Dragon*Con Panel: Steampunk Vs. Victorian Science Fiction

[momebie]

The alternate title to this post being: or, How I Learned That It Was Okay To Stand Up For the Fantasy.

You know, my co-workers spent all day asking me if I had a good time on my vacation, and I spent all day nodding emphatically and saying yes, but I was a little stuck when they asked me what I did that was so fun. How do I explain my love for academic panels without putting them to sleep? Blah blah vampire emergency existentialism and self-actualization in the Whedonverse blah. Seee, I don't. So now you guys have to deal with it. Joy!

On the Friday of Dragon*Con I attended the Steampunk vs. Victorian Science Fiction panel, which was something of a discussion/debate between G.D. Falksen and Austin Sirkin. It actually turned out to be my favorite panel of the con, because the two of them couldn't seem to agree on what the actual difference between steampunk and Victorian science fiction was. (It does get boring and tiresome sometimes, watching panelists agree for an hour.) They were civil to each other in their disagreement--something people from a few of the other panels I attended could learn from--and both of them brought up interesting points throughout the panel. The ones that stuck out to me went something like this:


This picture is totally relevant to the discussion!

• Modern steampunk authors tend to use tech we know will work rather than explore possibilities like Victorian Scifi did.
  
• Very often in steampunk we’re working with technology we know isn’t possible, but we have implied possibility in history.
  
• This implied possibility is found throughout the science fiction genre.

Some of you haven't been here for very long, but you may know that I'm working on a novel length steampunk-ish project with theemdash. We call it 'The Steampunk' for short, and because we're shit at naming things. (I'm especially shit at naming things that haven't been worked out yet.) A few months ago I became frustrated and gave up on that project and left it to her, with the caveat that I be allowed to use my characters again if I wanted to. We talked about it then and I agreed to come back. Until this panel I was not able to really satisfactorily articulate to myself what had bothered me so much about working on the project in that way. Now I can say with absolute certainty that it's because the wonder was gone.

Em likes to plan things. (And she knows I'm planning on talking about her here, so worry not!) She's a little anal and a little OCD, and that's fine. Someone needs to be and it sure as hell isn't going to be me. She also needs to know how things work before she can move on with them. I wanted the communication between The Architects to work one way, and she went off with McKay and spent a week trying to figure out if it could. Now, this isn't inherently a bad thing. It's not something I fault her for. It's just that, to me, picking it apart like that, and like we did with every other aspect of the plot before it finally ground to a halt, killed it for me.

There was simply no wonder left. I need wonder.

In listening to the discussion between the panelists it seemed to me that the difference between Victorian science fiction and steampunk was that one of those looked forward and the other looked back. (But since we as a community are also looking back and retroactively labeling things as steampunk when they weren't thought of in that way before, it muddies the waters.)

The works of Miyazaki and other Eastern creative types was brought up as an example. In Eastern steampunk works we find contraptions that are close to those found in original Victorian science fiction. Ships that move about in the air with propellers instead of gas chambers are one specific example. To us in the Western world that sort of thing seems silly. There's no way something of that size could be kept aloft by sets of propellers, so we default to our historical scientific knowledge when we want air transportation. We are, in essence, merely being anachronistic by moving technology forward rather than letting ourselves enjoy the feelings of optimism and implied possibility of the era.

I think that in my writing I'd rather be true to the optimism and implied possibility than to mechanical accuracy. Implied possibility is something of a main stay in all science fiction works. We don't need to know how the warp drive on the Millennium Falcon works--not that I'm doubting that there are those who think they do--we just need to know that it does. And it works the same way every time, which is more important to world building than the nuts and bolts and whys. In the end the story is about the characters, that's what I want to be focusing on. I let myself be convinced to spend too much energy thinking about something else and the story suffered for it. Lesson learned.

Correlating nicely to the idea of optimism in the genre is the thought that most modern steampunk works contain a certain sense of modernism, which means they work from the belief that everything is building towards a logical conclusion. I rather like this idea, and it reminds me of how the character Jon in the project I'm working on feels about his place in the world. He thinks the monarchy is an outdated system, but he doesn't trust the bourgeois class to run things in a way he deems appropriate. Basically, he wants his cake and he wants to eat it too, and he is not going to tolerate people getting between him and his fucking cake.

This leads me to another idea brought up during the panel that I'm still chewing over, which is the question of whether or not we can have a character who has racist or sexist views because they were brought up that way and have them still be a sympathetic character. In The Steampunk in particular there's a character called Tom who is going along with Jon's plans because he approves of the possible outcome if Jon succeeds. He turns his head a lot when it comes to the way people who are 'lesser' individuals are treated. He isn't a bad person, but he was raised to believe certain things, and when those certain things are challenged he has a hard time coming to terms with the new morality that's trying to map itself over the one he already has formed. In the end he has to come to terms with the way the world is changing, but they all do, really.

