Today we would like you to meet Suna Dasi, one of the "Steampunk Writers Around the World" authors. Suna has contributed the short story "UNMADE", one of the stories you will be able to read in English.
Above, you can see Jay Johnstone's image created for this particular story. Jay is also responsible for creating the cover of the anthology.
Suna Dasi is a passionate geek with a pen. Her profession as a singer has taken her all over the world. She currently records and performs with Texan artist Erin Bennett. Being a woman in the creative industries led her to co-found female film and music production company Art Attack Films/Attack Agency. Suna is the founder of PandoraFest, Scotland's first female-focused music festival. She has also contributed fiction to The Clockwork Watch Transmedia Project, The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences spin-off anthology series Tales From the Archives, and non-fiction to Jeff VanderMeer's Steampunk User's Manual and the SciFi Fantasy Network.
Here is Suna on the anthology and on her story, "Unmade":
This anthology has been gestating for some time: Paulo Ramirez Villaseñor and Josué Ramos' first suggested the idea a few years back. It was born during the annual Steampunk Hands Around the World multimedia event, an initiative by Airship Ambassador Kevin D. Steil.
All the contributing writers and artists connected through Steampunk Hands, which is exactly what that event is for: to join as many likeminded Steampunks and Steampunk aficionados worldwide and show that shared passion for a genre or subculture exceeds physical, cultural and social boundaries.
Especially as Steampunk lends itself extremely well to re-envision an alternate speculative world which rewrites the more dodgy elements of Victorian colonial history. Steampunk world-building incorporates a multitude of gender roles, class strata, sexual preferences and diverse cultural groups and expressions as equal aspects of a multilayered realm in which those things are calmly accepted and gloriously normalised.
So that writers have the luxury to get on with the business of what they are most passionate about: the telling of the actual story.
It's been a pleasure to be part of this group of writers and to add my flavour to the cauldron of stories here told.
I wanted to blend several ingredients. A woman under duress, learning to trust, with a goodly dash of adventure, simmering climates, an homage to the Westinghouse robot, plus a bit of social commentary without ever overbalancing the chance of a yarn by getting too heavy.
For those of you who have no taste for the final ingredient I must beg your indulgence. It's is also a kissing tale.
You can pre-order your copy on our website, through your usual outlets, or even pick up a copy in Helsinki, during the Worldcon!
We leave you with a little teaser of Suna Dasi's story. Enjoy!
UNMADE
Nausea.
That’s all the explosion was to me.
No flying through the air, no flash of light: just the stolid “Dhoomp!” that overwhelmed my body and emptied my stomach.
No noise. No smell of burning. I don’t remember my hand being ripped off. Nor my leg.