Steampunk

[Shoegaze99]

Yesterday I picked up The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, from my local paperback shop. Haven't read it yet, the Amazon reviews aren't stellar, but it seemed interesting enough to me.

Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy has been on my Amazon wishlist for some time, but I haven't quite gotten around to buying it yet. I may have read the first book some years ago but don't recall for sure. Anyway, the last book in the trilogy is considered some of the first true steampunk. I'll get around to it.

China Mieville's Bas-Lag novels - Perdido Street Station, The Scar and Iron Council - are flawed but wonderful forays into deep fantasy steampunk. Lots of strange creatures and dirigibles and odd machines, fantasy meets mythology meets 1898.

On the PC, the Thief series is simply fantastic, with a wonderfully rich steampunk world featuring sword-wielding guards and steam-driven robots, while Arcanum, which I didn't play too far into, seemed pretty cool. Orcs flying bi-planes? Awesome! Even the alternate history Crimson Skies has a pretty cool world of zeppelins and planes and energy rockets to explore. (Steampunk? Arguably.)

Alan Moore's The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen is, well, extraordinary.

But when all is said and done, I haven't read much in the way of steampunk - steam engines, zeppelins, and Victorian and/or Industrial Revolution era fantasy/speculative fiction - but I would like to.

So please discuss steampunk.

Yay.

[Thadlerian]

I'm annoyingly undernourished when it comes to steampunk. I think the concept itself is fascinating, but it's hard to locate something really good. Miéville is great, of course, but his books are really full of everything, and they get a bit too alien (and gritty).

Of the other media you mention, I know most. The third Gormenghast book, Titus Alone was a nice read, though rather enigmatic and cryptical. Don't misunderstand, I like things that way. I tried to read The Difference Engine, but I lost interest halfway through.

Thief (only played first version) was just sweet. The cyberpunk elements, if a little sparse, fit in very well. Hammerites, and those eerie electrical lamps in the city. Nothing scared me more than those city missions.

Steampunk is a recurring theme in animé, though. There is Full Metal Alchemist, which features an alternative-history Europe. The cars run on some sort of wood-gas that was used in Norway during the war, a nice touch. Then there is Steamboy, a costly animated feature about alternative-history London, with airships and all sorts of steam-powered. Too bad the story itself was awful.

Several movies by Hayao Miyazaki feature stempunk elements, like Castle in the Sky and Howl's Moving Castle.

I haven't seen The League, but I guess Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and Wild Wild West count in as steampunk. Too bad neither were any good

So, it seems I've really seen/read a lot of steampunk, so what about my opening statement? See, what I'm missing is some story that feels purely steampunk; discernibly different from reality, but not too weird. It should have a consistent plot with well-crafted characters, but still be able to heavily utilize the steampunk elements in the story. It should be an accessible read, but not a cheap blockbuster like Wheel of Time or Da Vinci Code.

Anyone?

[Teresa Edgerton]

There was a time when I read a lot of Steampunk. Some of the older books that leap conveniently to mind: Infernal Devices, by K. W. Jeter, Homunculus, by James Blaylock, The Stress of Her Regard, by Tim Powers.

I'd certainly put more recent books like The Light Ages and The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray in that category. Interesting to me if it's enjoying something of a revival, because I'd love to see more.

Here is an exhaustive and (I would say) rather broad list I found online:

http://republika.pl/steampunk/chrono02.html

Whoever put the list together even includes my own Goblin Moon, although I've been going back and forth in my own mind for years whether it really belongs in that sub-genre or not. So I can't help wondering if some of the other writers mentioned identify themselves with Steampunk or see themselves more on (or just over) the borderline with something else.

[Brys]

I haven't read much steampunk either, just Titus Alone, Mieville's Bas-Lag, MacLeod's The Light Ages, Swanwick's the Iron Dragon's Daughter and M John Harrison's Viriconium.

Thief (only played first version) was just sweet. The cyberpunk elements, if a little sparse, fit in very well. Hammerites, and those eerie electrical lamps in the city. Nothing scared me more than those city missions.

I agree that the Thief games have an amazing Steampunk atmosphere - one of the few game series that actually manages to pull off a setting I wouldn't mind reading books about. If you can get your hands on it, try and play the latest one - Thief 3. The atmosphere really reaches a new level - as does the fear, in one level called the Cradle (disused mental asylum/orphanage - yes, both at the same time) - and the building's a living creature. It's a great idea, exactly the kind of thing I could see steampunk or even the earlier horror/pulp writers coming up with (like Lovecraft, CAS etc).

