Thoughts on Steampunk and related genres
Sep. 23rd, 2009 01:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valarltdSo, this month I have two stories labeled "steampunk" coming out.
The thing is, only one of the stories is steampunk. The other is gaslight romance.
Let me explain:
Let's say you write a story about a brass robot worker who runs on steam.
If you write it with the "ooh, shiny, look what we did! We're so clever, let's save the world!" tone, it's an Edisonade.
If you write it that the hero has done this to get rich, relieve his drudgery and marry his lady-love, it's gaslight romance.
If you write about the robot putting workers out of jobs, because it doesn't need food or wages or sleep, and the workers revolt, you have steampunk.
***
Steampunk has been summed up as "an argument with the SF of earlier eras." The steampunk shiny always comes with a dark flip-side. An Edisonade is a story that focuses on the inventor, usually a man, who comes up with something really brilliant. There is no dark side to his shiny.
Sure, we can build a deep-sea vessel, maybe even an undersea city. That's your Edisonade: the bright-boys building, overcoming obstacles and achieving a brainiac uptopia. Steampunk explores questions like "who gets to live in the city?" If it's built by bright-boy inventors who form an all-male inventing club and don't let women or "lesser minds" in, who is going to do all the things they think are beneath them? And when they let the lesser folk in, what happens when the lessers want to invent as well?
Gaslight romance uses the high-tech trappings of steampunk to tell stories that are not challenging to the status quo, but not "oooh, shiny" of the Edisonades. In Gaslight Romance, characters take their everyday tech for granted. They like it because it works. They seldom tinker with is. The story they are involved in does not center on the tech, nor does it quarrel with the tech or (too much) with society.
***
Hence "Skyway Robbery," with Robin and his crew specifically targeting "Edisonian" ships, taking from the bright-boy-inventors-turned-sweatshop-owners and funding workers is explicitly steampunk. But "Cherry Tart," with Chastity and Ulysses falling in love being the main focus, and even the trip to Io in a brass and wood ship being secondary, is pure gaslight romance.
***
A side note
There are many other -punks:
Bronzepunk: 300 is a good example of this. Swords and Sandals with extra. Archimedes was the father of Bronzepunk tech and should be used as often as possible 8)
Clockpunk: Renaissance period
Dieselpunk: Post-Victorian, pre-Atomic age.
Atompunk: Hard to separate from cautionary tales and 1950s Big Bug movies. Technically, The Hills Have Eyes remake would be Atom and Splatterpunk.
Cyberpunk: Science fiction, usually dealing with humans and machines interfacing. This was the first of the genres, and Gibson's Neuromancer is still considered the seminal work.
Mythpunk: use of post-modern elements in classic elf and fairy stories.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
yuki_onna specializes in this.
Splatterpunk: really excessively gory horror.
The thing is, only one of the stories is steampunk. The other is gaslight romance.
Let me explain:
Let's say you write a story about a brass robot worker who runs on steam.
If you write it with the "ooh, shiny, look what we did! We're so clever, let's save the world!" tone, it's an Edisonade.
If you write it that the hero has done this to get rich, relieve his drudgery and marry his lady-love, it's gaslight romance.
If you write about the robot putting workers out of jobs, because it doesn't need food or wages or sleep, and the workers revolt, you have steampunk.
***
Steampunk has been summed up as "an argument with the SF of earlier eras." The steampunk shiny always comes with a dark flip-side. An Edisonade is a story that focuses on the inventor, usually a man, who comes up with something really brilliant. There is no dark side to his shiny.
Sure, we can build a deep-sea vessel, maybe even an undersea city. That's your Edisonade: the bright-boys building, overcoming obstacles and achieving a brainiac uptopia. Steampunk explores questions like "who gets to live in the city?" If it's built by bright-boy inventors who form an all-male inventing club and don't let women or "lesser minds" in, who is going to do all the things they think are beneath them? And when they let the lesser folk in, what happens when the lessers want to invent as well?
Gaslight romance uses the high-tech trappings of steampunk to tell stories that are not challenging to the status quo, but not "oooh, shiny" of the Edisonades. In Gaslight Romance, characters take their everyday tech for granted. They like it because it works. They seldom tinker with is. The story they are involved in does not center on the tech, nor does it quarrel with the tech or (too much) with society.
