FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: “The Waxing Disquiet” for Best Short Fiction in 2018 Aurora Awards

Posted on April 26, 2018 by Stephen

It’s that time of year again: speculative fiction award season!

Calling all Canadians: Aurora Award nominations–the top Canadian prize in speculative fiction–are now open (until May 26), and if you’d like to support me then I hope you’ll consider nominating “The Waxing Disquiet” from me and co-author Tony Pi, eligible for Best Short Fiction. You can read it here for free until nominations close.

And if you’re not Canadian, well, feel free to read it anyway! Tony and I are quite proud of our beeswax-and-candle-punk tale 🙂

“The Waxing Disquiet” originally appeared in Deep Magic (June 2017).

– S.

Edison’s “WARNING!” Pamphlet

Posted on April 20, 2018 by Stephen

Oops! For some reason this didn’t post with the latest episode of the podcast. Sorry about that…

As promised, here’s what Edison’s “longest and most splenetic howl of corporate outrage” looked like.

All caps, naturally.

013 – Tesla – War of the Currents Part 1: Opening Salvo (1886-1888)

Posted on April 15, 2018 by Stephen

The War of the Currents begins! Edison uses every dirty trick he can think of in the struggle for DC dominance vs. the AC upstart. There can be only one (format)!

012 – Tesla – Tesla in Steel City (1889)

Posted on April 2, 2018 by Stephen

Did the Westinghouse engineers want Tesla to fail in Pittsburgh? He went to consult, but all Tesla found was a hornet’s nest of resentment, ego, and competing agendas. And what was Edison up to now that Westinghouse was a threat to his DC business? A current war is in the offing…

011 – Tesla – Paying the Cost to Be the Boss (1888)

Posted on March 11, 2018 by Stephen

You could call this episode: “Tesla: The Art of the Deal”, as we see Tesla and his business partners Peck and Brown bluff, finagle, and finally negotiate the lucrative sale of the AC motor patents to George Westinghouse. The sale changed Tesla’s life–and ours–forever.

010 – Tesla – Patent. Promote. Sell. (1887-1888)

Posted on February 27, 2018 by Stephen

Tesla was cranking out break-through inventions as fast as his partners could patent them. Plans to promote and sell them culminated in Tesla’s full-on arrival as a cutting edge figure in the electrical field with his groundbreaking address to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers.

009 – Tesla – How Tesla (Eventually) Got His Groove Back

Posted on February 8, 2018 by Stephen

Not long after Tesla stormed out on Edison opportunity came knocking again…as did further betrayal and disappointment. But with the help of new business partners, Tesla was on his way to becoming a truly world-changing figure.

Tesla – 008 – A Scandalously Short History of the Gilded Age

Posted on January 25, 2018 by Stephen

It is the era in which Tesla made his greatest breakthroughs and inventions, and the era in which he found fame and fortune: the Gilded Age. Today, a whirlwind tour of America in the Gilded Age–its time; its big themes; and how it changed United States (and Tesla!) forever.

007 – Tesla vs Edison: Round 1

Posted on November 20, 2017 by Stephen

The episode you’ve all been waiting for! Tesla arrives in New York City and takes a job with Thomas Edison. See the seeds of a life-long rivalry sown because of a broken million-dollar promise. It’s Tesla vs. Edison: Round 1–let’s get ready to rummmble!

[spp-transcript]

Tesla’s First AC Motor (Strasbourg 1883)

Posted on November 6, 2017 by Stephen

For some reason, I can’t get the image of Tesla’s first AC motor (his “marvelous simplicity”) to post in the show notes for this week’s episode. So here it is in a post of its own, instead.