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The Meaning of Steampunk
I was watching the eddies of conversation collide today on twitter, as you do, and I spotted a mini steampunk discussion. Given that I’ll be involved in a podcast on the subject this Saturday at Alt.Fiction, it caught my eye and now has me contemplating the actual meaning of the term “steampunk”.
Adam Christopher (also podcasting on goggles and airships this weekend) mentioned that he couldn’t see how The Anubis Gates was a steampunk book, as there are no steam-based technologies in the story. In fact, the catalyst behind what is, quite frankly, a fantastic book is ancient Egyptian magic and time travel (also magical) that has nothing to do with Victorian steam-tech at all.
This is a fair point. The reason it’s interesting to point this out with The Anubis Gates in particular is that Tim Powers is one of those mentioned in the famous letter to Locus magazine that coined the phrase in the first place.
…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...
So if The Anubis Gates isn’t steampunk, then what is? What does it actually mean? Personally I like to think of the sub-genre as Historical Science Fantasy, but even that is a bit wobbly if we want it to cover TAG. Where is the science, really? This got me thinking though- do we really take the “steam” in steampunk to refer only to outlandish steam powered technology, such as Abraham Lincoln robots or flying machines? Or is steam actually a shorthand way of referring to a certain period of history, namely the Victorian era? (Whether or not we uproot that era and place it elsewhere, I think that’s really the heart of the genre). In other words, is steam actually just referring to the time of the industrial revolution, regardless of how much unlikely tech you’ve got in your Victorian Fantasy?
I’d love to know what you all think! So put on your best automated top hat, fire up the steampowered abacus and tell me what you think the term steampunk actually means.
The Instant Kindle Convert
So, my lovely boyfriend bought me a Kindle for my birthday.
Previously I had remained rather neutral on the subject of e-readers. I’ve always been such a “paper” book person, you see; I work for a company that make beautiful hardback editions of classic books, I’ve a degree in illustration, and I studied bookbinding at art college. Most telling of all, there are just piles and piles of the things at home, so many that we sort of exist in a fort made of paper and text. I like the smell of them, the physical weight of a paperback or a hardback. In this, I thought, I would remain a luddite. Touch screen phones and wi-fi, yes, but e-readers- probably not.
It took me approximately 30 seconds to fall in love with the Kindle.
It is devilishly cute, for a start. The screen looks just like a page, not an electronic screen, and it is not remotely aren’t-I-trendy-and-flash like some electronic devices I could name. It’s easy to use and does everything it’s supposed to. It brings up pictures of fish and birds and Jules Verne if I leave it alone for a little while. But the thing that sold me on it, the thing that made me cling to it like a monkey with a chocolate dipped banana, the thing that means it hasn’t been out of my sight since the 19th is- I can now carry all the books I’m reading with me, all of the time.
This is significant. This is epic.
Because I’m one of those people who tends to be reading more than one book at a time. And everyday, when I leave for work, I have to look at each book in turn and decide which one I will cram into my handbag. This is never an easy decision for me; it’s rather like deciding which of your children to take to Disneyland, and which to send to the workhouse to eat gruel.
But now you can all come! Now we can all go on It’s a Small World and eat ice-cream and prance and sing and cavort with the sinister costumed things!
Um. Anyway, there is that, and the tremendous power of thinking “You know, I’ve never gotten around to reading Stephen King’s The Long Walk…” and hey, by the end of that sentence there it is, sitting on my Kindle waiting for me to read (it was brilliant, by the way, some of the best King I’ve read in years and years). There are dangers, obviously; for a book addict this is rather like being in a giant shop full of book-shaped cakes and the baker saying “They’re free! All free! But careful you don’t ruin your dinner.”
All in all, I think you can consider me converted. No doubt I’ll still continue to buy good ol’ paper books too, but the Kindle is here to stay. Now, on with The Anubis Gates!
