Asimov's SF, October-November 2011 (3 page)

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. Check out
The Great Steampunk Debate
[
greatsteampunkdebate.com
], which is the archive of an online “discussion on ideology, beliefs, politics, ethics, and how all of these things intersect with steampunk.” This exchange took place in May 2010. Among the subjects “debated” were the politics of steampunk, its relationship to the world of the nineteenth century that it mirrors, with emphasis on issues of gender, race, class, and industrialization, and the existence—or failure—of a center that could hold its various subgroups together. Lest this sound like some academic colloquium, recall that that this took place on the internets, where the niceties of civilized discourse are rarely observed. Despite the fact that the noise to signal ration was definitely skewed toward clamor, it's worth skimming over the rants to find the quiet voices of reason. What I was able to glean from the debate was that different populations were attracted to the idea of steampunk for different reasons. Some were readers, some were media fans. Some were Makers, some were goths on the rebound. Some wanted just want to have fun, some want to change the world.

So what's wrong with that?

Nothing, of course. But to return to literary concerns, traditional SF writers have expressed misgivings about a subgenre that resolutely turns its back on our sometimes bewildering future to fixate on a period of history, which, while simpler, was filled with horrors that we are lucky to have escaped.
Charles Stross
made this case on his blog[
antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/10/the-hard-edge-of-empire.html
]:

If the past is another country, you really wouldn't want to emigrate there. Life was mostly unpleasant, brutish, and short; the legal status of women in the UK or US was lower than it is in Iran today: politics was by any modern standard horribly corrupt and dominated by authoritarian psychopaths and inbred hereditary aristocrats: it was a priest-ridden era that had barely climbed out of the age of witch-burning, and bigotry and discrimination were ever popular sports: for most of the population starvation was an ever-present threat.

At the end of his essay he asks, “what would a steampunk novel that took the taproot history of the period seriously look like?"

Scott Westerfeld
gave a testy reply [
scottwesterfeld.com/blog/2010/11/genre-cooties
] in which he details a number of thoughtful essays by steampunk aficionados dealing with the very issues Stross raises. And as for the novel that takes an unflinching look at the Dickensian side of steampunk, he suggests Cherie Priest's popular
Boneshaker
[
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boneshaker(novel)
].After pointing out that science fiction—specifically space opera—is not without the sin of under-examined assumptions, he strikes what might be considered a low blow at critics like Stross: “And yes, this is about YOU being OLD, steampunk-haters. (In spirit, not in years.)”
Ouch!

Speaking of Cherie Priest, if you are looking for a passionate, intelligent, and knowledgeable explanation of what steampunk is all about, click over to her essay
Steampunk: What it is, why I came to like it, and why I think it'll stick around
[
theclockworkcentury. com/?p=165
]. She elaborates on two persuasive reasons: “(1). Steampunk comes from a philosophy of salvage and customization, and (2). Steampunk's inherent nature is participatory and inclusive, yet subversive."

exit

If you are expecting some grand pronouncement on these matters, stop reading here. Like my friend and editor
Sheila Williams
[
asimovs.com/201104-05/editorial.shtml
], I am of two minds on this subject. I definitely get uncomfortable when critics of steampunk go after it for being escapist—a calumny that has been used to marginalize SF since Gernsback's days. Clearly, in the hands of writers like Priest and Powers, steampunk deserves to be taken seriously. And even those aspects of steampunk that are more playful than thoughtful challenge consensus reality in ways that are good for us all. But not all steampunk worlds—or those of science fiction, for that matter—are as morally grounded as those of Powers and Priest. Critics have every right to insist that attention be paid when steampunk's delight in shiny surfaces glosses over human suffering.

Meanwhile, I still have an unanswered question. Mirrorshades and goggles—what's up with all the eyewear?

