What’s Diesel Punk I hear you say?
Quoting from the web site:
‘Dieselpunk is a style that blends the art and culture of the 1920s – 1950s with today.
The era we look to for inspiration was defined by movement and revolution: jazz, modern art, world wars, streamlined technology, and an evolution from stilted, Victorian-era hypocrisy. Our goal is to shape a better future for ourselves by merging the zeitgeist of the past with today’s technology and attitudes.’
This is very serendipitous because Maxine and I have been scratching our heads trying to come up with a term for the book she’s been writing for the last 4 years. Although this book mainly centers around WW one, Maxine has a series planned which takes the characters into the 20s and 30s. This time period is one I’ve always found interesting. Art Deco is one of my favourite looks. (See the Diesel Punk Fashions here). And I’ve been a fan of Leyendecker since I discovered him over 30 years ago.
First some Background on Maxine. She had her first big break writing a time travel science fiction book which won the George Turner $10,000 Fiction Prize. (I met her in person at the World SF Convention 1999, where I tried to introduce her to her agent – yes, I tend to put my foot in it, but I mean well).
Maxine’s new series also plays with time, but in this case she delves back approximately a hundred years to World War One.
She brings us ‘Tacs’ (aged 17) the WW1 flying ace who went into the sky to battle the enemy with only 7 hours of flight training, and survived.
Tacs
She brings us ‘Jim’, a modern fight pilot sent on his deployment, suddenly thrown back through time to a brutal world where pilots don’t wear parachutes because their superior offices fear they might abandon expensive fighter planes .
Jim
Lucky for Jim, Tacs take him under his wing. When Jim uncovers a sinister organisation, whose members appear human, but have powers that make him question everything he knows, or thought he knew, he turns to Tacs to help make sense of it. And he realises this is a new past, which may lead to a very different future….
Maxine McArthur 