Steam Punk is not the sub-genre in which either of us usually writes. When whaling history expert Lisa Norling came to speak to the Midwest Fiction Writers (Minnesota's chapter of Romance Writers of America) about her book, 'Captain Ahab had a Wife,' neither of us anticipated ever having cause to use the information she imparted about the whaling cultures of the late 19th Century. After all, how could you write a proper romance about couples separated for years during long whaling voyages? But then we began to wonder... what if some earlier—steampunk!—version of modern skyping had been available?
We hope you enjoy the result of our musings.