When the question of whether it is possible for a modern reader to find sympathy with someone who has blatantly racist or sexist views was brought up during a later panel--one actually on inequalities in race and gender--the unanimous response was a resounding no, we cannot find them sympathetic. If we sympathize with these people it implies that we are sympathizing with their ideals, which are backward to our way of thinking. I'm not so sure that's the case, though. When we're moving Victorian tropes forward I think we have to take the good with the bad. It would take great skill, however, to pull something like that off. It's certainly not something I plan on tackling right out of the gate, but it's a theme I wouldn't mind playing with in the future.

In the end I feel that the steampunk genre isn't merely about gears and clocks and gaslight. (As one of the panelists put it, the Greeks had gears, and they weren't steampunk.) The genre, for me anyway, is about examining the Victorian tropes through the bottom of a clean glass. It's bringing the struggles of race and class and gender into a modern age and looking at how they are turned on their heads. (Class struggle and the idea of rebelling against the traditional masculine and feminine have been a big part of The Steampunk from the start.) It's an alternate history. It's the way things could have been if the world were moved 15 degrees to the left on a summer day in 1852.

For me steampunk is about a joy of science fiction and history and anachronism. It is not about technical acumen or being a part of the next big thing. Yes, I'm glad the genre is growing. I'd be a fool not to be happy about that, because it means that when this is done, whatever form it finds, it might have a broader audience, but I'm not writing this story purely for the marketing possibilities. I'm writing it because I'm interested in it. Because I think I've found a voice in it that I want to let out. Because I wonder. It's the same reason I write everything else I write, actually.

TL;DR. Uh, and if you made it through all that I'm buying you ice cream. Feel free to come in and discuss any of this, because I could seriously yammer on about it forever if anyone would sit still long enough.

And please join me tomorrow when I discuss the military and its use in science fiction, a science fiction project I'm working on, and why pacifism will only get you lost inside of the belly of a sarlacc.

Comments

[3libras.livejournal.com]

I have nothing to say on the topic of steampunk but hey, I didn't know you knew Austin! :D

[momebie.livejournal.com]

I don't really! I certainly know who he is. I had two friends separately tell me to friend his lj last year around this time, but he doesn't post in it anymore so I don't really have the chance to know him better. Which is a shame, because I mostly want to thank him for the great academic panels at the Alt History track this year.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I really like what you have to say here. I'm somewhere between you and Em, I like the wonder side of things most, but I need to have some details sorted to feel comfortable -- hence the two weeks to find out how far a mediaeval army could move in a day if their food and support was coming by land, vs coming by water ;-)

When the question of whether it is possible for a modern reader to find sympathy with someone who has blatantly racist or sexist views was brought up during a later panel--one actually on inequalities in race and gender--the unanimous response was a resounding no, we cannot find them sympathetic. If we sympathize with these people it implies that we are sympathizing with their ideals, which are backward to our way of thinking.

I think that's a ridiculous argument, and one that fails real-world tests. All of us know someone in our real lives who is dodgy, but we love them anyway. Most of my family is so politically correct it hurts, but my maternal grandfather was constantly mistrustful of any Japanese person over the age of 50, having travelled through South-East Asia in the years immediately following WWII and meeting many victims of the occupying Japanese. He didn't like the Germans, either, after having RAF-fed his way through WWII in Europe. And while I never sympathised with his blanket racism, I did sympathise with him, as his experiences were scarring.

It's the same with reading Victorian literature. I am always staggered by people who accuse Arthur Conan Doyle of being a vile racist, because he is actually very good by the standards of the time, and is similarly quite decent with women. Martin Amis's attitudes to women are far more shocking, as he is about the same age as my Mum and she was a serious Feminist and Lesbian Activist and I spent my childhood at very loud protests in which she and women like her yelled and threw things and set fire to things when needed, so how he can see women in the way he does when he grew up in a world she was in -- makes no sense! ACD grew up in a different world, in which women activists wore corsets and politely wrote letters setting out why they should have the vote far more often than they threw themselves in front of racehorses.

That sympathy is not an endorsement of attitudes that today would be reprehensible, rather, it's an understanding of the fact that people and societies change. To think otherwise is in fact an act of cultural imperialism, and makes me worry how those people look at other cultures in our contemporary world.

It's the way things could have been if the world were moved 15 degrees to the left on a summer day in 1852.

