattern doesn’t have as rich a history, but the pattern is just as distinctive. The quilt was made for Elizabeth “Lizzie” P. Smith Heckard and her husband David Heckard, likely by Lizzie’s mother. (“Lizzie & David 1905” is quilted near one corner.) I personally would never attempt the Princess Feathers – I’ve done enough similar designs in applique and it is not easy, but the Double-T could be fun.
Several of the quilts are just out-and-out beautiful with their flowers. Below is a brown silk coverlet embroidered with the initials “E.B.” and the year “1836”, likely documenting the maker or who it was made for and the year the piece was completed. This exuberant summer spread of pinwheels and flower motifs has many eye dazzling details all sewn on an unusual dark background. And beside it is a Rose of Heaven appliqued quilt. The grape clusters are padded over and above the normal expected on quilts. The name associated with this quilt is Sara Dorliska Armsbury who either made this in Adams, Jefferson County, New York, or it was made for her. The rose wreath is a typical applique motif but the border of large grape leaves and small clusters of grapes is unique.
Next up is a medallion quilt. Like typical medallion quilts, this begins with a central pattern and builds out with borders.
The card beside the quilt read: The family history that come to the dealer with this quilt was that it was made by Eliza Woodfield Hagaman of Toms River, New Jersey beginning in 1874 with the October 16th birth of her daughter, Ellen Malsbury Hagman, and finished by the girl’s wedding in 1898. The website Find-a-Grave states that Ellen married Otis E. Hyers (1873-1960) in 1987. The bridal quilt gives many clues to when it was probably constructed. The fabrics as well as the use of a 3-ply thread and absence of any machine stitching suggest an earlier time period than the supposed 1874 start date. Eliza was born in Leicestershire, England and came to Pennsylvania about 1843 as a toddler. The England frame style construction suggest that the quilt could have been made by her mother, or her mother could have influenced the style Eliza chose. It is possible that Eliza began the quilt earlier than 1874, always planning to give it to her first-born daughter, who turned out to be Ellen.
I also took pictures of another medallion quilt. In this case, the picture of the description card was not legible, so I don’t have details on this one. But seeing two versions of medallion quilts can help one get a feel for the design. You can see the herringbone design used in a border of one of the Album quilts; this time the design is red.
Last, but not least, especially to me, is a Hexagon quilt. Why this one is important to me is I inherited a hexagon quilt my grandmother made in New Mexico. Unlike these presentation quilts, that one was hard-used and I have been repairing it by replacing the damaged hexagons, appliqueing new pieces over the worn-out ones. Someday I will be done fixing it. When I do, I should post the results here.
Meanwhile this beautiful Hexagon red quilt is a great way to finish off the yesteryear blog. Take special note of the quilted border.
From the museum’s card: This striking red and white quilt was likely made via the technique known as English paper piecing where fabric is basted around a paper backing to create the hexagon shape. The border treatment is unusual for an English paper pieced quilt but solves the problem of how to handle the edges of a hexagon quilt. This border treatment is almost exclusively found on quilts made in Maryland. The use of this pattern – a hexagon – for inscribed names is rare, likely because the pattern is time consuming and there isn’t a lot of space to sign.
The beauty and the work of quilts is amazing.
Museum Visits
- Y is for Yesteryear (4/29/2025)
- Museum Visit: Watercolors (5/29/2025)
- Museum Visit: Borderlands (7/31/2025)