Over the next couple of months, I'm going to be working on getting Issue #7 up and out there for all you lovely people to read.

What this means that that I'm starting to look on to Issue #8 (which will be released in the second half of next year) and to think about what the theme for the issue could be.

Having got my own pesonal obsession out of the way with 'The Pre-Industrial Revolution' and then moved onwards to look at the future of the steampunk community with 'New and Future Worlds' I've now got to the end of the things that I really wanted to deal with.

So, suggestions for the theme for the next one?

how's about givin the comparison to industrial age steampunk, medieval age javalier, and techno age cyberfreak?

Like I said, I think an issue around the topic of art, art for its own sake, and functional art would be interesting.

The Oxford Steampunk Art Exhibition was an interesting mix of functional art (thus raising the question of: if functionality was its primary characteristic was the fact it was also steampunk-ly attractive was it therefore art or simple a pretty functional item?) and art without function (or without practical use, as art itself is a function).

Steampunk is an interesting mix of practicality and flights of fancy, necklaces with cogs, goggles which are purely decorative, items in which the gears and levers do something, and items in which they are there purely for the look. Articles, debate and fiction based around whether steampunk has art or whether all steampunk flights of fancy are/should be functional and the place/style/forms of non-functional art would be interesting.