Love that wording!

[momebie.livejournal.com]

I don't generally fly entirely blind. I quite like researching things about different periods. For The Steampunk in particular I did some research on how clocks and watches of the period worked because we have a character with a clockwork heart and we wanted to know if there was a way we could allow him to run or become excited without overworking it. (Or without him having some sort of heart attack because his heart WOULDN'T move that quickly.) And I've done lots of research on slang and clothing for the original era, thought it will be altered some, because the world we're working in is not entirely the real world. I just don't think that keeping some things that are fanciful is detrimental to the process.

I also thought that was a bit of a ridiculous argument. While I do spend a lot of time telling my father he can't just call people niggers (because there's a difference between them and black people, didn't you know) and that he can't slag off people of differing sexualities in my presence or I may well never talk to him again, I know he's not a bad person. He's a product of his environment, and he's better by a longshot than his own father.

Arthur Conan Doyle is an interesting case. He was especially left thinking in his ideas of homosexuals. For the time anyway. I don't think I'd get away with considering it a mental problem, but that's better than most people saw it. And it's curious that people find him sexist or racist, because nothing I've read by him struck me that way. Especially next to some of his contemporaries. To, though, it was pointed out in that first panel that the people in the room were probably more educated than the general public and able to tell the difference between sympathizing with a character and sympathizing with his ideals. And also capable of reading Victorian literature with the ideals of the era in mind rather than trying to lay it over our current set.

Amis I'm not familiar with, but I'll have to look him up. I do spend more time than I should wondering how people come into their opinions. Especially when they live in the world I live in. Of course, no one lives in exactly the same world as me, so that might not be a fair thing to consider. This could go in circles all day. Some days I wonder why I ever gave up on that Psych major. ;)

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

The problem is our vocabulary is so limited; because Doyle certainly believed racist things, but he wasn't a bigot. So.

[paper-tzipporah.livejournal.com]

Totes enjoyed all your thoughts on steampunk! Would like ice cream plz!

[momebie.livejournal.com]

I owe you one cup of ice cream! I'm going to have to write it down so I remember when I see you again. :p

[paragraphs.livejournal.com]

Super-busy at work, but I saw this this morning so took a moment to read it. It'll give me food for thought while I watch trains go down tracks. Too bad they aren't steam trains! I do have the weirdest job.

Anyway! Much thoughts on steampunk, but have to toss out that the panels I attended at Armadillocon? No one could really completely agree on what it is, either. I have yet to find The Story that says YES! THIS IS IT! Or anthology--I picked up one called STEAMPUNK and thus far, none really fit what i have in my head as what I want to see in a story, world, etc. My current read: CLOCKWORK HEART, while very good, feels more modern to me than Victorianish.

Been watching all those BBC production shows re: Victorian times (Pharmacy, Farm, and Christmas) and over and over the emphasis is on the changing world, the remnants of the old ways blending with the exciting new, the aura of possibility and hope for better lives (despite that being such a deadly time!). THAT is what I want to capture in my story, along with what made me nod in your post.

More later. This is so heavy on my mind, this STeampunk, Neo-Victorian or whatever you want to call it (Neo-Victorian was bandied about at Armadillocon, btw), and what it is that draws me to it other than what I say above. Also, I am thrilled you and Em have hashed out why The STeampunk was not working. I love what I know of it, fell for your characters ages ago and quite frankly, I think my searching i mentioned has failed in part because I am searching for exactly that--THE STEAMPUNK NOVEL. Yours. I want to read that, and admit I CHEERED when I saw you had decided to work on it again.

Keep that sense of wonder alive!

Dammit, I want to talk to you too about magic and the steampunk subgenre. Does magic have a place? ALSO (omg this is long) what to date is your favorite Steampunk story? Book? Yeah?

[momebie.livejournal.com]

TRAAAINS. I don't think I'd mind your job for a while. ;) True story, when I was a wee KL shaped thing my parents had to go find a train before I would allow them to put me to bed. They would just drive around until they found one and sit at the crossing and I would pass out. I don't even know.

Despite there being some blurring of the lines between what we call steampunk and what we call Victorian science fiction, there was an agreement over what steampunk was throughout the con, including steampunk panels in other tracks such as YA Lit. Basically it's a segment of the Alternate History market that deals with the time period from the Regency Era up to the second world war. (Or to the end of the Edwardian Era in 1910, depending on how tight you want to pull it.) When you go delving into the minutiae trying to say that cogs are steampunk and gears are steampunk, but gaslight isn't, that's where people become confused. And I'm not an expert, but I'd say that as long as the story has the right attitude it can be any one or none of those things and still be steampunk.

