Félix J. Palma was born in Sanlúcar in Andalucía, Spain in 1968. Highly influenced by both genre fiction and the elusive metafictions of Julio Cortázar, he is a noted author of award-winning short stories, such as those gathered in El vigilante de la salamandra (The Lizard’s Keeper, 1998), as well as of the best-selling novel The Map of Time (2008; in English translation 2012). A sequel to that novel, The Map of the Sky, will be published in September 2012.

"What I like most [about steampunk] is the possibility of playing with the naïve credulity of the Victorians, who could believe in the scientific advance as much as in the magical. That’s why there was such a prevalence of spiritualism and secret societies. It was a world of contrasts, and, moreover, a time of adventure, as the world was still unknown, not fully explored, and man’s fantasies could run free. Victorians could believe that there was a civilization living at the center of the earth or that the moon was inhabited, and science could not yet prove to them that they were wrong."