Steampunk

[The Griot]

You all have probably discussed this before because it's been around a while, but it seems to me that steampunk is gaining 'steam.' I must admit I like the genre; I have a few ideas I'm working on with a steampunk slant. What do you think about it? Do you plan on writing any steampunk novels or stories?

[Jaqhama]

Steampunk isn't gaining steam mate, it's been a very active sub genre for a few years now.
www.brassgoggles.co.uk/forum is the place you want to check out.
Mindboggling amount of Steamy stuff, some of the designs and artwork is truly great.

In the textual section I've got two novellas and a short story.
Gaslight Fantasy: A Ripping Yarn.
(The most read story there last year)
The sequel; The Rise of the Bayloks, which I add to every week or so.
And a short eerie: The House of Dead Whores.

I wrote those stories simply because I love Steampunk and victorian gothic and it was my way of paying the BG forum back for all the enjoyment I got from it myself.
(I have just subbed Gaslight to an Aussie publisher actually. )

The Steampunk genre is alive and well and much of it takes place outside the book publishing industry.
For a large number of people Steampunk is a viable hobby and an alternative to the hustle and bustle of modern life.
Steampunk novels are one very small part of the Steampunk movement.

Cheers: Jaq.

[The Griot]

Thanks for educating me. I'm just getting into it myself. We have a steampunk group on at black science fiction society and many of the members are posting links to help everyone learn more about it. I've seen it but I really didn't get interested until I watched the anime series Last Exile on Crunchy Roll. Since then I've been checking it out and I like what I see so far. I'll definitely check out your stories. Can you suggest any other sites?

[Jaqhama]

On the BG home page which is:
www.brassgoggles.co.uk (without the added forum word included) there are many links to other Steampunk websites and a wonderous array of all things SP.
I normally stick to BG because it's pretty much got everything I want in a SP website/forum.
I've visited the Black SF Soc a few times myself.
There's a sad lack of black heroic characters in SF aren't there?
Apart from Imaro. And Blade/Black Panther/Luke Cage in Marvel comics. And the Shaft novels. (I always enjoyed the Shaft books and movies.)

The idea of a black steampunk society would be interesting, as SP is normally associated with the Victorian era in England. That era being visualised as white by the majority I expect.
But I think Steampunk is big enough for everyone.
I'd like to see a black steampunk hero or heroine, that would be well cool.

(In reality the Victorian era as seen from a steampunker's perspective never actually existed at all. No time machines. Hardly any airships. No steampowered spaceships etc.)

Cheers: Jaq.

[Dungeoneer]

And I understand that Steampunk has been pretty popular in comics for some time now, too. I've seen a couple of them, with very cool looks and designs to them, but the only one I seem to follow regularly is Girl Genius by Phil and Kaja Foglio. Although, the term "Steampunk" usually conjurs up a darker vision than they are trying to evoke, so they call it a "Gaslight Fantasy" or something like that. But there's loads of Mad Science, weird creatures, and giant robots, and on top of that there's a really cool story AND its funny!

They started off as a physical paper comic, but moved it onto the web. Every year they publish a new volume to the story. I think they're up to Volume 10 now, so there's plenty of story to check out if you're interested. Here's the website: http://girlgeniusonline.com/

[The Griot]

I'm working on some ideas. I'm also working with a couple of artists on some images. I'm still trying to get a feel for the technology. I know it's all made up but I want to know where everyone's been so I won't tread the same path. Any titles you suggest I read?

[Jaqhama]

Titles to read as a study...ah, so many to choose from and a wide variety of themes.
You could check the Steampunk threads on Amazon.com.
Or visit Tor.com and their recent Steampunk month on their blog.
Nov to Dec.
I myself prefer the Victorian gothic/time machine/mysterious Island sort of stories.
Gaslight Fantasy is Victorian Gothic mystery, like Jack the Ripper and Spring Heeled Jack.
No robots but lots of mad science.

