# Steampunk: Fun genre, or annoying bandwagon?



## Liz Bent (Aug 1, 2010)

I've noticed that all things steampunk are becoming more and more widely available in stores, including things such as steampunk fiction anthologies. 

Is this a good thing? I know several people that hate all things labeled "steampunk" because they are heartily sick and tired of hearing about it. 

Is steampunk a fun genre, or an annoying bandwagon?

(come to think of it, I could ask this question about vampire novels as well)


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## Teresa Edgerton (Aug 1, 2010)

I have always been a fan of Steampunk, and I am glad to see that it's enjoying such a revival.  It's more popular now then it was when it first appeared about twenty years ago, so I don't think it can be called a bandwagon when it took so long to generate so much interest.  

I would say that it's simply something that many readers are finally beginning to appreciate.

Although fish moon cookies sound interesting, too.


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## Doctor Crankenstein (Aug 1, 2010)

Each to their own. If you don't like it, don't read it. It's pretty simple really...


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## Connavar (Aug 1, 2010)

Steampunk when its well done it can be a great fun to read.  Im glad it hasnt died off and isnt only a thing of the past.

Heh 5 mins before i saw this thread i bought a steampunk called _*The Court of Air*_ by Stephen Hunt from play.com


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## J-WO (Aug 1, 2010)

Anything in print that's imaginative has got to be a good thing, really.  My only concern, and perhaps its an inconsequential one, is that it has a tendency to, erm, _pasteurize_ the Victorian world. Everyone's an aristocrat in pretty dress uniform, or a super-Zeppelin builder. There's the danger of viewing the class system through rose tinted goggles, where the slums are just background seasoning.  I'm sure the best Steampunk writer's take that into account, though.

To be honest, I'm more intrigued by the possibilities of Dieselpunk.


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## Rodders (Aug 1, 2010)

I very much like the merging of different timeframes that created Steampunk. It's a great look.


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## chopper (Aug 1, 2010)

you can have a lot of fun with the different, ah, _cogs_ that make up the steampunk machine. The writers' groop i frequent has created an alternate earth where a steampunk British Empire reigned supreme through the first half of the 20th century and sent the first man to the moon - but, further south, the library at Alexandria still stands, the Moors are extremely good with clockwork (wind-up taxis in Marrakech!) and we're actually looking at what would come _after_ steampunk.

Stephen Hunt is a pretty good starting point - he riffs on a lot of Victorian and Edwardian tales - HG Wells, Jules Verne etc. Steampunk Magazine is also well worth a look.


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## HareBrain (Aug 1, 2010)

I think as a label it starts to get annoying when people attach it to stories just because their worlds share some similarity with the 19th century. I've even heard it applied to _The Anubis Gates _by Tim Powers, which, if memory serves, does not contain a single steam-powered device!


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## Teresa Edgerton (Aug 1, 2010)

It's not about the steam-powered devices, HB.  "Steam" just refers to the era, and a lot of the stories that were sort of pulled together in the beginning and labeled as a sub-genre did not fit the term as some people define it now.

If you look on some of the older lists of Steampunk, you'll find a much wider variety than you do now.  There is even one book with an 18th century setting that used to get mentioned.


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## Connavar (Aug 2, 2010)

Teresa Edgerton said:


> If you look on some of the older lists of Steampunk, you'll find a much wider variety than you do now.  There is even one book with an 18th century setting that used to get mentioned.



Which book is that ?  18th century steampunk sound interesting.

I find it interesting how readers today limit subgenres of SFF to what they like.  A book isnt a steampunk if it isnt exactly like the way they expect or like.  Like a writer can give up on creating his world,story,take on steampunk.


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## J-WO (Aug 2, 2010)

Not that one should try to put hard definitions on something that's entirely fanciful, but where would you all say the inspirational era for Steampunk begins and ends?

For me, it begins sometime after Jane Austen or perhaps Waterloo (before which we're in the realm of Flintlock fantasy) and ends with the last effective cavalry charges on the western front (where Steampunk slams suddenly, and painfully, into the Dieselpunk age). That's my take, anyway. But I could have a skewed understanding of it all.


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## HareBrain (Aug 2, 2010)

I don't really know why I feel so strongly about this -- possibly the fear that my own stuff might get labelled Steampunk, and that someone else will then say of it: "Well, that was **** -- doesn't have any airships or steam-powered robots."

Anyway, I'm prepared to accept that my dislike of this pigeon-holing is irrational. Nevetheless, I ask you to think what you get if you stick your hand into a pigeon-hole. You either get your skin pecked off or your hand covered in bird-crap.


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## Teresa Edgerton (Aug 2, 2010)

HareBrain, the association with Steampunk wouldn't hurt you, and if people are engaged by your characters, story, and setting they won't worry about the lack of machinery.

