When the atom bomb ended the shooting war and the cold war began, technology got very scary indeed. It was clearly dangerous and destructive, and in much the same way that societies are always frightened of the veteran returned from war, no matter how grateful they are for what he or she accomplished, we started to truly fear technology ourselves.
The advent of the digital computer during this time further alienated us from our understanding. Now you not only needed special instruments to understand what was going on inside a machine, you needed to learn a new language. As they got smaller and cheaper, computers began to play a greater role in the functioning of everything. Automobiles, once purely mechanical things, now had engine control computers that failed without any obvious sign that something was wrong. People who had been fixing their own cars for years now had to rely on the dealer’s “technicians” because not even the local repair shop had the proper tool to diagnose the problem.
Technology now had little connection to the average person. It was just too complicated to understand. And it was dangerous too, and getting more so every day—terms like “artificial intelligence” didn’t help in the least, they just fueled the idea that the machines were becoming aware and would one day supplant us as the dominant inhabitants of this planet.
If you were one of those few who were still interested—if you were still seeking out information, mostly online since the electronic hobby magazines are all gone and the guy at Radio Shack no longer knows what a diode is!—you probably got called “nerd” and “geek,” sure. But you also got to see names like “hacker” unfairly vilified in the press by reporters who did not understand the origins of the word. And if you brought your electronics project into school to show your friends and teachers, you were as likely to cause a bomb scare as you were to get a compliment for your cleverness, because the average person has no clue how our technological world works.
Many of us have witnessed this progression in our lifetimes. Several years ago, I even found myself saying, “Why should I spend a day figuring out how to fix that when I can just buy another?” In fact, a whole generation made that calculation and decided to stop trying to understand and maintain their own tech. They decided to treat technology as purely consumable, to be bought and discarded as needed.
But a kid growing up will always ask: “Daddy, how does a light bulb work?” and when Daddy can’t answer that question, the child is left with a tiny hunger. It is that hunger that’s driving the resurgence of electronics as a hobby today. I think that Geek Culture, the Maker Movement, and the reclamation of the pejoratives “nerd” and “hacker” are all a result of a generation of curious kids whose parents had trouble answering that query.
MAKE magazine is one example of a publication that services this interest and has met with fantastic success in the last few years. Now that Radio Shack is simply “The Shack” and no longer serves the electronic hobbyist, providers of kits and components like Adafruit Industries and SparkFun have sprung up online to provide electronic component fodder for a new generation of makers and amateur engineers.
This phenomenon is not limited to electronic hobbyists either. Automotive hackers are reverse engineering the engine control systems on their cars and making open-source trouble-code readers so they can “talk” to their vehicles and once again fix them. One group has even developed its own computer controller fuel-injection system that can be retro-fitted and customized to any vehicle.
Each group has responded to this resurgence of interest in our technological world in its own way. Each has brought to it its own passions, desires, and aesthetics. The steampunks are simply the romantics of this movement. We are as interested in how technology makes us feel as we are in what it does for us and we want technology that makes us feel good.
Steampunk is about taking a breath, starting at the beginning, and understanding the building blocks of technology from the nineteenth century upon which all of today’s gadgets are based and realizing that we are the ones in control.
Steampunk is about falling in love again.
The Future of Steampunk: A Roundtable Interview
WE FELT IT would be fitting to conclude this anthology with a short roundtable interview on the future of steampunk, which may be very different than its past. To that end, we invited just a few of the many interesting people who bring wonderful vitality, energy, and vision to steampunk to share their thoughts on the future of the genre and the culture. Here’s what they had to say. —The Editors
LIBBY BULLOFF, photographer, maker, creative clairvoyant, anachromancer, WWW.EXOSKELETONCABARET.COM.
I would like to see more steampunk in meatspace, such as additional steampunk spaces akin to the Edison, which capture the mystery, elegance, and whimsy of the aesthetic in three dimensions. I crave more objects that inspire through both their form and function, and more fashion that leans toward style, sus-tainability, and self-awareness rather than passing trends. I want to view the emergence of a magic-tinged steampunk world that is less hypothetical, less cautious, and totally immersive, a world that doesn’t fear political dissonance, or change, or assimilation. I desire steampunk to find its true place outside time and settle into being a classic, respectable style, drawing on a wider variety of vintage and science fiction influences, from periods that aren’t specifically Victorian and/or brass-colored in nature.