Copyright © 2011 by James Patrick Kelly

[Back to Table of Contents]

Recently, Kristine Kathryn Rusch accomplished the remarkable feat of winning both the twenty-fifth annual
Asimov's
Readers’ Award for best novella and
Analog's
AnLab award for best short story. She returns to our pages with another thrilling novella about the dangerous and destructive technology that was first encountered in “Diving Into the Wreck” (
Asimov's,
December 2005). The author's Diving series is having quite a year. Pyr published
City of Ruins
in May, and will publish the next book,
Boneyards,
in January. In other news, her next Retrieval Artist novel, now retitled
Anniversary Day,
will appear exclusively on
Audible.com
during the fall, and then be released in book format by WMG Publishing in December.

Now

Go, go, go, go!” Squishy waved her arms, shouting as she did.

She stood in the mouth of the corridor and watched as scientist after scientist fled the research station, running directly toward the ships.

The corridors were narrow, the lights on bright, the environmental system on full. It would have been cold in the corridors if it wasn't for the panicked bodies hurrying past her. The sharp tang of fear rose off them, and she heard more than one person grunt.

"Go, go, go!” She continued shouting and waving her arms, but she had to struggle to be heard over the emergency sirens.

An automated voice, androgynous and much too calm, repeated the same instructions every thirty seconds:
Emergency evacuation underway. Proceed to your designated evac area. If that evac area is sealed off, proceed to your secondary evac area. Do not finish your work. Do not bring your work. Once life tags move out of an area, that area will seal off. If sealed inside, no one will rescue you. Do not double back. Go directly to your designated evac area. The station will shut down entirely in . . . fifteen . . . minutes.

Only the remaining time changed. Squishy's heart was pounding. Her palms were damp, and she kept running her fingers over them.

"Hurry!” she said, pushing one of the scientists forward, almost causing him to trip. “Get the hell out of here!"

Another ran by her, clutching a jar. She stopped him, took the jar, and set it down.

He reached for it. “My life's work—"

"Had better be backed up off site,” she said, even though she knew it wasn't. The off-site backups were the first thing destroyed, nearly three hours before. “Get out of here.
Now!"

He gave the jar one last look, then scurried away. She glanced at the jar too, saw it pulsating, hating it, and wanting to kick it over. But she didn't.

She stood against the wall, moving the teams forward, getting them out. No one was going to die this day.

A woman clutched at her. “My family—"

"Will find you. They've been notified of the evac,” Squishy said, even though she had no idea if that was true.

"Are they far enough away?” the woman asked, clutching at Squishy.

What made these people so damn clingy? She didn't remember scientists being clingy before.

"They are,” Squishy said, “but you're not."

She pushed at the woman, and the woman stumbled, then started to run, letting her panic take over. They'd had drills here: Squishy made sure of that when she arrived, but apparently no one thought about what the drills actually implied.

And this was no drill.

Her ears ached from the sirens. Then the stupid automated voice started up again.

Emergency evacuation underway. Proceed to your designated evac area . . . .

She tuned it out, counting the scientists as they passed. There was no way she could count a thousand people, not that all of them would run past her anyway. But she was keeping track. Numbers always helped her keep track.

Her heart raced, as if it was running along with everyone else.

Quint stumbled out of the side corridor, his face bloody, his shirt torn. He reached her and she flinched.

"We have to evacuate,” he said, grabbing her.

"I'm going to go,” she said. “I want to make sure everyone's out."

"They're out,” he said. “Let's go."

She shook her head. “You go. I'll catch up."

"Rosealma, we're not doing this again,” he said.

"Yes, we are,” she said. “Get out
now."

"I'm not leaving you,” he said.

This was not the moment for him to develop balls. “Get out, Quint. I can take care of myself."

I always have,
she thought, but bit back the words.

"Rosealma,” he said. “I'm sorry—"

"Oh, for God's sake,” she said. “Get
out."

And she shoved him. He lost his balance, his feet hitting the jar. It skittered across the floor, and she looked at it, wondering what would happen if the damn thing shattered.

He saw her. “Do we need that?"

"Aren't you listening?” she said. “You're supposed to leave everything behind."

"You didn't make the rules,” he snapped.

She pointed up, even though she wasn't sure if the automated voice came from “up” or if it came from some other direction. It did rather feel like the Voice of God.

"Those aren't my rules,” she said. “They're the station's. Now hurry. I'll be right behind you."

"Promise me you won't do anything stupid, Rosealma,” he said.