Steampunk also mixes and diversifies with Dieselpunk (Dieselpulp if you're writing it) Those stories often have the mad science and the robots.

I don't read Girl Genius, not my cup of tea.
I have read and enjoyed Tobias Buckell's Crystal Rain and Sly Mongoose.

I am also reading and loving Abbadon Books Jonathon Green's Ulysess Quicksilver series. Evolution Expects. Unnatrual History and a few more by the same author.
They are pure Gaslight Fantasy set in alternative Victorian England.
Many Steampunk tales are in an alternative history, well I mean they'd have to be wouldn't they? Such as the Peshwar Lancers and Court of the Crimson Kings.
One can't really define a certain kind of novel as Steampunk. as the genre and movement is broad and varies a great deal.

Some people have said either you're a Steampunk or you're not and if you are then you know you are and if you're not sure then you aren't.

Peruse the BG website and you'll understand that there's more to Steampunk than SP novels. By a wide margin.

Cheers: Jaq.

[PaulMc]

I have not read any steampunk, but I enjoy the concept. I did see the movie Steamboy and enjoyed it.

And, also outside prose, here's a really inspired site.

http://www.sillof.com

Check out his Custom Figures!

[tchernabyelo]

Steampunk has indeed been around for ages; if anything, I feel it's being slightly eclipsed by Clockpunk at the moment.

[The Griot]

Clockpunk?

[The Griot]

I have read and enjoyed Tobias Buckell's Crystal Rain and Sly Mongoose.

I've been meaning to read Bucknell's books. I didn't realize they were Steampunk.

[PaulMc]

Clockpunk?

Interesting - I hadn't heard of it, either.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk_derivatives

[The Griot]

Interesting - I hadn't heard of it, either.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk_derivatives

Thanks! This is getting very interesting.

[Jaqhama]

I've been meaning to read Bucknell's books. I didn't realize they were Steampunk.

Some steampunk's would say they are not.
Others say they are.
They contain some elements of steampunk.
They are not gaslight fantasy.
They are damned good SF.

It's like I said, what is and what isn't SP covers a wide range of choices and preferences.
The great thing about SP is that it is many things to many people.

And apart from clockpunk there is also biopunk.

(No, we're not just making this stuff up.)

Most SP's like the novel The Anubis Gates.
I haven't read it myself.
Boneshaker is a new steampunk/dieselpunk based novel.
Haven't read that either.

To write a good steampunk story one needs to do more than have their characters flitting about in dirgibles.
(Although there is an airship in my Baylok story, but it isn't the standard kind. I just needed a vehicle capable of transporting the heroes around the UK in a timely manner. And steam trains were out due to the enroaching Baylok hordes.)

I really must write another segment for the good folk at BG this week. I have been sadly remiss in doing a chapter each week of late.
(Typical SP type wordage above there. Think Victorian overly polite speech and mannerisms and you'll be chatting like a veteran steampunker in no time.)

If you're thinking that SP is kind of a hard concept to pin down to any one particular style or theme...you are correct.
But spend a few weeks on the BG website and you'll soon get in the swing of things.

Must toddle.

Cheerio: Jaq.

[The Griot]

Some steampunk's would say they are not.
Others say they are.
They contain some elements of steampunk.
They are not gaslight fantasy.
They are damned good SF.

It's like I said, what is and what isn't SP covers a wide range of choices and preferences.
The great thing about SP is that it is many things to many people.

And apart from clockpunk there is also biopunk.

(No, we're not just making this stuff up.)

Most SP's like the novel The Anubis Gates.
I haven't read it myself.
Boneshaker is a new steampunk/dieselpunk based novel.
Haven't read that either.

To write a good steampunk story one needs to do more than have their characters flitting about in dirgibles.
(Although there is an airship in my Baylok story, but it isn't the standard kind. I just needed a vehicle capable of transporting the heroes around the UK in a timely manner. And steam trains were out due to the enroaching Baylok hordes.)

