Steampunk fiction
JA
September 17
I’m seeing flashes of steampunk everywhere lately – shades of it appear in my copy of China Mieville’s Un Lun Dun, with its strange, bewitched metropolis, and again when I went to see Hayao Miyazaki’s latest animation, Ponyo (which is beautifully hand-drawn and unashamedly delightful). The same can even be said of Pixar’s Up, with its shout-out to flying blimps, adventure, aviator caps and brass goggles. Over at Matilda, Perry Middlemiss is predicting that steampunk may just well be the ‘next big thing’ after the urban vampire genre, and if this trailer for Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan is anything to go by, I’m all for it.
Steampunk is something that I’ve always found interesting, but only ever had a vague idea of. According to these blogs, it’s a subgenre of fantasy and sci-fi that evolved out of the fiction of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, gaining momentum during the 1980s and 90s. Stories are commonly set in an alternative Victorian or Edwardian era, but with highly advanced technology (just think of the stuff of Captain Nemo’s submarine – cogs, levers and cylinders 70m long). Apparently, the term was first coined by novelist K.W. Jeter, who wrote in Locus magazine in 1987:
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…
Steampunk laptop, image by Jake Von Slatt
Its influences can be seen widely in fiction today, from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials to China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station. Hayao Miyazaki also closely incorporates elements of steampunk in his films – particularly Howl’s Moving Castle, based on a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, and Castle in the Sky. The subgenre also has a strong online following with blogs dedicated to showcasing steampunk inventions, fashion and art. There is even a special steampunk publication for iPhones. One site worth looking at is that of Russian artist Gvozd, who has used steampunk as the inspiration for several beautiful sketches, one of which is below.
Image by Gvozd
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Comments
17 Sep 09 at 12:09
You might want to check out a steampunk novel writtern by two cyberpunk authors: The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. "The Difference Engine explores a world in which Charles Babbage built a practical mechanical computer in the mid-19th century. Britain is going through both the Industrial and Information Revolutions simultaneously." http://www.sfsite.com/08a/dif62.htm
...17 Sep 09 at 13:42
Thanks for the refs, Jessica. My current steampunk favourite is the 'Lovelace and Babbage' comic at http://2dgoggles.com/. An alternate history of Ada Lovelace and the work that she and Charles Babbage did together. It has some wonderful focus points, like the idea that she was a mathematician because maths is all that can balance out the terrible influence of her father's (Byron) poetic nature; and Babbage's obsession with getting rid of street musicians.
...17 Sep 09 at 14:52
Thanks for these links Simon and Maelenna - I'll be sure to check them out.
...20 Sep 09 at 13:19
Michael Pryor (Australian YA author) is up to this fourth book in his steampunk 'Laws of Magic' series, so he's been doing it for some time, and doing it with elan! www.michaelpryor.com.au
...04 Aug 10 at 19:56
The Mortal Engines Quartet by Philip Reeve is also an excellent steampunk series. I read it a few years ago and really enjoyed it without knowing about steampunk. It’s sort of teenage fiction but really enjoyable. Make sure to check it out. :)
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