I’m a British-Canadian author writing full-time in Lincolnshire England. While I lived most of my life in Canada and the USA, I’m glad to be home!
My overactive imagination fills my mind with three dimensional puzzles of stacked what-if questions that cry out for answers. In my writer’s den, I dream up whimsical adventures that range from the satirical to the macabre while wrestling my ginger tabby Jazz for control of the keyboard.
I’m a proud member of the Florida Writers Association where I have conducted webinars and spoken at conferences on my favorite topics of Steampunk, Dieselpunk, and Retrofuturism. I belong to the Alliance of Independent Authors. My novels, novellas, and short stories are available in print and ebook with Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple iBooks and other major booksellers.
My first published novel, Tiger Paw won the 2012 Royal Palm Literary Award for Best Thriller from the Florida Writers Association. Tiger Paw blends action and intrigue with psychological suspense, and asks the questions, how far will someone go to sell his soul to the Devil? And what if the Devil seeks revenge?
DragonFly ventures into the realm of dieselpunk, a retro-futuristic collision of science fiction and fantasy with overtones of alternative history. It won an FWA Royal Palm Literary Award Bronze Medal in Science Fiction in 2014 and the Readers’ Favorite Silver Medal in YA Action/Adventure in 2018.
My dieselpunk series, Missions of the DragonFly Squadron explores the incredibly turbulent times during the 1940s and the ‘what ifs’ that might have been for a generation burdened by the ravages of war. Book One DragonFly follows the journey of Veronica Somerset as she battles the odds to become Britain’s first female fighter pilot. DragonFly is not just a novel, it is a whole new world of fantastic technology, dangerous fighting machines and wizards battling across the boundary between good and evil.
Does your heart beat faster in the dark than in the daylight? Do your hands tingle under the touch of copper and brass? Then The Most Peculiar Tales are sure to satisfy. Six paranormal tales set in Steampunk Britannia, 1872.
Join Professor Atticus Carr, and his assistant Jeremiah Boone, as they travel the darkest alleys, and the even darker aether, to bring you The Most Peculiar Tales.
My short story Crystal Night won the Best Novella Gold Medal at the 2016 Royal Palm Literary Awards. My story The Orchid Man won the Best Novelette Gold Medal at the 2019 RPLA Awards. Both of these short stories feature in The Prometheus Saga anthologies.
My other novellas and short stories have featured in the science fiction anthology Return To Earth as well as the horror anthology In Shadows Written.
Hi Charles! Thanks for the inclusion in your recent dieselpunk post (which I also thoroughly enjoyed reading)! I wondered if you’d be interested in reviewing the book on your blog? If you don’t already have a copy, I would happily email you a free eBook copy.
Very excited to read your novel as well, as I find there isn’t nearly enough dieselpunk fiction out there (in contrast to the bevy of steampunk offerings). Thanks again for the mention, and let me know if you’d like me to email you a copy!
Best,
-Dan Glaser, author of “A Fistful of Nothing”
Charles, I’d love to include photos from your website in the Perihelion Science Fiction book review (August 2014 edition), if Sam agrees to it and if you and your artists do. You must be offline this weekend. Your illustrated edition of Dragonfly is a steal at $3.99 and I hope you sell millions of this book!
Mr. Cornell,
I listened to your talk at the St. Petersburg main library last Thursday. I’d like to thank you for making me more aware of
additional kinds of “punk”.
With regard to the date of transition from steam to diesel punk, I was a little puzzled. Diesel got his patent on the diesel
cycle in 1895, but I couldn’t remember any transition between steam and diesel power. Certainly not for automobiles or for
electric power generation. Then I remembered that there was a transition between steam and diesel on railroad locomotives.
I used to watch trains and I remember when the majority of locomotives were still steam powered. Then there was a quick
transition to diesel-electric starting at about 1945. I remember riding on the El Capitan, which was a diesel-electric passenger
train introduced in about 1947 on the Atcheson, Topeka and Santa Fe. There was never a time when the railroads used
gasoline and the otto cycle that was being used in cars. It clarified the transition from steam to diesel, for me, when I thought
of the history of railroad locomotives.
Thanks again for an enjoyable talk.
Gordon Hoover