|
Steampunk, Where Science Fiction of Tomorrow Meets the Technology of the Past |
 |
 |
 |
|
Written by Sue Lange
|
|
Tuesday, 18 August 2009 16:24 |
|
Come on in and chat with Sue Lange as she explains Steampunk, an up-and-coming sub-genre of Science Fiction.
 According to Wikipedia steampunk is "a sub-genre of fantasy and speculative fiction where works are set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used—usually the 19th century, and often Victorian-era England—but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy, such as fictional technological inventions like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, or real technological developments like the computer occurring at an earlier date." Cyberpunk writers William Gibson and Bruce Sterling's story, The Difference Engine (where Charles Babbage's proposed steam-powered mechanical computer was actually built and led to the dawn of the information age more than a century "ahead of schedule"), is taken by many as the classic example of steampunk.
My personal introduction to the subgenre was Paul Di Philipo's The Steampunk Trilogy published in 1995. I didn't know what steampunk was at the time so I was unimpressed with the book. I didn't get it. I had liked Di Philipo's writing previously, and I was disappointed in something that seemed so irrelevant and silly. I think there was a nuclear-powered train or something. Science fiction should be plausible in my limited imagination of those days. Now that I know what the idea behind steampunk is, I can appreciate what Di Philipo was doing.
Steampunk these days is more about the Victorian aesthetic of parlor manners set amongst analog computers and difference engines than the literature with its rules of what could or couldn't be possible in the steam age. If your story is set in the 1800s and includes all kinds of brass gizmos that might or might not do high tech stuff, you've probably got a steampunk story. Extra points if the characters wear lace and velvet and carry a watch on a chain. The fans of steampunk prefer form over substance and usually make their art themselves. It's a part of the DIY (do it yourself) movement that uses old style materials and prefers mechanical devices over electronic machines.
My introduction to writing steampunk came via my participation in Book View Café (or BVC). This online authors' cooperative is a partnership between 25 print published writers such as Ursula K. Le Guin, Vonda N. McIntyre, Jennifer Stevenson, Judith Tarr and a slew of others including me.
BVC has been doing business for just under a year and so far the site has been quite successful. We started the project back in November as a way to experiment with Internet publishing models. One of our experiments is a shared-world steampunk anthology: The Shadow Conspiracy. Currently we're in the process of putting this together and so it should be out in a couple of months. None of us had written steampunk before, so we've had to scramble to discover what it is. I never thought I'd enjoy such a collaboration, but it is turning out to be a lot of fun.
We're going to have to figure out how to market it since it will be published first as an ebook. Ebooks are new for all of us. We're used to traditionally published books. The Internet is a whole new game. We plan on presenting it to Kindle readers, mobilereads folks, the lj steampunk communities, and anybody else that might be interested. If anybody out there knows of any steampunk related entities, please let me know. I'd be happy to send a copy of the ebook free of charge (We'll be selling it for $4.99) to anyone here who has information. Heck, I'll do the same if you post a question here.
I encourage everyone to consider steampunk. It's like stepping back into a past that never existed.
If you want to discover the finer details of the steampunk aethestic, visit these sites: http://www.steampunkemporium.com ;
http://gizmodo.com/tag/steampunk/ .
To study the DIY aspect, try here: http://steampunkworkshop.com/.
To enter the fray, join some of the livejournal steampunk communities (http://community.livejournal.com/steamfashion/ , http://community.livejournal.com/steampunk_style/ ) or search Twitter for the latest tweets on the subject (#steampunk).
To get a visual idea of what people are doing, check out the Maker Faire steampunk video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b75vrsoT8qM
For writing steampunk check out these websites: http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1249132 ;
http://en.wordpress.com/tag/steampunk-writing/ ; and http://steampunkworld.blogspot.com/
Once you've got it figured out, here's a couple of markets:
www.steampunkmagazine.com (This is a non-fiction market.) and
http://www.steampunktales.com/issue_1.html (fiction).
And don't forget to stop by BookViewCafe.com and register for upcoming information on the release of The Shadow Conspiracy!
Sue Lange has two books of science fiction humor (Tritcheon Hash, 2003 Metropolis Ink, and We, Robots, Aqueduct Press, 2007) available at Amazon.com. Her short stories have been published in such entities as Adbusters, Apex Digest of SF & Horror, and the UK's Premonitions. BookViewCafe.com (BVC) is launching a collection of her published short stories as an ebook Sunday, August 23. Her free ebook is currently available at BookViewCafe.com. Her contribution, Kilimanjaro, in BVC's steampunk anthology takes place in Africa in 1851. The book is scheduled to be launched in December. Sue Lange's bookshelf at BookViewCafe.com Sue Lange's book, "Uncategorized," a collection of her previously published short stories will be launched at BookVewCafe.com on August 23. Watch her website for details: http://www.suelangetheauthor.com.
 |
|
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 22 December 2009 21:43 )
|
Subscribe to this comment's feed
