You know what makes any sub-genre better? CAKES, that’s what!

Perhaps it’s not surprising, given that October is Steampunk Month, but one of my favorite blogs, Cake Wrecks, is all about the steampunk this week. Normally Cake Wrecks covers only weird, horrible cakes, but apparently everything steampunk is GOOD:

Cake by Mike’s Amazing Cakes.

Click here to see more delicious steampunk cakes.

Here are the next few days of my tour:

Seattle
Monday October 12, 7:00PM
(with Sarah Rees Brennan)
Third Place Books
Location: 17171 Bothell Way NE
Lake Forest Park, WA 981555

Tempe, Arizona
Wednesday October 14th, 7:00PM
(just me)
Changing Hands signing
Location: 6428 South McClintock Drive
Tempe, AZ 85283

Click here for all tour details.

Click here to buy Leviathan.

Oh, and yes, there was a fire in our hotel last night. But we survived! When I have more time, I shall post photos of the (mild, easily controlled) emergency.

(Thanks to Kami Garcia for the headsup on these cakes!)

A while ago I did a series of interviews with Romantic Times, about illustrations in Leviathan, writing YA, and living and working with Justine. They’re up on YouTube now, so I thought I’d share them with you while I’m out on tour.

Enjoy.

Thanks to everyone at Romantic Times for a great interview.

By the way, I’ll be doing a signing (only, no presentation) at Costco in Portland tomorrow. Hope to see some of you there.

Sunday, October 11
1:00PM – 3:00PM
Costco
4849 NE 138th Street
Portland, OR 97230

Hello from California! I’m on tour right now and will be for the next three weeks. So posting may be infrequent, or it may just be really weird.

I’ll be out in Santa Monica this afternoon:

Tuesday October 6th, 4:30PM
(with Sarah Rees Brennan)
Santa Monica Public Library Event hosted by Children’s Bookworld
601 Santa Monica Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90401

Click here for the rest of my tour info.

And because Leviathan is out TODAY, let’s all enjoy the trailer one more time:

Here we are, two days before Leviathan comes out, and I’ve just realized that it’s the beginning of a new month. That means it’s time to reveal one last piece of Keith Thompson’s wonderful art!

This is an illustration that we call THE GRAND MAP! And it comes with a story:

As I was writing Leviathan, and the characters began to wind their way across Europe, a wise editor of mine suggested that we might want to put a map in the book. I agreed, of course, because all the best novels have maps in them. Also, we’d already decided that Leviathan would have endpapers. Endpapers are the heavy leaves of paper pasted to the inside of the front and back covers of a book. Because they go through the printer separately from the rest of the pages, you can easily make them color.

“Delicious color art . . . ,” I said.

When I told Keith about this, he started researching (he’s always doing that) and discovered a bunch of cool “allegorical maps” of the period, which used illustration to communicate politics. Back in 1914, you see, a lot of people were illiterate, so maps had to show who the good and the bad guys were with pictures.

Here’s a real historical example from the Entente (what I call Darwinist) side of the war:

This map and the following one were reconstructed from smaller pieces by Paul K on his BibliOdessy site. You can zoom into them in greater detail at the University of Amsterdam.

And here’s an example showing the Central (Clanker) view of things:

Naturally, we thought that this allegorical style would be awesome to imitate. So Keith went off and created a Darwinist vs. Clanker version for us to use.

Here is the stupendous result:


Click the map to make it much bigger, and revel in the details!
UPDATE: The map jpg is now much bigger, and with the correct key. After clicking the above, click it again for a HUGE version.

Here are some notes about the map from Keith, explaining what all the symbolism means:

The Clanker Powers

“Germany is a massive military machine with weapons aimed outwards to all surrounding countries. It points threateningly at Britain, not so much as a sign of direct aggression, but more as an indicator that it was now Germany’s turn to start a grand global Empire to challenge the world’s current one.

“Austria Hungary is an aggressive armoured giant, teetering on shoddy foundations. It is also the primary aggressor in a land grab against Serbia, with two bayonets piercing the border.

“The Ottoman empire is a teetering automaton, collapsing under the weight of a paranoid and ungainly spying network that gazes at Europe through many lenses and spy glasses.

“The Swiss watch ticks away the time, comfortable to wait it all out.”

The Darwinist Powers

“Britain is an militaristic lion beast with a Roman Imperial italic-type helmet. It sits upon a mound of riches gathered from its Empire.