I'm not sure what you mean about pigeonholing, though.  It sounds like you are against classifying anything by subgenre, but I'm not sure.


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## HareBrain (Aug 2, 2010)

Teresa Edgerton said:


> It sounds like you are against classifying anything by subgenre, but I'm not sure.


 
It's true, I don't have much use for such classification myself, and I think it could restrict both authors and readers. Many of my favourite reads have crossed genre boundaries or been otherwise not easily classifiable.

Having said that, I suppose I would use the term Steampunk myself, but probably in a more limited sense: to me, the term suggests a world which has advanced beyond our own steam age in terms of ideas and innovation, except that no other means of power has been discovered to replace it. I know that's probably too specific, but I can't relate the "punk" part of the name to anything very close to our 19th-c society: it implies something modern or even futuristic.

Anyway, it certainly doesn't include _The Anubis Gates_, which is probably at the root of this particular annoyance.


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## Teresa Edgerton (Aug 2, 2010)

But the "punk" part was just a joke.  And at the time the term was coined, people playfully attached the word to more than one emerging subgenre as a play on the word Cyberpunk, which was the big thing at the time.  The difference was that some of the other subgenre's didn't endure, or they had originally been called something else.  "Mannerpunk" was Fantasy of Manners (and some books that were FOM, if they didn't exactly share a house with Steampunk, at least they lived in the same neighborhood).  But Steampunk was christened with that name from the very beginning, so it stuck, even though it was never meant to be taken seriously.

It's a pity if people are taking it too seriously now, because it was always meant to be fun.


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## Anne Lyle (Aug 3, 2010)

I'd like to see more Sandalpunk (Ancient Greek/Classical Roman equivalent), because I'm fascinated by lost technologies such as the Antikythera Mechanism. I've tried writing it, but I just don't find men in togas sexy 

My non-Elizabethan project for NaNoWriMo 2010 is going to be 18th-century-esque - I love all those early "crime" novels like _Moll Flanders_, and there's something inherently surreal and scary about the Rococo style. Definitely Clockpunk, though, since it's too early for steam...


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## chopper (Aug 3, 2010)

there's such a thing as clockpunk? hey, sounds like i've written my way into it already!


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## Teresa Edgerton (Aug 3, 2010)

chopper said:


> there's such a thing as clockpunk?



I don't think so, but there should be. 



			
				Anne Lyle said:
			
		

> and there's something inherently surreal and scary about the Rococo style.



There was also much that was disquieting in the magic, medicine, and science of that era.  I've written three books inspired by that time period, and some of the most bizarre things in them I didn't have to invent.


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## Allanon (Aug 3, 2010)

What's Steampunk?


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## HareBrain (Aug 3, 2010)

Teresa Edgerton said:


> But the "punk" part was just a joke. And at the time the term was coined, people playfully attached the word to more than one emerging subgenre as a play on the word Cyberpunk, which was the big thing at the time.


 
Sure, but in my opinion, using "-punk" as a subgenre suffix has long since lost its playful cleverness and has become lazy and irritating -- like suffixing everything with "-gate" to indicate a scandal.

(Anyone else remember the Mitchell and Webb sketch where one of them argues that the scandal at the Watergate hotel should surely be known as Watergate-gate?)


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## Liz Bent (Aug 8, 2010)

I enjoy the genre, though I am starting to see lots of so-so anthologies with the word "Steampunk" prominently featured on the covers that make me think it's a huge marketing ploy. That and the fact that you see more and more items in crafts stores or even department stores featuring clock faces, gears or other "steampunk"-related images, presumably because someone somewhere is trying to make these things popular.

That's fine, and perhaps has little to do with the fabrication of alternate worlds, but I do know several people who become very annoyed at the mention of "steampunk" precisely because it seems to be more and more of a marketing phenomenon.


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## Teresa Edgerton (Aug 8, 2010)

I know a lot of people who feel the same way about Christmas.  They won't touch it because it's become too commercialized.  What has that to do with anything?  I marvel that anyone would allow themselves to be alienated from something they might otherwise enjoy just because of the antics of marketers.  Let the marketers do what they do and I'll go on doing what I like to do oblivious to their activities.  Rejecting something because they get their hands on it is giving them too much control over my life.

But in some cases I think people use marketing or over-commercialization as an excuse for something else, often "I can't be bothered."  I can't be bothered to put up decorations.  I can't be bothered to explore a subgenre that doesn't immediately appeal to me.  It makes disinterest look so high-minded!

Me, I'm going to continue to enjoy Steampunk and put up my five (or more) Christmas trees every year.


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## Connavar (Aug 15, 2010)

Teresa put it so well, how can such a small subgenre like steampunk be commercial and who cares.

I like it because it blends different types of stories.  Historical setting,SF,fantasy im there as long as its a good and fun story


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## Toby Frost (Nov 1, 2010)

How did I not see this earlier? Ok, here come some random thoughts.

