Asimov's SF, October-November 2011 Read Free Page A

freely and often gleefully crossed the boundaries between steampunk and cyberpunk.
    And while steampunk's cultural breakthrough took longer than cyberpunk's, its time is most certainly now.
    * * * *
    steam-powered links
    Ask AEther Emporium [ ether emporium.pbworks.com/w/page/10454263/Wiki ], the steampunk wiki, what steampunk is and you'll get eight different impassioned answers. Various writers suggest that it is a literary genre, an evolved fantasy, an aesthetic, a mythology, and a subculture. It is the “Personal Industrial Revolution,” “a reaction to the utter soullessness and disposability of modern tech” and “over-sized rivets,aero shaped fins and elaborate exposed plumbing fixtures all covered with that ‘comfortably worn’ patina."
    Clearly, deciding what steampunk is all about is not going to be easy! Part of the problem is that as more and more people are drawn to this subculture, they bring their own interests to it. Some are keen to dress up in corsets and riding boots, waistcoats and goggles, or uniforms of the armed forces of the imagination. Others want to make beautiful and idiosyncratic objects. Indeed, the Maker Movement [ makezine.com ] has come into its own at just the right time to help transform steampunk fancies into quirky reality. There is also self-proclaimed steampunk music, but no real agreement on what it ought to sound like.
    But since we're readers here, let's concentrate on the literary branch. Aether Emporium polled members of the blog Brass Goggles [ brassgoggles.co.uk/blog ] for suggestions to stock the essential steampunk library [ etheremporium.pbworks.com/w/page/10454249/Steampunk-Essentials ]. The bloggers mentioned revered ancestors like Jules Verne [ on line-literature.com/verne ], H.G. Wells [ online-literature.com/wellshg ], Jack London [ london.sonoma.edu ], and Arthur Conan Doyle [ online-literature.com/doyle ], men who wrote during steampunk prime time. Then there are precursors, some of whose work points toward the current iteration: George MacDonald Fraser [ wjduquette.com/authors/gmfraser.html ], Harry Harrison [ harryharrison.com ], Michael Moorcock [ multiverse.org ], and Talbot Mundy [ talbotmundy.com ]. To their number, I might also add Keith Laumer [ keithlaumer.com ] for his Imperium series. I admit I was less impressed with their selections of contemporary steampunk. For that, let me commend a list compiled by the astute John Klima [ libraryjournal.com/lj/reviewsgenrefiction/884588-280/steampunk20coretitles.html.csp ] in Library Journal. In addition to Jeter, Blaylock, and Powers, Klima mentions Neal Barrett, Jr . [ infinityplus.co.uk/nonfiction/intnbjr.htm ], Gail Carriger [ gailcarriger.com ], Cherie Priest [ cheriepriest.com ], Gordon Dahlquist [ bookreporter.com/authors/au-dahlquist-gordon.asp ], and Paul Di Filippo [ pauldifilippo.com ], among others. Among those others he mentions are Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill, who gave us the quintessential The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen [lxg.wikia.com/wiki/Leagueof ExtraordinaryGentlemenWiki].Okay, so it's not a novel. It's a comic graphic novel. You got a problem with that?
    Yet another writer Klima cites is China Miéville [ chinamieville.net ] for his novel Perdido Street Station. And here we begin to see a problem with steampunk's popularity. Don't get me wrong, Perdido Street Station is a wonderful book, but Miéville himself describes it as “basically a secondary world fantasy with Victorian era technology.” Victorian era technology, but no Victoria. Or England. Or, indeed, any of our history. If one includes this book and others like it, as many do, it seems to me that the boundaries of this subgenre get harder to map. I don't want to play genre cop and Miéville probably doesn't care if his book is steampunk or not.But the more kinds of writing—or activities—that get called steampunk, the less meaning the word has.
    Just saying.
    * * * *
    debate
    And the steampunk subculture recognizes this.