Steampunk Cakes and More

Here's a few Steampunk tidbits that I've come across during the past week:

First up is the results of a Steampunk Cake Contest hosted by CakeCentral.com

This is the first place winner of the contest designed and made by Artisan Cake Company. There were some awesome cakes in the winner's circle including a Steampunk Venus de Milo cake!

Next up are some lovely Steampunk Short fiction pieces written in response to T.S. Bazelli's Author Aerobics: Plot Challenge at Ink Stained.

The Challenge:

In 1000 words or less, write a piece of fiction that includes all the elements of the 3 act structure, including at least one crisis in the rising action. To make things more interesting use the word "zeppelin" somewhere in the story.

There is only one rule: set a time limit.

There were two lovely responses:

The Last Flight of Lord Winstead's Vigilance by Stephen Watkins

The Metal Girl by T.S. Bazelli

You should also check out the fantastic blog post by Steampunk Scholar on Defining Steampunk as an Aesthetic. Here's a small snippet to hopeful pique your interest:

Steampunk is an aesthetic: it is a look, or a style. It is not a genre, because within the literature, there is no recurrent narrative element that one can point to which appears in all, or even most of the books.

Finally, if you haven't checked it out yet, the Great Steampunk Debate is currently running and has some great insights into Steampunk. There's lots of information and perspectives from all over.