The Digging Leviathan by James P. Blaylock

So (to answer the question) we had no goals at all when we wrote our early Steampunk works aside from virtually every writer’s goal, which was to publish stories and novels. Bruce Sterling and William Gibson would publish The Difference Engine a couple of years later in 1990. coined the term “Steampunk,” we had had collectively published a number of steam-driven novels and stories set in Victorian London, and other writers were writing their own. We were naturally inclined to write science fiction and fantasy set in the past. All of us had grown up reading Verne, Wells, Stevenson, and Conan Doyle. The three of us had recently graduated from the university and had read more than our share of 18th and 19th century literature. Tim was working on the novel that would become The Drawing of the Dark, which was followed by The Anubis Gates. was writing Morlock Night, which was published by Daw books, and I was writing “The Ape-box Affair,” which was published by Unearth magazine, and also a story titled “The Hole in Space,” which I sold to Starwind magazine, which unfortunately died before the story appeared. Jeter, and I began writing our first stories and novels set in historic periods.

JAMES BLAYLOCK: Steampunk didn’t become Steampunk until ten years after Tim Powers, K.W.

The Digging Leviathan by James P. Blaylock