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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'Emmeline Muchamore is a well-bred young lady hiding explosive family secrets. She needs to marry well, and quickly, in order to keep her family respectable. But when her brass heart malfunctions, she makes a desperate choice to steal the parts she needs to repair it and survive.
'She is unable to explain her actions without revealing she has a steam-powered heart, so she is arrested for theft and transported to Victoria, Australia – right in the midst of the Gold Rush.
'Now that she’s escaped the bounds of high society, iron manacles cannot hold her for long.
'The only metal that really matters is gold.' (Publication summary)
Notes
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Steampunk Note: The steam-powered heart and the deportation of criminals in a Victorian setting, as well as the juxtaposition of wealth and poverty indicate this text fits well within the boundaries of steampunk.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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No Stairs in the Bush? Disability and Australian Steampunk
2023
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , vol. 36 no. 1 2023; (p. 34-48)'With a combination of fantastical and anachronistic technologies and neo-Victorian settings, steampunk emerged from a niche genre to a widespread phenomenon. But this, in turn, raised urgent questions about the "punk"-ness of steampunk and the extent to which it can critique, avoid, and repurpose the Victorian trappings that it adopts. This article examines one such query: whether steampunk can interrogate its ableist underpinnings and, particularly, whether Australian steampunk writers do so in a way that is distinctly Australian. Beginning with a brief overview of Australian steampunk and the genre's conflicted approach to disability aesthetics and roleplaying, the author examines three case studies: the invisibility of disability in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century proto-steampunk stories, prosthetics as a vehicle for imperial trauma, and the recurrent motif of the clockwork heart. As Australian steampunk exists outside the genre's mainstream, so too is it able to speak to the marginal elements, such as underlying ableism, that the mainstream too often ignores.' (Publication abstract)
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Heart of Brass (The Antipodean Queen #1)
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: Reading Time , November 2016;
— Review of Heart of Brass 2016 single work novel
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Heart of Brass (The Antipodean Queen #1)
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: Reading Time , November 2016;
— Review of Heart of Brass 2016 single work novel -
No Stairs in the Bush? Disability and Australian Steampunk
2023
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , vol. 36 no. 1 2023; (p. 34-48)'With a combination of fantastical and anachronistic technologies and neo-Victorian settings, steampunk emerged from a niche genre to a widespread phenomenon. But this, in turn, raised urgent questions about the "punk"-ness of steampunk and the extent to which it can critique, avoid, and repurpose the Victorian trappings that it adopts. This article examines one such query: whether steampunk can interrogate its ableist underpinnings and, particularly, whether Australian steampunk writers do so in a way that is distinctly Australian. Beginning with a brief overview of Australian steampunk and the genre's conflicted approach to disability aesthetics and roleplaying, the author examines three case studies: the invisibility of disability in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century proto-steampunk stories, prosthetics as a vehicle for imperial trauma, and the recurrent motif of the clockwork heart. As Australian steampunk exists outside the genre's mainstream, so too is it able to speak to the marginal elements, such as underlying ableism, that the mainstream too often ignores.' (Publication abstract)
- Victoria,
- 1844-1906