1. What was your introduction to the Steampunk genre?

I blame my interest in the genre on William Gibson and Bruce Sterling for their collaborative novel, The Difference Engine. I’d been a fan of Gibson’s for his Cyberpunk novels, and the book came out during my last year in college, where I was studying computer systems engineering. Since it was about computing being invented over a hundred years earlier, I was fascinated. I will admit that despite that early start, I didn’t follow Steampunk again for decades when it gained more prominence as a genre of its own.

1. What inspires you to write in the Steampunk genre?

I write the kind of stories I like to read, and Steampunk inspires me as a pure form of speculative fiction. It can be written as science fiction, fantasy, or both. The roots of my favorite genres were born with Verne, Shelley, Burroughs, Wells…