Cover art and layout by M.S. Corley
When we did the first AeA anthology, Helios, our reasons were simple: wouldn't it be cool to create a shared world like Medea or Murasaki? What if we 'open sourced' that world and made it a thing not owned by anyone? As we became more familiar with the milieu these thoughts became more defined. What is the least amount of impetus to change everything? Helios has that answer* and extrapolating from this starting point, the authors created an alternate history ranging from frontier-America-era technology, to a steampunk-ish in-between of airships, primitive rockets, and mechanized ground vehicles, to a late era of 'aetherships', artificial habitats, and asteroids spun to create more earth-like environs inside.
We included stories about civilizations beyond Greece and Egypt, creating a multicultural backdrop sometimes lacking in the Steampunk stories AeA has been compared with. Stepping beyond that much-noted similarity Steampunk, Aether Age from the start presented a swath of history that lended itself to a range of story types and modes, from the purely (alt)historical, fantastic, to more agressively alternate histories verging into steampunk & dieselpunk, to pulp SFnal adventures in a space where ships could, rightly, bank and manuever and explode.
Attached to the skeleton of these modalities is the alternate history itself, wherein Egypt is freed from Pharoahic rule, only to lapse, a few generations later, into a totalitarian state. Both Greece and Egypt excel technologically, while inequality persists as the default mode of civilization. Similar themes are explored in North African, Nihon, and Incan societies.
Of course we hope writers and poets will order the Kindle or Nook versions of the book and read about this other history. And then fill in the gaps. But we also intend that authors not have to fit their story into someone else's creation, but that they are the creator of this world. If your steampunk, planetary romance, or any multitude of fantastic tales can be breathed into life via these cultures instead of the typical Victorian set (etc.), then we hope what you will find is writing in the AeA setting is not a daunting challenge, but a fun way to add a twist to your story or poem.
And about that image above. We sure hope to learn more about these two aetherati and what it is they are doing out there among the arboreal rings of earth. One of the works submitted will be sent upstairs for inclusion in the next issue of Fantastique Unfettered. The other point to keep in mind is that Hadley Rille remains interested in seeing the next AeA anthology, Tartaros, through to publication. But we aren't satisfied with hashing through the same old ground. We want to take it to a whole new level, and to do so, we need dreamers to show us the way.
We look forward to your contributions.
*nah, you need to get the book if you care, dude!
