from the days when they didn't yet call it that

[sergebroom]

A couple of days ago, I started reading Harry Harrison's "A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!", a recently reprinted novel from 1972. It's an alternate History of that year, in which England begins the Grand Project of building a tunnel between Europe and America, and its engineer is a descendant of George Washington who's had to live with the shame of his ancestor's role in the crushed Rebellion. This basically is a steampunk novel, except that it'd be about 15 years before KW Jeter would come up with that word. The beginning takes a less fanciful approach to worldbuilding than current steampunk stories do. Halfway thru though, I began getting the uncomfortable feeling that the author was making things up as he went and consistency be damned. I could handle the idea of a steampowered locomotive with a primitive atomic engine as its heat source, but we then went from an airship that was cutting-edge technology to hovercrafts and helicopters. That's when my suspension of disbelief broke. I guess I'll skip the rest of the book. So it goes.