I really must write another segment for the good folk at BG this week. I have been sadly remiss in doing a chapter each week of late.
(Typical SP type wordage above there. Think Victorian overly polite speech and mannerisms and you'll be chatting like a veteran steampunker in no time.)

If you're thinking that SP is kind of a hard concept to pin down to any one particular style or theme...you are correct.
But spend a few weeks on the BG website and you'll soon get in the swing of things.

Must toddle.

Cheerio: Jaq.

Okay, I'm punked out. I've incorporated elements of steampunk into one of my stories. I have an idea for a novel that will be an alternate history/steampunk deal. Thanks for the references. I'll check them out. I'll put you and Tobias on my must read list.

Uhm, Cheerio!

[tchernabyelo]

Clockwork rather than steam power. Jay Lake's "Mainspring" and "Escapement"; Shimmer did a very well received special issue (have a feeling something got pulled for a Year's Best from it but could be wrong); Elizabeth Bear's "Bone and Jewel Creatures"; doubtless lots more. Even Hellboy 2. It's heavily fashionable.

[nathan]

And a short eerie: The House of Dead Whores.
Cheers: Jaq.

House of Dead Whores?

You can't teach talent like that--it's gotta be intrinsic. I would snatch anything (book, graphic novel, anthology) off the rack with that title.

You just know something so wrong that it's right is going on in the story with a title as aggressively blunt as that.

[wambutu]

Steam Punk has the advantage that all alt hist has over classic science fiction. If you write or read a novel about what the world will be like in three, thirty or three hundred years, usually the pesky human race does something to make that vision of the future inaccurate to say the least. You could go thousands of years into the future, but at that point you could be accused of being a fantasy writer as much as a science fiction one. But with steam punk it doesn't matter what's happened or about to happen, because you are in a totally different world now. Unlike classic fantasy though it is a world that we have enough familiarity with to care about. And Zeppelins are really cool.

[che2000]

The Oswald Bastable novels by Michael Moorcock (Warlord of the Air, The Steel Tsar & The Land Leviathan) are highly regarded as indeed is The Difference Engine by Bruce Sterling and William Gibson (the Moorcock novels are unabashed fun, the Sterling/Gibson novel is a lot more literary in both intent and execution). Kim Newman's masterly Anno Dracula is often referred to as steampunk, but that might be stretching a point (great book though).

HG Wells' The Land Ironclads is sorta prototypical steampunk as are the Moorcock edited collections Before Armageddon and England Invaded.

Happy reading.

[The Griot]

Looks like I have a lot of reading to do. I'll start with Moorcock. I love his stuff.

[che2000]

Also... A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah! by Harry Harrison (although I suspect that my age is showing with both the Moorcock and Harrison novels) and perhaps the short story Mozart in Mirrorshades by Bruce Sterling and Lewis Shiner (which is just brilliant).

[Jaqhama]

House of Dead Whores?

You can't teach talent like that--it's gotta be intrinsic. I would snatch anything (book, graphic novel, anthology) off the rack with that title.

You just know something so wrong that it's right is going on in the story with a title as aggressively blunt as that.

The title always makes people look twice. LOL.

It's right up there with such pulp classic titles like Eat Them Alive.

A visit to the British website Vault of Evil will produce pages of the old NEL/Pan/Sphere front covers and titles.
Always brings a smile to my face.

[H.P. Lovesauce]

Sorry to jump in a bit late, but I should mention the Old West here.

Mark Sumner, a Black Gate author, wrote an enjoyable novel titled Devil's Tower. And the movie Wild Wild West manifested a bit of steampunk, though the RPG Deadlands is closer to what Sumner wrote.

I think the best intersection of these elements is found in the James Gang: http://blog.ounodesign.com/2008/10/1...for-halloween/

[The Griot]

I like the Wild Wild West take, a post civil war setting with some Victorian elements thrown in. Thanks, all. Time to write.

[PaulMc]

An interesting take on steampunk's rising popularity.

http://booktionary.blogspot.com/2010...rk-hodder.html