SteamPunk Fantasy–If you’ve never tried it, my advice is to start with Laura Strickland’s Buffalo Steampunk Adventures. Not sure what Steampunk means? Think Victorian history–with a touch of science fiction. Really, it fits as a kind of magic realism, too, but that isn’t all.
Novel Magic steams full speed today and welcomes Friend of the Universe, Laura Strickland.
When Fantasy Meets Reality
by Laura Strickland
We live in a magical world. Beneath the ordinary and the every-day, there lurks something more. A hint of darkness that makes you glance over your shoulder when you’re walking alone at night. A burst of wonder at the first fingers of green reaching up from the frozen earth in spring. The infinity of a field of stars. It’s as if one world—our reality as we like to call it—overlies another, secret one our ancestors knew far better than we.
Part of what I love about being an author is bringing forward that magical world, polishing it up and presenting it to my readers so they can share it with me. When I wrote the first of my Buffalo Steampunk Adventures, I wasn’t sure I could do so successfully, create what I saw in my head and felt in my heart. A gritty, seamy world set in Victorian Buffalo, New York, inhabited by both humans and automatons. Characters who weren’t bigger than life, but lived lowly lives and struggled for survival. It turned out my readers loved sharing that world with me. They humbled me by wanting to return to it again and again.
And now here we are ushering out the last of those Buffalo Steampunk Adventures, Snow City.
The series will stand pat at ten books. In each, I’ve done my best to make sure that the fantasy world I love meets with a measure of reality. This final book is no exception.
As a native of Buffalo, I am also a survivor of the infamous Blizzard of ’77. Yes, folks, I am that old. The Blizzard of ’77 is the storm that put Buffalo on the map as the snow capital of the country. Gave the city a reputation, so to speak. So what better than to end my series with a monster blizzard?
I drew heavily on my own blizzard experiences for this story. The howling wind strong enough to rip your head off. The bitter cold. And all that snow gathered on the surface of a frozen, lurking Lake Erie, just waiting to be picked up and dumped onto a city that thought it knew how to handle a snow storm. As always, I’ve done my best to drag my readers along so they experience it also, and add enough magic to make the trip enjoyable. This one’s personal, and like all the Buffalo Steampunk Adventures, quite beloved. Come with me to visit Snow City, and find out why Steampunk Buffalo is a place like no other.
Snow City: A Buffalo Steampunk Adventure
Benjamin Ambrose has an interesting problem: he keeps dying without cause and with very little warning. So far, he’s died over a dozen times and been brought back again. It’s disconcerting, and he needs a solution.
Magenta Rask, of mixed race and limited education, grew up rough on the streets. She’s been told her talent for connecting with people’s energy could provide healing, but she’s not convinced.
When Benjamin seeks Magenta’s help, she sees a quick way to make money and seize independence. She has no idea that two Buffalo-born opposites together will have a powerful effect on a city brought to its knees by a monster blizzard. Or that sometimes a girl must risk all she is for the sake of love.
Buy a Copy!
Amazon US
Amazon Canada
Amazon UK:
Amazon Australia:
Series Book Trailer
Meet Laura Strickland
Multi award-winning author Laura Strickland delights in time traveling to the past and searching out settings for her books, be they Historical Romance, Steampunk or something in between. Her first Scottish Historical hero, Devil Black, battled his way onto the publishing scene in 2013, and the author never looked back. Nor has she tapped the limits of her imagination. Venturing beyond Historical and Contemporary Romance, she created a new world with her ground-breaking Buffalo Steampunk Adventure series set in her native city, in Western New York. Married and the parent of one grown daughter, Laura has also been privileged to mother a number of very special rescue dogs, and is intensely interested in animal welfare. Her love of dogs, and her lifelong interest in Celtic history, magic and music, are all reflected in her writing. Laura’s mantra is Lore, Legend, Love, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.
4 thoughts on “Novel Magic: When Fantasy Meets Reality”
Hi Laura. I’m always in awe of your writing talent and variety of topics and genres! Congratulations on this latest (and last?) Steampunk. Can’t wait to see what’s next on your list of creativeness!
Oh, Barb, thank you for your generous words and support! I guess my brain is an airport with a lot of different planes taking off all the time. Thanks for checking in!
Thank you so much for your kindness in hosting me today! Love this site!
And we love having you here!! Thanks for visiting with us and I second Barb’s comment! You have such a varied list of achievements–Whatever comes next is certain to be equally mind-blowing!