I wouldn't have thought of Moorcock's Dancers at the End of Time as Steampunk, but I guess that it can fit into the subgenre.

[Culhwch]

Although it is aimed at adolescents, Phillip Reeve's Hungry City Chronicles are are fair example of steampunk. Zeppellins, grimy industrial citys (on wheels, no less), sky pirates, submarines, a bunch of thievin' urchins, cyborgs... It's got a bit of everything. A lot of fun. There's a thread with more detail in the YA forum, for anyone interested.

[polymath]

"Yesterday I picked up The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, from my local paperback shop. Haven't read it yet, the Amazon reviews aren't stellar, but it seemed interesting enough to me." - Shoegaze

"I tried to read The Difference Engine, but I lost interest halfway through." - Thadlerian

The Difference Engine is one of my favourite books ever. Thadlerian, I found exactly as you did initially, and gave up on it when I first read it, doubtless for much the same reasons you did. I urge you to give it another go. It becomes superb, trust me on this.

[GOLLUM]

I'd like to add Tim Power's classic Anubis Gates. A wonderful novel and part of the Masterwork series that I can highly recommend....

[Shoegaze99]

Is The Anubis Gates a steampunk work? I wasn't aware. Interesting, because I just ordered it from the Science Fiction Book Club (as part of a whole batch to catch up with the 50th Anni. Collection). I've only read The Drawing Of The Dark from Powers and I loved it.

Thadlerian, I hadn't even though of Sky Captain, but at the very least it's very close. (I disagree about the film; I found it very enjoyable.) If the game series Crimson Skies is steampunk - and I think it is - Sky Captain probably has to be considered, too.

Culhwch, great recommendation. I'm going to look into those books a little more. Sometimes a YA book or two is a nice change of pace.

[polymath]

Drawing of the Dark - yes, that's a good 'un all right.

[Teresa Edgerton]

I'm wondering if far-future stories like Viriconium and Mortal Engines really fit into the Steampunk classificatioin -- although I can see how the Harrison stories have influenced Steampunk and how the sub-genre might have influenced the Reeve book in turn.

Either way, I second Culhwch's recommendation of Mortal Engines. (While assuming that Viriconium needs no recommendation.)

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by Shoegaze99

Is The Anubis Gates a steampunk work? I wasn't aware. Interesting, because I just ordered it from the Science Fiction Book Club (as part of a whole batch to catch up with the 50th Anni. Collection). I've only read The Drawing Of The Dark from Powers and I loved it.

Well if we take the standard definition of Steampunk to mean a setting that occurs in a world possesing similarities to our own but occuring in a past that utilises its own techonlogy to realise modern technological feats or theories i.e. a past society or individual(s) technologically ahead of their time, then a work such as The Anubis Gates fits into this mould and is the way I've seen it classified in some articles. Going on this basis then as one member has already alluded to, far-future stories like the excellent Viriconium may not arguably be viewed as Steampunk but I don't want to get too bogged down into definitions as Steampunk has various sub-genres associated with it as well. Suffice to say for me Aunbis Gates is perhaps Powers most enjoyable work (of what I've so far read) and deservedly part of the excellent Masterwork series.

[ravenus]

I wouldn't see the Viriconium series as Steampunk. AFAIK, Steampunk refers to a specific sort of fiction which indulges in speculative future projection of the technologies and sciences available to the steam age (early to mid 19th century?)

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by ravenus

I wouldn't see the Viriconium series as Steampunk. AFAIK, Steampunk refers to a specific sort of fiction which indulges in speculative future projection of the technologies and sciences available to the steam age (early to mid 19th century?)

Agreed and essentially what I was saying but interesting to note it's now expanded beyond it's initial precept to also include the pre steam era.

[Teresa Edgerton]

It expanded beyond its original precept within months of being coined -- just about as quickly as the term came into general use among hardcore fans circa 1990. When people started applying it to post-Apocalyptic futuristic fantasies like Viriconium I don't know. That would, I think, be a comparatively recent trend.

[GOLLUM]

Well I didn't mean to imply the expansion of this precept was a recent phenomenon but I wasn't aware it had evolved quite that quickly.

On another point I'm not sure when works like Viriconuim started being labelled as Steampunk. Here's a link to the ongoing Stempunk project which attempts to document a comprehensaive chornology of this Genre including films, TV and books for anyone interetsed. The definition appears to be fairly broad here and Viriconuim is certainly included.

http://www.republika.pl/steampunk/chrono02.html