“France’s elephant beast (wearing the French kepi they started the war with before adapting their firefighter helmets) is influenced by the Elephantine Collossus built for the Universal Exhibition of 1889 in Paris (later it ended up going to the Moulin Rouge.) It also represents France’s huge significance in WWI, which is something that tends to get a little glossed over.

“Russia is a huge imperialist bear, rotting and filled with maggots. (Russia collapsed during the real war.)

“Serbia’s imagery (a skeleton) is an indicator of the huge amounts of civilian deaths and suffering they’ll find themselves subject to.

“Norway and Sweden are both Scandinavian trolls in the style of John Bauer, an incredible and inspirational illustrator from the time who produced a lot of phenomenal work during the war.

“Portugal is a parrot for the Entente trying to goad a slumbering Spain into the war (this was based on something from a contemporary map and I’m not totally sure about the viewpoint’s veracity, but I couldn’t resist the image, and it seemed to match up with what I knew of the situation.)

“Ireland looks askance to Britain and brandishes a shillelagh. An indicator of their very rough relationship at the time, and of their upcoming involvement with the Central powers.

“Italy is a clutch of snakes with intents on the Central powers despite existing agreements. A foreshadowing of their arrangements at the secret 1915 Treaty of London where they were promised land in exchange for involvement. It was heavily influenced by Italian Prime Minister, Antonio Salandra’s open policy of serving Italy’s self-interest (there’s a great quote where the notion of ‘divine self-interest’ is invoked, but I can’t dig it up unfortunately.)”

Pretty cool, huh?

Note:This map only appears in the US/Canadian and Australian versions. The UK version doesn’t have it! I don’t know about other languages yet.

My tour starts Tuesday, the same day the book is out! For details, click the “Appearances/News” button up in the menu at any time, or just click here.

With Leviathan a mere FOUR DAYS AWAY in the US and Canada, there is much stuff to cover.

First: As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, Simon & Schuster are having their annual BlogFest, with many writers answering cool questions. One of my answers went up a few days ago, about the writerly themes and tricks I use all the time. Click here to read my answer and here for more Blogfest stuff.

Second: If you live in Toronto and want to see me, Cassie Clare, and Holly Black on November 6, you will need tickets! I guess the event is going to be wicked huge, so they rented a church, which costs money. Admission is five Canadian bucks, and you can buy the tickets right here. You can also pay at the door, if there’s any room left!

Friday November 6th 7:00PM
Trinity St. Paul’s United Church
427 Bloor Street West

If you don’t live in Toronto, click here for the rest of the tour details.

Third: It’s Steampunk Month at Tor.com!

I’ll be participating in the Steampunk festivities, which include a host of esteemed guest bloggers (G. D. Falksen, Stefania Forlini, Lev Grossman, Jah’Meia, Jay Lake, George Mann, Joe Monti, Cherie Priest, Ann VanderMeer, and Jeff VanderMeer) original steampunk fiction (from Eileen Gunn & Michael Swanwick and G. D. Falksen) and a rarely-seen comic by Sydney Padua. Tor.com will also be covering Steamcon, the Brooklyn Indie Market Steampunk II event, and the steampunk exhibit at Oxford’s Museum of the History of Science. (Google this stuff if you want. It’s all very cool.)

There will also be interviews with myself and Leviathan artist Keith Thompson, and Tim Powers. And an absurd amount of giveaways, including books, posters, buttons, costume elements, and gadgets, and wallpapers!

Click here to check out the details. And here to follow along as the month goes by.

Fourth: Part of the reason why Tor has declared October steampunk month is that they’re releasing a fantastic book by Cherie Priest called Boneshaker. Set in Seattle during an alternate, unending Civil War, the novel contains so much steam-tastic goodness that I had to blurb it:

“A steampunk-zombie-airship adventure of rollicking pace and sweeping proportions, full of wonderfully gnarly details. This book is made of irresistible.”
-Scott Westerfeld, author of Leviathan

Yes, you read that right—steampunk-zombie-airship adventure!

Click here to check out Cherie’s site, which includes this wonderful essay-length definition of steampunk.

Here’s Boneshaker‘s lovely cover:

There’s more cool stuff to come, but I am required by law to hold off until tomorrow. Because, frankly, your head would explode.

Oh, except I’ll show you the awesome MondoSpider, because I forgot to post a Walker Wednesday!

I think the MondoSpider is my favorite walker so far. It is the roadster of walkers, and l want one. Click here for more MondoSpider!