The trade paperback edition of “By Any Other Name” is available as of the 22nd of June, 2012.  It is available on Amazon.com, CreateSpace or through your local bookstore via direct order.

The second book in the series, titled “A Bloodier Rose” is tentatively scheduled for eBook release in the first week of December, 2012.

About the Author

Michel R Vaillancourt is forty-two years old, currently living in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada.  His day job is CEO & Alpha-Geek for a video conference hosting & telephony services company.  He is married, has a son and has been reading and writing for most of his life.

He has been directly involved in Steampunk for more than a year and has been a fan of Victorian science-fiction such as Jules Verne since childhood.

Reviews and Interviews

• The Steam Wench’s Salon – Pre-Publish Review (Jan 2011)
• Writer’s Block Party Author Interview (Dec 2011)
• The Steam Wench’s Salon – Author Interview (Dec 2011)
• “I Meant To Read That” – Author Interview (Dec 2011)
• “Anonymous Legacy” Blog – Brief Review (Jan 2012)
• Carrie Ann Ryan Romance – Author Interview (Jan 2012)
• Surly Muse – Author Interview (Jan 2012)
• S.L. Schmitz – Book Review (Jan 2012)
• K. A. Laity “Wombat’s World” – Author Interview (Jan 2012)
• A Knife & A Quill – Author Interview (June 2012)
• Fiona Mcvie of Inspiration Forum – Author Interview (July 2012)

Q&A

• Did you originally set out to write a novel?

Actually, no.  It started out to answer a question that I had for myself…  what would the world look like to support Steampunk Airship Pirates, and who would those pirates be?  I started publishing the chapters one at a time as I wrote them on a social media publishing site.  The resulting feedback I got encouraged me to keep going.  Over the span of about three months of my spare time, the first book of The Sauder Diaries emerged.

• What is your writing process?  What is it like writing The Sauder Diaries?

I have a tremendous writing application I use, called OmmWriter.  It completely clears the screen away for me, lets me focus on the words and removes all the usual distractions both visual and auditory that are part of desktop computers.  I average about 450 words per hour of composition when writing and I work in two to three hour sets before I take a break and do something else.  About 30 to 40% of my work time is research;  digging around online resources trying to incorporate enough ‘real world’ facts into my writing that when I do bend things, it is done in a credible way.

• Why Steampunk?

The simple answer is that I’ve always loved Victorian science fiction, such as the writings of Jules Verne.  Entire areas of our world were open to settings of grand adventure.  It was an era where communications speeds and travel speeds meant that the decisions being made in the heat of the moment were entirely the responsibility of people who were in the thick of it.  The individual was empowered, and leadership was part of heroism.  

Another thing that attracts me to Steampunk is the ability to open up that sense of adventure in a way that the social mores and conditions of the real Victorian era could not.  H. M. Stanley’s popular quotation, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” could not have been delivered by a woman of the era.  But what about a world where it could?  What an interesting place that would be.

• What were your inspirations?

Well, first and foremost was the Steampunk music group, Abney Park.  They have been called “the face of Steampunk” for good reason.  They capture the aesthetic perfectly in their stage personae and music.  After that was the general membership of the greater Steampunk community;  going to a convention like Steamcon and seeing all the effort and dedication that goes into the costumes and props and such is really amazing.

For the battle scenes, I drew upon my own experiences in modern military operations as well as my love of recreational sword fighting.  Of course, I read a lot of histories of the Age of Sail, the Age of Steam and the early days of airships and powered flight.

• What next for the crew of the Bloody Rose?  For you?

Hans Sauder, Captain Blackheart and the rest of the Bloody Rose are already well on their way through their next adventure.  Things are getting scary in a game of cloak and dagger between the Russian and Allied Empires, and our famous band of pirates are caught up in the game.  From a heist of high tech weapons, to a battle with rocket-powered fighter planes, to unraveling the secrets of an ancient temple, they are running the ragged edge all the way to the end.

For me, I intend to keep working on the second and hopefully third books as a wonderful outlet for my creativity.  As a small-press author, certainly some of my time is going to be invested in promoting my book and hopefully being accessible to any fans I might gain.  Of course, my wife and son are important, so they will be part of anything  I do.

• Do you already know how it ends?

Yes.  I worked out the entire story arc by the time I had written all of the third chapter of the first book.  The details are fluid, but I know how the whole thing generally goes.  I can’t give too many details, of course… that would spoil the fun.

• What age group/ rating would you consider appropriate for The Sauder Diaries?

In terms that most teens and adults will understand, I’m suggesting that it falls under the Entertainment Software Rating Board’s (ESRB) category of “Mature (17+)”.  That means that “…Individual Chapters/ Entries may contain intense violence, blood and gore, explicit sexual themes/content, nudity, use of alcohol/drugs, and strong language”.  Its a story about pirates with heavy weapons, after all.

 Fun Facts About The World of The Sauder Diaries

• Judo really was taught in Berlin in the late 1800s.  A Japanese master was on tour through Europe during that period, teaching at symposiums.
• The Bersey “Humming Bird” electric cab did actually operate in Victorian London.  It is just available about 5 years early in Hans Sauder’s world compared to our own.
• The monstrous LeMatt revolver that Hans Sauder gets as a gift did exist and works as described.
• The Kodak Camera used by the pirates did actually exist in the late 1800s.  It was actually a disposable camera;  you took the whole camera back to Kodak and they would take it apart and develop the pictures for you.
• The principle of Galvanism — using electrical energy to reanimate corpses like in Mary Shelly’s Frankenstien — was a real field of research in the period.
• The concepts behind the differential analyzer were actually first conceived in 1876 … it just was not actually built in our world until 1912.