Some stories take arduous paths to publication.
Seems to be a pattern with mine.
Steam came about because I took part in a steampunk con and learned most of the books were “Tour of Wonders” stories – the author worked harder to share interesting technology than they did to develop interesting characters. In some cases it seemed the characters’ presence in the story served as talking heads to explain the technology rather than have some experience in which the technology played a part.
Not my kind of story. Show me interesting characters in interesting situations doing interesting things and I’m hooked. Anything else and I’m not going to go much beyond the first page (if that far).
You can read Steam‘s full story at Steam here on this blog.
Or you can get to the published story on James Gunn’s AdAstra’s Steam.