Firstly, I'm glad Teresa raised the issue of the "-punk" label being a joke. There is no obligation for steampunk to be political, anti-authoritarian etc. Some very good stuff may be, but it is not a political movement for or against anything, contrary to the opinions of a vocal few. There may be issues about class that have to be considered, but there would be serious issues if you set a Regency romance on a plantation, too. If you want to get into that sort of territory as a writer, you can, but it's not vital by any means.

Secondly, this takes us on to what steampunk "is". I agree with Harebrain that there is a danger that we define this too narrowly. That can't be steampunk! Where are the airship pirates? As with punk and goth (after all, steampunk does have a dressing-up element too) there will always be people who see themselves as the gatekeepers of the movement. This can often lead to stagnation and worrying about unimportant details, which misses the point.

Personally, I prefer to see steampunk elements in things, not to give a clear yea or nay ("Yes, your clockwork passport is valid. Carry on."). Any film with a wacky mad scientist will probably involve steampunk elements in the set design. Computer games like Bioshock, Morrowind and even Warcraft contain steampunk elements, even though they are not SP through and through. 

This does lead to a problem where you can end up with a setting involving werewolves, vampires, martians, fairies, Nicolae Tesla, Wonderland, dirigibles and anything else so long as it's wearing a top hat. Even in comedy this can end up as a mess. But as with any style, writers have to write well and make their own rules. 

Right now it is of course easier to sell something if you say it's steampunk - five years ago you could sell anything if you stuck a wizard hat on it. It's just how things are. But I think some sort of retro-future style will continue. It may become subtler and writers may use it in different ways but it will become another weapon in the SFF arsenal and quite right too. So while it can be a bandwagon, I don't think it need be one.

Oh, and did I mention my novels? They're steampunk too, honest, and very reasonably priced...


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## Lacivetta (Nov 2, 2010)

Teresa Edgerton said:


> I know a lot of people who feel the same way about Christmas. They won't touch it because it's become too commercialized. What has that to do with anything? I marvel that anyone would allow themselves to be alienated from something they might otherwise enjoy just because of the antics of marketers. Let the marketers do what they do and I'll go on doing what I like to do oblivious to their activities. Rejecting something because they get their hands on it is giving them too much control over my life.
> 
> But in some cases I think people use marketing or over-commercialization as an excuse for something else, often "I can't be bothered." I can't be bothered to put up decorations. I can't be bothered to explore a subgenre that doesn't immediately appeal to me. It makes disinterest look so high-minded!
> 
> Me, I'm going to continue to enjoy Steampunk and put up my five (or more) Christmas trees every year.


 
*dances around happily yodelling carols*.  Damn straight.


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## Karn Maeshalanadae (Nov 3, 2010)

I really don't have an opinion on it because I have no experience with it. I generally don't care for too much technology in fantasy, but if it's done well I can overlook such aspects.


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## J-WO (Nov 3, 2010)

Steampunk is a sign that science fiction has truly come of age- it has its own history now, that can be turned into narrative itself. SF about SF as it were, metascience fiction, if such a term didn't sound so silly.
In that sense, steampunk was inevitable really. And as the decades pass there will be more genres like it, evoking different eras of the great SF experiment.


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## HareBrain (Nov 3, 2010)

I was trying to think the other day: what are the "classics" of Steampunk, in terms of written fiction? Or those which SF readers in general, rather than Steampunk enthusiasts, would know?


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## Dave (Nov 3, 2010)

Anne Lyle said:


> I'd like to see more Sandalpunk (Ancient Greek/Classical Roman equivalent), because I'm fascinated by lost technologies such as the Antikythera Mechanism. I've tried writing it, but I just don't find men in togas sexy.


And then there is:

the peculiar six-inch wooden object found in a tomb at Saqquara, dating back to 200 BCE that looks like a model aeroplane.
the Royal Library of Alexandria.
the Hero of Alexandria's Steam Engine.
the proposed Machine gun (which fired arrows).
the Omen machine and other water-powered mechanical birds.

I'd read Sandalpunk, especially if it could contrast the society with the technology - something like _King David's Spaceship_ by Jerry Pournelle, but without the spaceship.


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## J-WO (Nov 4, 2010)

Togas weren't all that common, actually. It would be the equivelent of everyone now walking to work in Tuxedos.


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## woodsman (Nov 4, 2010)

Silverberg's _Roma Eternal_ really got my interest in alternative ancient/classical history on the up. I'd love to see this taken further. 

I find Steampunk refreshing, it's less 'commercial' than a lot of fantasy "oh look another hero with sword, magician and a dragon - that'll sell well". There's lots of books I personally don't like but I don't have a problem with them. 

It's interesting how classification can or could change. _20,000 leagues under the sea_ is one of my favourite 'classic Sci-Fi' books, if it were written today what genre would it come under?


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