Tangential Rant: the Reprehensible Actions of Trestle Press

Well, my good people, settle yourselves down with a cuppa and make yourselves comfortable.

I am pissed, and I need to rant.  Today's rant is not steampunk-specific ... it involves the spheres of authors, publishers, artists, and theft.  It involves professional responsibility, honesty, and integrity.  And the lack thereof on the part of one small e-publishing house, which has harmed several authors and artists, including one author whom I value as a friend and as a favoured author.

Previously, in this blog, I gave an early review to an up-and-coming piece of periodic fiction, The Sauder Diaries, which was being released episodically at that time, on Scribd.    In December, I was delighted to interview the author, Michel Vaillancourt, on the eve of the completed work's e-release on Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble's Nook, via a small publisher, Trestle Press.

O, Trestle Press.

The Logo under this barred circle belongs to Trestle Press, not me, and I will remove this image if asked.

Yesterday, Mr. Michel Vaillancourt had to ask Trestle Press to remove his book from sale, upon discovering that they had not obtained permission to use the artwork they selected for his book.  His discussion of this can be found on his blog, here.   As a result, I have also had to remove the contentious artwork from my interview.

In point of fact, all hell has broken out online, regarding Trestle's wholesale thieving of artwork for many of their titles, creating a virtual Trestlegate over the past 4 days, seemingly starting here.

If you google the phrase "Trestle Press art theft" you will be amazed at the number of links you will find.  Authors are leaving and complaining in droves, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, either because they have found their artwork belongs to an artist who didn't give their permission (and in most cases I've seen online, they weren't even asked), or in solidarity with other authors, and not wanting to be tainted by the (at most generous) negligent actions of the publishing house (at worst, it's theft - clear, obvious, theft).

I'm writing this because this is hurting both authors (who now have to find other publishers, not a simple chore) and the artists.  It's hard enough to get a publisher these days, one should be able to trust them to perform their due diligence.

I wouldn't have thought it was rocket science.  I'm not a publisher, and even I know that it is NOT OKAY to freely snag someone else's artwork and use it to sell your own product.  If you are a publisher, you have a professional responsibility to your authors and to the artists whose work you use.  A publisher's job is to edit the author's work effectively, arrange cover art (if the author hasn't made their own arrangements), and in either case, ensure appropriate permissions are obtained.  If you can't reach the artist and gain their permission, it's not yours to use.  That's pretty simple.

I am also writing this because I want to tell people - don't deal with Trestle Press.  Don't publish your works through them - they have proven they can't be trusted.  If you do publish through them currently - check your artwork - it may be stolen; also, consider doing what other authors have done, and leave them in a show of solidarity with the artists and authors who have been harmed by Trestle's  Personally, I won't ever buy a book from them ever.

Finally, I am also writing this because I am personally pissed.  Michel Vaillancourt is also a friend, and I do not take it kindly when someone hurts my friends.

Author Interview - Michel Vaillancourt of The Sauder Diaries

I cast my mind back to almost a year ago, when I reviewed a piece of addictive serial steampunk fiction, entitled The Sauder Diaries, that was being written and delivered episodically on Scribd, by Michel Vaillancourt.  

Now, just 11 months later, I am delighted to announce that The Sauder Diaries: By Any Other Name, by Michel Vaillancourt, has not only been accepted for publication by Trestle Press, but is being released in ebook format on Monday, December 19th (paper book to follow early in 2012).  (Amended July 2012:  After the fiasco with the original thieving publisher, the book is now published by Avenger Press Services and has finally been released for Kindle and in trade paperback on Amazon.com). Needless to say, well, I'm excited, as this was an engaging piece of airship pirate steampunk fiction.

In preparation for the release of his debut novel on Monday, I decided to interview Michel Vaillancourt.  (Proper full novel review to follow, once I've had the pleasure of the reading the whole thing all of a piece.)  Please find below our interview, held late at night, from West Coast to East, Friday December 16. 

Hi Michel, thanks for agreeing to this interview regarding your about-to-released Sauder Diaries.

It's my pleasure.  I'm really enjoying this whole new world of being interviewed as an author.

Let's get right to it.

Sure thing!

First of all, to start, how would you summarize the Sauder Diaries (sans spoilers)?

It's a Steampunk-themed pirate adventure romance.  The core story is about a young man who breaks out of the shell of his own making and realizes there is a bigger world around him.

The main character, Hans Sauder, is on his way to university on an airship when he gets shanghaied by infamous pirates.  He eventually winds up traveling with the pirates all over Europe and beyond as part of the crew.

His life gets complicated when the woman in charge of the gunner-marines decides she's attracted to him.  Things get even more complicated when the ship he is on undertakes a dangerous mission into the territory of the Russian Empire.