One of the things they couldn't agree on was whether or not we can include stories with magic or fantastic elements as part of the steampunk genre. I think that what the panelist was reacting to there is the current state of publishing and marketing engines who realize that steampunk is a burgeoning genre and are now shoehorning things into that space that don't really belong there. I think that true steampunk would be grounded in science fiction like cyberpunk before it, so when you write a novel about vampires that 'may have some steampunk elements' that doesn't necessarily mean it's actually steampunk.

That emphasis on the changing world is what makes things feel like steampunk to me, honestly. And if you can capture that I think your story will fit in just fine. While the overall allure of steampunk is a reaction against the clean, sterile, technological world we're moving into, the real hold of the genre is the commentary (as with all scifi) and the way we can draw parallels between our world and that one long ago. Things are always changing. It's our choice how we take those changes and if we accept them and look forward to them like the people of that era seemed to. Steampunk is optimistic while cyberpunk seemed largely pessimistic, but I think it's important to note that they come from the same soil.

As for our little story, it gives me immense confidence that you like the characters and where it was going. I can't wait to have more to share with you, because I know you'll be honest with me about it. I have to admit that I'm quite taken with some of my characters, so letting them go was not an easy decision for me at the time, and I'm very happy to be able to play with them again.

BUT YES. LET'S TALK ABOUT MAGIC AND THE STEAMPUNK GENRE. WHEN YOU HAVE THE TIME.

Clockwork Heart is definitely on my list of things to read, as are the novels of Cherie Priest's Clockwork Century Series. (I just won and arc of Dreadnought!) I actually lent my copies of both the Steampunk anthology and Boneshaker to Em and haven't gotten them back yet, so I haven't read either of them. I really, really want to. My favorite work of literature so far has been The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, because I'm boring and predictable.

[paragraphs.livejournal.com]

LOl I'm sitting here saying "yeah! That makes sense!" and "YES! I GET IT NOW!!!" They needed you on that panel! That was the bad thing about Armadillocon...small con, and there wasn't a single big-name steampunk writer, just those who had touched on it, and a husband and wife who are deeply into the clothing, construction, creation of steampunk articles--they both dressed the part all weekend (and oh! I loved her clothes!) and he had a steamer trunk full of things they'd transformed. My favorite was his keyboard, and her flashlight. LOL. They were fun.

I'm-a getting around to writing that mulling post, as I contemplate this further, and which storyline I want to write. I need to settle on one, and am leaning toward... Oh heck I will write that post, otherwise I will fill six comments here with my musings. LOL.

[paragraphs.livejournal.com]

Also, regarding magic...there is definitely a part of me that sincerely has no wish whatsoever to have to deal with it. I'd rather take the approach that the new and exciting technologies are magical and amazing, as they no doubt were during the Victorian period and beyond. :)

So much to consider! So much to ponder! So much to THINK ABOUT! And get out of my head!!!

And yes, I love your characters. They are marvelous!

[kat-scratches.livejournal.com]

I haven't anything to add about steampunk, but I did read all that, b/c y'know, it's learning something about something I know less than nothing about. <3

Buy me ice cream anyway. I'd rather right now have a bottle of vodka & a carton of Marlboros, but I'll settle for ice cream.

[momebie.livejournal.com]

STEP AWAY FROM THE VODKA, YOU. I will gladly supply the ice cream! Let me know where to send it!

[kat-scratches.livejournal.com]

Yeah, yeah... I know... And wouldn't ice cream melt if you sent it? Better that you just come visit T.O. again & we can just get it here. :)

[momebie.livejournal.com]

I think that's an excellent plan. I will be right there!

[xsnarkasaurus.livejournal.com]

I'm a lot like you. If I don't have any wonder in something, i have absolutely no interest in writing it. If something is plotted out to within an inch of its life, I'll avoid it like the plague. We were discussing that generality in my fiction writing class last night: do you plot a fic or do you just write and see what comes out?

In a genre like steampunk, I think that our method can be both beneficial and detrimental. Detrimental in the way that we may wind up writing something that doesn't work in the storyline because it doesn't do what we thought it did (I'm referring specifically to mechanical gadgets, here; plot bits may be summarily ignored, though this also applies here). At the same time, whatever we dream up may wind up being this incredibly amazing thing that we are astonished to learn has this special thing about it that allows it to get our characters out of a jam, even though we had no idea it existed.