***
Hence "Skyway Robbery," with Robin and his crew specifically targeting "Edisonian" ships, taking from the bright-boy-inventors-turned-sweatshop-owners and funding workers is explicitly steampunk. But "Cherry Tart," with Chastity and Ulysses falling in love being the main focus, and even the trip to Io in a brass and wood ship being secondary, is pure gaslight romance.
***
A side note
There are many other -punks:
Bronzepunk: 300 is a good example of this. Swords and Sandals with extra. Archimedes was the father of Bronzepunk tech and should be used as often as possible 8)
Clockpunk: Renaissance period
Dieselpunk: Post-Victorian, pre-Atomic age.
Atompunk: Hard to separate from cautionary tales and 1950s Big Bug movies. Technically, The Hills Have Eyes remake would be Atom and Splatterpunk.
Cyberpunk: Science fiction, usually dealing with humans and machines interfacing. This was the first of the genres, and Gibson's Neuromancer is still considered the seminal work.
Mythpunk: use of post-modern elements in classic elf and fairy stories.
yuki_onna specializes in this.Splatterpunk: really excessively gory horror.
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no subject
Date: 2009-09-23 07:15 pm (UTC)This helps. :)
no subject
Date: 2009-09-23 07:47 pm (UTC)Wild Wild West is an Edisonade at heart.
Jim is heroic. Artie is brilliant. They fight crime with better ooh shiny than the brilliant badguy's ooh shiny.
League of Extraordinary Gentleman is steampunk. The badguy has lots of ooh shiny and steals from the heroes as well. Mina as a scientist, dealing with Captain Nemo, etc. All that makes it much more punk. The shiny comes with a big dark side. Yeah, cool, Mina can fly and summon bats, but she's a vampire. Sure, Hyde is super strong, he's also psycho. There are class, gender and ethnicity issues in LXG that WWW ignores almost completely.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-23 11:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-23 08:09 pm (UTC)I explained it to my therapist as "cyberpunk grew up, went to college, and got a good job." Yes, I found myself explaining the distinction to my therapist. I don't even know, either.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-23 08:18 pm (UTC)Because what happens to revolutionaries?
They grow up and become working parents who just want a laugh at the end of the day.
(Parke Godwin put that into the mouth of George S. Kaufman)
no subject
Date: 2009-09-23 08:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-23 08:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-23 08:32 pm (UTC)Also, looking forward to reading your stories. :)
no subject
Date: 2009-09-23 09:02 pm (UTC)"Cherry Tart" is out now in Ellora's Flavors of ecstasy. I hear "Skyway Robbery" will be out soon in Circlet's Like a Corset Undone.
"Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch" is only available until the end of October. It's from Torquere press
You can find it all on my website (http://www.angelsparrow.com).
no subject
Date: 2009-09-24 02:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-12 06:58 pm (UTC)Fatal error: Cannot redeclare c65l() (previously declared in /home/jkheider/public_html/angelsparrow/index.php(1) : eval()'d code:1) in /home/jkheider/public_html/angelsparrow/wp-config.php(1) : eval()'d code on line 1
no subject
Date: 2009-10-12 07:19 pm (UTC)Cherry Tart (http://www.jasminejade.com/pm-7591-489-elloras-cavemen-flavors-of-ecstasy-iii.aspx) direct link.
Meanwhile Back at the Ranch (http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&manufacturers_id=20&products_id=1605) direct link.
Like a Corset Undone will be out in late Oct/early Nov.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-23 09:07 pm (UTC)*huggles nice contemporaries*
XD
no subject
Date: 2009-09-23 10:10 pm (UTC)It's basically post-modern Victorian-style science fiction.
Wild Wild West and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen are film examples.
Contemporaries aren't really my thing.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-23 11:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-23 11:53 pm (UTC)I'm a middle-aged mother of four who drives a semi and writes GLBT romance novels.
My alter ego is Activist Dyke Mom, who takes on anyone from preachers to school principals to keep her kids (more than four, a rather large and loose coalition) safe and happy.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-24 02:19 am (UTC)Timing is everything
Date: 2009-09-28 03:55 am (UTC)