For those that don’t know it, steampunk is a subgenre of sci-fi/fantasy that deals with impossible Jules Verne-esque mechanisms and wild proto-Tesla technologies. To the left you will see one possible example of a steampunk jack-o-lantern, only without the requisite clattering boiler-powered movements and War of the Worlds-style heat rays.

I got this from southern-gothic horror writer and blogstress Cherie Priest‘s Flickr stream. If you’ve not heard of Ms. Priest, it’s because she’s an up-and-comer and because you don’t hang with the sci-fi/fantasy/horror blog set (I so desperately want to be a sci-fi scribe I’m stalking their blog-cliques). In any case, I highly recommend her debut novel, Four and Twenty Blackbirds, and I’m looking forward to Wings to the Kingdom, neither of which is steampunk, but the former is quite creepy-cool and very seasonal. If you can’t wait for a good Priest-ly ghost yarn, you can go ahead and read her The Wreck of the Mary Byrd online. I’m gearing up to take a spin with those stories myself, when opportunity presents. Enjoy.