What made you pick this moment in history (well, in alternate history) for your novel?

Really, I was reverse engineering a justification for airship piracy.  How does airship piracy work?  You can't have it without the economics to support it.  There is no point in stealing something unless you can sell it or trade it.  So who are they selling it to?  What made air travel more practical than land travel such as trains?

I needed a point in time that represented a major war in Europe that pre-dated the "core" of the Victorian Era.  For airship piracy to work, Europe had to be in a condition that meant that railroads and canals were unusable.  So, the Russian War, aka the Crimean War, was the event in history I was looking for.  From there, I started working forward in time to choose my year and date.

And why pirates?

The full explanation is on my blog, Split Horizons.  The short version is that I was listening to Abney Park's "Airship Pirates", and one line made me think, what sort of lunatic swings on a leather thong at 15000 feet in the air?"  And I wanted to answer the question, "who are the sort of people that live in a world where airship pirates are possible?"  

Originally, the Sauder Diaries was released as episodic fiction, on Scribd, as each portion was written.  In an ideal world, where any form of published work is available (and will of course provide a living), which is your preference ... releasing a solid novel, or the Victorian style of serial fiction, released chapter by chapter, as Dickens etc did?

Absolutely serial fiction.  In fact, if the fans would go for it, I'd love to release the second book that way.  Every week, release another chapter on a subscription arrangement or something.

However, I know authors who have tried this route and in this world, no one wants to buy at a buck a chapter. 

The Sauder Diaries contains some very strong, very independent female characters.  Was this a deliberate choice on your part, and why?

Absolutely.  One of the most iconic moments in the adventures of the Victorian Era is Henry Morton Stanley’s popular quotation, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”.  In the real world, that question could not have been delivered by a woman of the era.  But what about a world where it could?  What an interesting place that would be!

One of the things that the Victorian Era served as was a kind of watershed for the Suffrage Movement.  To me, to be true to "Steampunk" as I see it, you pretty much need a female lead or supporting character to be ahead of the curve;  already be out there, doing the sort of things that the women of the time rallying in the streets could only dream about.

I also have a pet peeve about what I call the "Dry Ice Heroine" ... "Strong and frosty, strong and frosty, whoops here comes the hero / hunk, she melts."  I refuse to write that character, unless she's clearly a plot device.

And your female characters don't do that?

Absolutely not.  They may have moments of vulnerability, they might get scared or worried, but when the chips are down, they're as dependable as the men they work and live alongside.

What makes them different?

They're all women living in a men's world, and they've earned their equality, and they'll be damned if they'll be treated any different.  They work as hard, they fight as hard, they risk as hard.

What was the process, or motivation, that embarked you on your voyage to write the Diaries?

It's a complex answer.  Mostly, it was a goal-driven process for me;  I had never done this sort of a project before.  I had done short stories and serial fan-fic, but never a novel.  So, it was a matter of setting a goal -- write a chapter and publish it -- and then do it.  Rinse and repeat.  Then I had a novel.  So, set the next set of goals:  Get a Facebook community page.  Get a publisher.  Get the book out there.  Get people talking about it.  Start working on the next book.  One goal at time, achieve it, celebrate it, and aim for the next thing.

Has writing a novel been in your head for a while?  Or was this a new idea that just overtook you?

It is actually something I had wanted to do since my late teens or early 20's. I just had not found the right combination of life circumstances and story to have it happen.

Is there a character in The Sauder Diaries you have had more trouble writing than others?  If so, what was the challenge or difficulty?

The two female lead characters, Arrieta and Annika.  I'm not a woman, and so I can't claim to really understand what they think and what they hold important.  So, I did research;  I'm a lucky fella that knows a lot of attractive professional women that are also good friends.  They were willing to answer questions about how they thought and what they felt.  So, in a certain way, Arrieta is one group of women I know, and Annika is another.

Alternately, was there a character who came to you particularly easily?  If so, in what way?

Michael O'Raedy, known as Captain Blackheart.  He was the easiest to write, as I've known a lot of captains, and people in the real world who work in leadership and command. I've gotten to talk with them and learn about what they do, what they handle, and what they don't show.

Is there anything in The Sauder Diaries that surprised even you, when writing it?

Two things.  The first was the good Doctor Koblinski. He was supposed to be essentially a one scene character who was irrelevant to the long-term plot. The fans, however, were enamored with him and insisted he had to stick around.  I had tremendous feedback at the release of Chapter One that everyone loved his wit and clear common-sense.  So, the Doctor is around to stay.

They second thing that surprised me was how often I cried writing my first book.  I found that when I was writing the Sauder Diaries, I intentionally went places with my writing I'd never gone before, in terms of inspiring big emotion in the reader.  There are parts that I can't read aloud without choking up.  Both Book 1 and the in-progress Book 2.

