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.
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Date: 2010-09-09 03:18 pm (UTC)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.