Steampunk: Fun genre, or annoying bandwagon?

[Liz Bent]

I've noticed that all things steampunk are becoming more and more widely available in stores, including things such as steampunk fiction anthologies.

Is this a good thing? I know several people that hate all things labeled "steampunk" because they are heartily sick and tired of hearing about it.

Is steampunk a fun genre, or an annoying bandwagon?

(come to think of it, I could ask this question about vampire novels as well)

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I have always been a fan of Steampunk, and I am glad to see that it's enjoying such a revival. It's more popular now then it was when it first appeared about twenty years ago, so I don't think it can be called a bandwagon when it took so long to generate so much interest.

I would say that it's simply something that many readers are finally beginning to appreciate.

Although fish moon cookies sound interesting, too.

 

[Doctor Crankenstein]

Each to their own. If you don't like it, don't read it. It's pretty simple really...

 

[Connavar]

Steampunk when its well done it can be a great fun to read. Im glad it hasnt died off and isnt only a thing of the past.

Heh 5 mins before i saw this thread i bought a steampunk called The Court of Air by Stephen Hunt from play.com

 

[J-WO]

Anything in print that's imaginative has got to be a good thing, really. My only concern, and perhaps its an inconsequential one, is that it has a tendency to, erm, pasteurize the Victorian world. Everyone's an aristocrat in pretty dress uniform, or a super-Zeppelin builder. There's the danger of viewing the class system through rose tinted goggles, where the slums are just background seasoning. I'm sure the best Steampunk writer's take that into account, though.

To be honest, I'm more intrigued by the possibilities of Dieselpunk.

 

[Rodders]

I very much like the merging of different timeframes that created Steampunk. It's a great look.

 

[chopper]

you can have a lot of fun with the different, ah, cogs that make up the steampunk machine. The writers' groop i frequent has created an alternate earth where a steampunk British Empire reigned supreme through the first half of the 20th century and sent the first man to the moon - but, further south, the library at Alexandria still stands, the Moors are extremely good with clockwork (wind-up taxis in Marrakech!) and we're actually looking at what would come after steampunk.

Stephen Hunt is a pretty good starting point - he riffs on a lot of Victorian and Edwardian tales - HG Wells, Jules Verne etc. Steampunk Magazine is also well worth a look.

 

[HareBrain]

I think as a label it starts to get annoying when people attach it to stories just because their worlds share some similarity with the 19th century. I've even heard it applied to The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers, which, if memory serves, does not contain a single steam-powered device!

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

It's not about the steam-powered devices, HB. "Steam" just refers to the era, and a lot of the stories that were sort of pulled together in the beginning and labeled as a sub-genre did not fit the term as some people define it now.

If you look on some of the older lists of Steampunk, you'll find a much wider variety than you do now. There is even one book with an 18th century setting that used to get mentioned.

 

[Connavar]

If you look on some of the older lists of Steampunk, you'll find a much wider variety than you do now. There is even one book with an 18th century setting that used to get mentioned.

Which book is that ? 18th century steampunk sound interesting.

I find it interesting how readers today limit subgenres of SFF to what they like. A book isnt a steampunk if it isnt exactly like the way they expect or like. Like a writer can give up on creating his world,story,take on steampunk.

 

[J-WO]

Not that one should try to put hard definitions on something that's entirely fanciful, but where would you all say the inspirational era for Steampunk begins and ends?

For me, it begins sometime after Jane Austen or perhaps Waterloo (before which we're in the realm of Flintlock fantasy) and ends with the last effective cavalry charges on the western front (where Steampunk slams suddenly, and painfully, into the Dieselpunk age). That's my take, anyway. But I could have a skewed understanding of it all.

 

[HareBrain]

I don't really know why I feel so strongly about this -- possibly the fear that my own stuff might get labelled Steampunk, and that someone else will then say of it: "Well, that was **** -- doesn't have any airships or steam-powered robots."

Anyway, I'm prepared to accept that my dislike of this pigeon-holing is irrational. Nevetheless, I ask you to think what you get if you stick your hand into a pigeon-hole. You either get your skin pecked off or your hand covered in bird-crap.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

HareBrain, the association with Steampunk wouldn't hurt you, and if people are engaged by your characters, story, and setting they won't worry about the lack of machinery.

I'm not sure what you mean about pigeonholing, though. It sounds like you are against classifying anything by subgenre, but I'm not sure.

 

[HareBrain]

It sounds like you are against classifying anything by subgenre, but I'm not sure.

It's true, I don't have much use for such classification myself, and I think it could restrict both authors and readers. Many of my favourite reads have crossed genre boundaries or been otherwise not easily classifiable.

Having said that, I suppose I would use the term Steampunk myself, but probably in a more limited sense: to me, the term suggests a world which has advanced beyond our own steam age in terms of ideas and innovation, except that no other means of power has been discovered to replace it. I know that's probably too specific, but I can't relate the "punk" part of the name to anything very close to our 19th-c society: it implies something modern or even futuristic.

Anyway, it certainly doesn't include The Anubis Gates, which is probably at the root of this particular annoyance.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

But the "punk" part was just a joke. And at the time the term was coined, people playfully attached the word to more than one emerging subgenre as a play on the word Cyberpunk, which was the big thing at the time. The difference was that some of the other subgenre's didn't endure, or they had originally been called something else. "Mannerpunk" was Fantasy of Manners (and some books that were FOM, if they didn't exactly share a house with Steampunk, at least they lived in the same neighborhood). But Steampunk was christened with that name from the very beginning, so it stuck, even though it was never meant to be taken seriously.

It's a pity if people are taking it too seriously now, because it was always meant to be fun.

 

[Anne Lyle]

I'd like to see more Sandalpunk (Ancient Greek/Classical Roman equivalent), because I'm fascinated by lost technologies such as the Antikythera Mechanism. I've tried writing it, but I just don't find men in togas sexy

My non-Elizabethan project for NaNoWriMo 2010 is going to be 18th-century-esque - I love all those early "crime" novels like Moll Flanders, and there's something inherently surreal and scary about the Rococo style. Definitely Clockpunk, though, since it's too early for steam...

 

[chopper]

there's such a thing as clockpunk? hey, sounds like i've written my way into it already!

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

there's such a thing as clockpunk?

I don't think so, but there should be.

and there's something inherently surreal and scary about the Rococo style.

There was also much that was disquieting in the magic, medicine, and science of that era. I've written three books inspired by that time period, and some of the most bizarre things in them I didn't have to invent.

 

[Allanon]

What's Steampunk?

 

[HareBrain]

But the "punk" part was just a joke. And at the time the term was coined, people playfully attached the word to more than one emerging subgenre as a play on the word Cyberpunk, which was the big thing at the time.

Sure, but in my opinion, using "-punk" as a subgenre suffix has long since lost its playful cleverness and has become lazy and irritating -- like suffixing everything with "-gate" to indicate a scandal.

(Anyone else remember the Mitchell and Webb sketch where one of them argues that the scandal at the Watergate hotel should surely be known as Watergate-gate?)