Is there any little tidbit, which I'm not covering with the questions I've asked so far, that you'd like to share with us about the novel, or your process?  This is your opportunity to answer a question you want to answer, that you haven't been asked yet.

Don't tell me this isn't Steampunk.  It might not be your Steampunk, but that's okay.  This is my take on Steampunk.  It is what I see the fans and advocates at Cons, concerts and meets talking about as cool.  This is a book for Steampunks, written by a new member of the Steampunk movement.

As well, I'd like to stay that to me, the word Steampunk is composed of two words:  "Steam" and "Punk". 

"Steam" is the temporal reference marker;  the Age of Steam which firmly brackets the Victorian Era.  There is so much factual and pop-cultural imagery in that period that it is astonishing.  On land, at sea, and in the air,  History was happening and the world was changing like never before.

"Punk" is the conceptualization of social ideologies that are mostly concerned with individual freedom and anti-establishment views.  It's about freedom, it's about walking counter-class or caste, it's about doing things that would scandalize the "main stream culture" of the day.

So, that's part of what this story is about.  Underneath the pirates, airships and clockworks is a story with themes that take at least passing looks at the social norms of the day.  The treatment of servants, class-based poverty, the perception of women as objects or property, and Calvanist morals...  there is a lot to run at angles to here.

On a slightly off-book bent ... Steampunk:  what draws you to it?  And do you think it has to have a nailed down definition ?

Something I heard Phil Foglio say at Steamcon was that "Steampunk fiction is about when technology can save humanity.  It isn't the problem, it is the solution."

I agree with that.  Steampunk fiction is, to me at least, inherently hopeful.  It is about people doing incredibly cool things at a point in time when when no one knew what the boundaries were and they seemed to be on the brink of revolutionizing the world.  Everything was within the realm of possibility; everything was within reach.  The right man (or woman) with the right perseverance and the right science at the right place could change the world for the better.  That's pretty empowering.

In "The Sauder Diaries", being a pirate is as much about freedom as anything else. It is an inherently hopeful act; taking ownership of their own futures by their own actions and associations.  Maybe it isn't very nice, but I'll leave that for the moralists.  The pirates in this world are inherently the rebels and underdogs.  They are living outside the physical, social and moral walls of the setting. 

So you're more on the Jules Verne "optimist" camp of Victorian science fiction, then H.G. Wells "pessimist" camp (note for readers, the opposites are excellently described here.

That's one way of looking at it, yes.  

To me the best way to define Steampunk is by inclusion.  I prefer to be inclusive; it's all Steampunk, unless we all agree that it isn't.

Oh man, that's probably going to produce comment.   Yay!  I love it when the conversation gets exciting.

Thank you very much, Michel, for taking the time out late tonight for this interview, and congratulations on your debut novel!  I very much look forward to having it in my hot little hands, and even more to reading future work from you.

Dec 20/12 UPDATE:  If you're keen to get your hands on this book (and I do highly recommend it!) the ebook is now available for purchase online at Amazon's Kindle store here.

Feb 2/12 UPDATE:  Due to reprehensible actions on behalf of the small publisher, Trestle Press (stealing artwork from multiple sources and artists without permission, and presenting them to the authors as legitimate), Michel Vaillancourt, along with numerous other authors, has had to remove his book from sale at present.  You can see his blog entry on this situation here.

July 2012 UPDATE:  After the above fiasco, the book is happily now available again!  Published by Avenger Press Services and available on Amazon.com for Kindle and in trade paperback.

The Innocent's Progress: A Foray into Steampunk Erotica

Greetings good folks.  Before we venture any further, I must point out that the subject matter of today's salon is a review of adult-oriented, hence, reader discretion is advised, and you may wish to move along to another post.  I shall give you a moment while I review my notes.

And now we can commence.  Feel free to have a cup of tea, or a sniff of something stronger, if you wish.  My automated valet can bring you something.  

My voyage through steampunk literature has recently brought me to The Innocent's Progress, by Peter Tupper, published in electronic format.  This is a collection of 6 short stories set in an alternate world of the author's devising.  This is no common set of erotic tales with minimal plot and excesses of sexual content, nor is it overdone steampunk riddled with gears and parasols; this is intellectual fiction, subtly written and focusing more on the people and the stories.  Several characters are interwoven through the tales, slowly drawing back the curtains around this Victorian-flavoured world.

