The Steampunk Tarot Cards Author: Barbara Moore | Language: English | ISBN:
0738726389 | Format: EPUB
The Steampunk Tarot Cards Description
About the Author
The tarot has been a part of Barbara Moore’s personal and professional lives for over two decades. In college, the tarot intrigued her with its marvelous blending of mythology, psychology, art, and history. Later, she served as the tarot specialist for Llewellyn Publications. Over the years, she has been active in the American Tarot Association and has spoken at tarot conferences around the United States. Barbara’s articles on the tarot have appeared in several tarot publications and in Llewellyn Publications New Worlds of Mind and Spirit magazine. She has also sat on the Tarot Journal editorial board. Barbara’s own education in the tarot has been and continues to be broad and enlightening. She has studied under renowned tarot scholars Mary K. Greer and Rachel Pollack, and she has taught the tarot to all manner of would-be tarot readers.
Barbara enjoys the challenge of giving a voice to tarot cards and oracle decks. She has had the good fortune to write books for several decks, including A Guide to Mystic Faerie Tarot, The Gilded Tarot Companion, The Hip Witch Tarot, Enchanted Oracle and The Mystic Dreamer Tarot.
Aly Fell is a UK-based illustrator with over 20 years experience in publishing, animation, and games.
- Cards: 312 pages
- Publisher: Llewellyn Publications; Tcr Crds/P edition (May 8, 2012)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0738726389
- ISBN-13: 978-0738726380
- Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 2.3 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Step into a world where the past has been rewritten and reimagined. Steampunk is a genre, which came into prominence during the 1980's and 1990's. It incorporates science fiction and fantasy together to create a world that is simply described as "what the past would have looked like if the future had happened sooner". Steampunk is normally placed in the Victorian era, where steam engines are widely used. What would tarot look with this wonderful spin on history? Barbara Moore along with artist Aly Fell has manifested this in a well-executed deck that is The Steampunk Tarot.
I am a big fan of Barbara Moore's work within the tarot field. I recently reviewed her new book Tarot Spreads: Layouts & Techniques to Empower Your Readings and was dying to get my hands on the Steampunk Tarot because this is Barbara's first deck she has commissioned and just loved the teasers should would post on Facebook. So now that I had the deck in my possession for some time I present here my opinions and thoughts, oh lord where do I start?
Firstly let me start with the artwork. Aly Fell did an excellent job at creating this deck. The artwork was done digitally but you would never suspect it because it looks it was drawn by hand. The colors are soft and subdued with some areas of contrasts colors such as The Hermit's lantern, which emits electric blue shocks. The reds of The Empress and Justice are rich. The stained glass of the 5 of Pentacles creates a huge contrast against the dark snowing scene, which is welcoming. The black borders are always a huge plus on any deck especially with this deck since it blends well with the overall color tone of the deck. The card stock is standard for what Llewellyn produces, I really would like to see them step their game up and get a thicker cardstock.
The Steampunk Tarot, designed by Barbara Moore and illustrated by Aly Fell, is a themed tarot based on a Victorian era when archaic steam machines coexisted with mystics and spiritualist. This is not just a redressing of the Rider-Waite-Smith (RWS) Tarot with Victorian clothes, but instead a masterful re-imaging of the classic tarot. This unique tarot is accessible to everyone, and a definitive must-buy for tarot collectors.
I have been waiting for this deck to come out since I spotted a few sample cards over the internet. I'm not a fan of the Steampunk genre other than a few movies like Steamboy, but once I got my hands on this deck I was spell bound to it for nearly an hour.
If you are used to the RWS Tarot, then you are in familiar territory with this deck. The Steampunk tarot reinterprets the RWS symbolism in the light of a fantasized Victorian era. This is done so well, that at first I didn't realize these cards were labeled. A thin black border surrounds the image of each card that provides just enough space at the bottom for labeling and numbering. The back of these cards show a chalice, a rod, a sword and a pentacle arranged on top of a mechanistic background similar to the inside of a clock.
The Major Arcana are numbered with 0 for the Fool and roman numerals for the rest, and labeled following the RWS convention. The imagery of most of these cards is inspired on the Steampunk theme. For example:
* The Lovers - the lovers are properly clothed for the time period,
* Death - Death is still on a horse but the rider is now a black winged woman, the angel of death.
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