Steampunk?!!!!

[Teresa Edgerton]

Morlock Night by Jeter (which preceeded Infernal Devices by a few years) is the book some people credit with "establishing" the genre, but James Blaylock was already writing his Langdon St. Ives stories before that.

[Dave]

Thanks for the link to the other thread and for all these replies. There is more to this genre than I realised and I have loads of new ideas for reading now. I actually almost picked up Perdido Street Station before, and I certainly will now. Jeter's Morlock Nights and Infernal Machines are new to me. There is also something called Queen Victoria's Bomb by Ronald Clarke.

Actually, would you class King David's Spaceship by Jerry Pournell as Steampunk? I think it should be.

James Blaylock's Homunculus was published in 1986. Anyone else have a book anteceding that?

Only that I used to read a lot of Michael Moorcock, and his Dancers at the End of Time and associated books featuring Jerry Cornelius and Mrs Amelia Underwood were published in the 1970's and have got to be a little bit Steampunk too?

[j. d. worthington]

Originally Posted by Dave

Only that I used to read a lot of Michael Moorcock, and his Dancers at the End of Time and associated books featuring Jerry Cornelius and Mrs Amelia Underwood were published in the 1970's and have got to be a little bit Steampunk too?

By no means knowledgeable on that particular sub-genre, but if they aren't, they certainly were close predecessors to it, I'd think. After all, there are strong elements of what I understand it to be throughout the Dancers, and with the Victorian and Edwardian elements in the Cornelius books, and the alternate realities/time streams, I think it'd be a very close thing, at least...

[iansales]

Paul di Filippo has also written a series of steampunk stories, collected in, er, The Steampunk Trilogy.

I wouldn't describe Dancers at the End of Time as steampunk. As I understand it, the sub-genre is characterised by the presence of present-day technological innovations created using Victorian technology (particularly steam-driven). So, modern-day computing but using Babbage's analytical engines, as in The Difference Engine.

[Lucien21]

SciFan: Science Fiction & Fantasy Books by Theme: Steampunk (novels, anthologies, short story collections, non fiction)=

Scifan listing of Steampunk books.

[Taltos]

Originally Posted by Dave

I've read 'The Difference Engine' now and would like to read more, but there doesn't seem to be much more out there.

Maybe you should look at the J Gregory Keyes 4 books about the "Age Of Unreason" starting with "Newton's Cannon", which are AFAIK considered steampunk.

[iansales]

Originally Posted by Lucien21

SciFan: Science Fiction & Fantasy Books by Theme: Steampunk (novels, anthologies, short story collections, non fiction)=

Scifan listing of Steampunk books.

That's an odd list... no Infernal Devices... Jules Verne? But he was writing during the Victorian Age!... The Time Ships? A sequel to a Victorian novel, yes, but it soon changes to late 20th century hard SF... and Pasquale's Angel? That's set in Renaissance Italy!

Ah well, it seems Damon Knight was right after all: [steampunk] means what we point to when we say it...

[Lucien21]

Originally Posted by iansales

and Pasquale's Angel? That's set in Renaissance Italy!

But isn't it an alternate history where Da Vinci is an engineer and has built engines of war. (Possibly steam based).

[iansales]

Um, wikipedia lists Pasquale's Angel as a steampunk novel on List of steampunk works - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Maybe I'm just a purist and prefer Jeter's original comment: "Personally, I think Victorian fantasies are going to be the next big thing, as long as we can come up with a fitting collective term for Powers, Blaylock and myself. Something based on the appropriate technology of the era; like "steampunks," perhaps..." :-)

Having said that, whenever a new movement or sub-genre is identified, there are plenty of people who are eager and willing to jam all sorts of disparate works into it...

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by Teresa Edgerton

Morlock Night by Jeter (which preceeded Infernal Devices by a few years) is the book some people credit with "establishing" the genre, but James Blaylock was already writing his Langdon St. Ives stories before that.

And don't forget earlier than that was Peake's Titus Alone. As I understand it Jeter was the one credited with coining the term steampunk which I presume is what is meant here by the term "establish".
EDIT: Looks like iansales has clarified things further...

To clarify Blaylock published to my knowledge his first St Ives story back in '86 so unless he published a St. Ives story pre '79 I'm not clear on what you mean unless you're referring to pre-publication or a published story earlier again?

[dwndrgn]

Neal Stephenson's Baroque books aren't steampunk (at least in my mind) but would probably appeal to those who like steampunk. I'm sure there is a logical explanation why but at the moment I can't think of a thing. Sheesh. Someone put out an APB for my brain willya?

[Teresa Edgerton]

Originally Posted by GOLLUM

To clarify Blaylock published to my knowledge his first St Ives story back in '86 so unless he published a St. Ives story pre '79 I'm not clear on what you mean unless you're referring to pre-publication or a published story earlier again?

You're thinking of Blaylock's first published St. Ives novel, Gollum. I said stories. The Ape-Box Affair was published in 1978.

The term Steampunk (like Urban Fantasy) is one that some people use very loosely indeed, while others try to narrow it down to the point where the very books it was originally coined to describe would be excluded.

Interestingly (or at least it interests me) the list of influences and precursors on sites like this one
http://republika.pl/steampunk/chrono02.html
tends to a lot of overlap with the influences and precursors of Fantasy of Manners, another subgenre that was much discussed back in the late eighties and early nineties.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by dwndrgn

Neal Stephenson's Baroque books aren't steampunk (at least in my mind) but would probably appeal to those who like steampunk.

I've already read those, and like them, so I would have to agree. They aren't even science fiction except for the presence in them of Enoch Root or Enoch the Red, who by the time of Crytonomicon must be over 400 years old. Apart from his Philosopher's Stone, or whatever he keeps in his box, the science and technology is consistent with the age in which they are set.

We shouldn't really argue over definitions of genres as it is a fairly pointless exercise.

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by Teresa Edgerton

You're thinking of Blaylock's first published St. Ives novel, Gollum. I said stories. The Ape-Box Affair was published in 1978.

It's good to get clarification on these things. I've never read The Ape-Box Affair but it's probably something I would like to hunt down now.

I've got that site in my favourites but I've never heard of the sub genre Fantasy Of Manners. Looks like you were very much aware of it though going on this article on Wikipedia.

Fantasy of manners - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Teresa Edgerton]

Ah yes. That article on FoM serves as a good reminder that nothing we say on the internet is ever private. I traced that citation (which like everything else in the Wikipedia turns up elsewhere as well) back to a discussion on a private/paid-subscribers-only bulletin board eight or nine years ago. Little did I know that anything I said would be quoted as though I was some sort of authority on the subject. Fortunately, it wasn't anything I wouldn't want repeated.