The best part of this work, for me, is the slow reveal of this unique world, story by story.  Readers are first introduced to the Commedia, a form of theatre in which archetypes are performed on the stage, and privately performed offstage, for the pleasure of the audience.  One quickly realizes that dichomoties are rife in this world, as in Victorian England.  Performance and sexuality are blended and blurred in the Half-world of the actors, yet it is clearly unacceptable for them to stray, in any way, from the limited range of traditional archetypes.  Sexuality is quite acceptible within the Commedia, yet the Decency Board strives to remove the threat of pornography from society, to protect women and the lower classes. There are allusions to historical figures and works throughout the tales, which enhances the reading experience.  Peter Tupper even thoughtfully includes an Afterword, in which he gives background information and historical references for each tale.

My favourite story is "Delicate Work", where the reader is taken deep into the Honeycomb, an "Institution for the Reclamation of Wayward Women".  The Honeycomb is the Victorian workhouse writ very large and very dark.  In true Victorian fashion, this is where wayward women (those who do not live within the rigid and narrow boundaries defined by society) are "helped" by permanently hiding them out of sight.  The Honeycomb is seen through the eyes of Tangwen, one of the Tinker Girl inmates employed in producing technology for the world outside.  "Delicate Work" shows us the dirty, dystopian, dark side, which is all too often neglected in much of steampunk fiction.

There is one tale in the collection, "The Impurity", which differs from the others.  "The Impurity" is an imaginative retelling of the Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde story, into which the author breathes new life.  I don't want to reveal the details here, but suffice to say, it is refreshing.

I recommend the reader look beyond the cover of Innnocent's Progress.  Peter Tupper takes the reader into a familiar yet foreign world, which is richly textured and multifaceted - part Victorian, part steampunk, part intellectual foray, part erotica.  If you wish to acquire this book yourself, the various forms and manner of procuring it can be found at Peter Tupper's site for Innocent's Progress.

Exhilarating Episodic Steampunk Pirate Fiction: The Sauder Diaries by Michel R. Vaillancourt

If, as I am, you are always hungry for new, quality Steampunk fiction, ready your plate for something new and toothsome.  The Sauder Diaries is an episodic tale being served for us online by newcomer, Michel R. Vaillancourt, at Scribd, at http://www.scribd.com/collections/2718398/The-Sauder-Diaries. 

Currently at seven posted episodes since its commencement in mid-November of 2010, this tale is being released with impressive speed, and a darn good thing, because each one is eagerly anticipated.  

Mr. Vaillancourt sets his story in an alternate world where the Crimean War has resulted in the development of advanced weaponry, such as the impressively-engineered HMAFS Bloody Rose, the airship on which the main character, Hans Sauder, finds himself after capture by notorious pirates.  Hans Sauder finds himself firmly persuaded to turn pirate (the alternative isn't shiny), and he joins the remarkably multinational crew (representing Scotland, Russia, Ethiopia, Norway, England, France, Spain, Arabia, and Slavic nations) of the Bloody Rose.

Each episode starts with an excerpt from Hans' diary, and is followed by a third-person narrative fleshing out the details of what actually occurred.  Each chapter is well-written and consistent, and Mr. Vaillancourt's tale is not marred by the plague of poor grammar and misspelling that taints much online and unprofessional fiction.

The characters are real, and are engagingly presented and developed throughout the story, which isn't as common as I'd like in the unpublished realm.  Included among the people you get to know is the upstanding and moral Hans (likeable for his foibles and yet occasionally making me yearn to smack him); the deliciously sardonic yet caring Doctor Koblinski, and two strong and quite different main female characters, Arietta the Chief Engineer, and Annika the Captain-Gunner.  These people are gritty, and most of all, REAL. 

The Sauder Diaries pose a refreshing change from much of what I've found in this genre.  This isn't trite and fluffy fiction, nor is it a series of unrelieved battle scenes, or endless intricate descriptions of incomprehensible tech for tech's sake.  There are sufficient action scenes, realistic characters, entertaining scenarios, conflict, humour, cool steam tech (love the dual-gas-bag airship with the EMIPALE - Electro-Magnetic Inductive Polar Aerostat Lift Engine and tempting hints of things to come with Galvanotaurs, Chimera and Dragons), and a spice of sexual tension to offer something for most readers of both genders to sink their teeth into.

I'm not into spoilers (hate coming across 'em) so I admit I am not giving you lots of details of the story itself.  And, as it is episodic fiction, none of us knows what happens next until the author tells us.

So, in summary, good people, if you have been jonesing for some awesome steampunk fiction and wondering where the good writers are, go read the Sauder Diaries.  You can find it online at Scribd (link below).  But be warned - it's addictive, and episodic, and Michel Vaillancourt will keep you coming back for more.  Keep an eye out on this new author - I hope we see more.  In print.

http://www.scribd.com/collections/2718398/The-Sauder-Diaries.