Realizing that I tend to add a flavor of magic to my stories as much as the whimsical side of what I perceive to be steampunk, I don't know as it applies in the same way, but I think what I'm trying to verbalize (and....well, failing. Or at least mutilating) is that I agree with you. It's about the joy, the history, the anachronism, not the technical bits and bobs or the fact that it's up and coming. I'm writing it because it makes me gleeface to have Bitsey romping around, shedding cogs and Zacharias turning a teakettle into a cash register and Felicity facepalming at Henry and Jim as they ineptly bumble through something and come out the other side victorious and completely baffled as to how.

Also, thank you for sharing this. because you've totally shaken me loose on Move the Mountain. :D

ETA: I'll be in Orlando this weekend. I have books for your roommate! And hugs for you both!

[momebie.livejournal.com]

I think it's definitely a possibility that we might run into a problem with a made up element that we hadn't foreseen, but I'd argue that that's a possibility with any part of the story. And at that point I'd just do what I'd do for anything and take a step back and rework it from where it went off rails. That's a very important part of the writing process you know, fucking up. ;)

I stay away from magic, but I can see how magical elements might fall into that attitude. In one of the discussions I sat in someone mentioned that some of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels could be counted toward the steampunk feeling, and I agree with that. I also can't wait to read more about this cog shedding dragon. Thinking about it makes me kind of happy.

*pokes your motivation with a stick*

YAY. When are you going to be in town? We're going to the roller derby Sunday, and probably see Easy A on Saturday night, if you want to come to any of that!

[xsnarkasaurus.livejournal.com]

It is indeed. I figure, if you don't fuck up, you can't learn how to unfuck up, and if you can't unfuck up, well. You're kinda screwed. XD

Zomg, have you not been introduced to Bitsey? How have I failed in this very important thing?? Bitsey is awesome. Probably my favorite character of all (even if she wasn't supposed to be a character, per se. hee!)

~watches motivation twitch and wiggle like jello~

The plan is to arrive Friday evening (well. night. probably around 9pm) at my friend's place. Animal Kingdom is the tentative plan for Saturday, as I have not yet taken TLE, and dude! Zoo! (well. sorta.) Since they have such an early closing time, Saturday night is still empty, but I doubt there is concerting, as I shall have the aforementioned spawn in tow. Sunday has lunch with the brother creature penciled in, and my return home at some point in the afternoon, but beyond that, I have no idea what we're doing. XD

[momebie.livejournal.com]

I remember you talking about Bitesy, maybe at Nano last year? But I don't know what happens to him! And dude, I fall in love with minor characters all the time. See: William the fencing dandy who kills people. ♥

Oh! Easy A is a movie, not a concert. It's kind of this ridiculous teen retelling of The Scarlet Letter, and you know how Lisa and I love ridic teenage retellings. If you want to come to that Saturday night you're more than welcome to. I won't pester you about the concert on Friday night, since you'll be wiped and have an early day. :p Anyway, trailer!

[xsnarkasaurus.livejournal.com]

Bitsey is...a she. If you can assign a gender to a metal contraption. Anyway, i believe you are on the appropriate filter for Bitsey-reading, but I shall make sure of it, and I shall also make sure all Bitsey-bearing...er...bits, have actually been posted.

Oh! I have not heard of it. OH YES I HAVE. I thought it looked utterly ridiculous. Still, can't really stick my friend with TLE, as much fun as it would be to go mock a movie like that with y'all. And..yeah, no. so not gonna happen. I am going to collapse and make my friend wait on me. XD

[momebie.livejournal.com]

YOU AND YOUR REAL LIFE. Give me a call and let me know when you want me to meet up with you.

[xsnarkasaurus.livejournal.com]

I KNOW, I MAKE SHIT SO COMPLICATED.

will do, dearheart

[brilligspoons.livejournal.com]

Ooo, I get ice cream, too!

I like your views on steampunk, um, a lot. It's rather unfortunate that there ARE people who will call you (general you here) on how accurate your science, or your mechanics, is, or how true to Victorian culture you are, etc. etc. etc. I also feel your pain when it comes to The Wonder being drained away or being bogged down in too much detail.

ANYWAY. Well articulated, m'dear. <3

[momebie.livejournal.com]

You do! I'm going to owe all of Boston ice cream by the time I get up there, I'm sure.

I think there are going to be technical purists in any sort of science fiction. I also think that the story comes first, because I'm a writer and not an engineer. (I'M A DOCTOR, NOT AN ESCALATOR!) That particular view is probably one old men get together in dark paneled rooms to argue about. And as much as I really enjoy research and editing and the technical aspects of writing, I kind of like to have a spark there as well. At least in the first draft. I'm totally reserving the right to be sick of things the fourth time I edit them. :p

*smish*