S. J. CHAMBERS, researcher and assistant editor of The Steampunk Bible, as well as writer of various sundries, both fictional and non, WWW.SJCHAMBERS.ORG.
My hope for the next steampunk decade is that its emphasis on sustainability and DIY will continue to inspire and impact how society thinks of consumption. Sure, I love the clothes and gadgets, but I love more the philosophy behind all aspects of steampunk culture: if you think it, you can make it. We are currently a society of the quick fix: Is something broken? Buy a new one. Can’t afford the new model? Here’s a loan. We are completely dependent on the Industry of Others, and have no interest in the Industry of Ourselves. Steampunk promotes a self-industry by encouraging within each individual self-reliance, ingenuity, education, perseverance, and transmutation. Things that are quickly fading in our shiny, happy, consumerist iWorld.
JAYMEE GOH, aka Jha, writer, blogger, intersectional theorist, steampunk postcolonialist, WWW.SILVER-GOGGLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
I, for one, would like to see steampunk grow as a story-telling vehicle that invites diversity and self-awareness, touching all corners of the world. It would be nice to see folks honestly discussing how real-life issues factor into the fantasy, and actively promoting various forms of play, to show there’s not just one way to steampunk. With the research into history, steampunk could be an avenue for cultural pride and acceptance of different perspectives, as well as a really entertaining tool for education. I want to see more empires beyond Victoriana, traditionally marginalized identities towering up and above where they have been set, engaging with the self-confidence they would ordinarily be punished for. Being entrenched in history, steampunk is well-placed to examine the hubris of the past and present, to make way for a better future, through the power of stories. More folks should take advantage of that.
MARGARET “MAGPIE” KILLJOY, founder and former editor of SteamPunk Magazine, is proud to be a hobo, WWW.BIRDSBEFORETHESTORM.NET.
Steampunk, as a subculture and as an aesthetic, is at its best when it is a way of radically re-addressing the ways that we interact with technology. A way of challenging the assumptions of the industrial revolution. Which is probably more important right now, and over the next ten years, than it has ever been in human history. Top-down approaches to industry have backed our species into a corner (and outright wiped out thousands of others).
I’d love to see steampunks at the forefront of the DIY revolution. We can present people with sustainable approaches to technology and living. We can help people realize that progress is not necessarily linear: we might have to go back in order to go forward. Perhaps fixed-wing aircraft, while mi
litarily superior to lighter-than-air craft, are not as appropriate for our future. Perhaps what we need are more airships. Run collectively by trade syndicates instead of capitalist corporations, if you ask my opinion. In order to do this, of course, we’re going to have to keep the “punk” in steampunk.
JESS NEVINS, librarian and author of The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana, RATMMJESS.LIVEJOURNAL.COM.
Confining myself to fiction: I’d like to see an emphasis on defining steampunk as a subgenre. “Steampunk” is too often used as a sort of catchall term; ungenerously, it is invoked by writers to add cachet and hipness. If the definition of steampunk has changed from what it was in the 1990s—and, clearly, it has—then what the word now means remains unclear. Steampunk is currently a nebulous concept applied to everything from Wild West steam mechas to African zeppelins to the Imperial British colonizing Mars. But we’ve always had a phrase for those concepts and stories: “science fiction.” Steampunk has yet to settle on a set of clearly defined tropes and concepts by which it can be differentiated from historical science fiction. Until those are generally agreed upon, “steampunk” has no utility as a critical term and is best used by marketers rather than writers, critics, and fans. Enthusiasm for steampunk is wonderful; the assumption that “steampunk” is preferable as a term of description to “science fiction,” without deciding upon a definition of “steampunk,” is not so splendid.
MIKE PERSCHON, THE STEAMPUNK SCHOLAR, STEAMPUNKSCHOLAR.BLOGSPOT. COM.
Many have pronounced steampunk dead or no longer having anything original to offer. I feel conflicted about such statements. I agree that steampunk seems to be slouching toward a stagnation of redundancy, but this is because steampunk still sees itself as a subgenre of SF or fantasy. Whatever it was in its nascency, it is no longer a subgenre, or even a genre. Elements from SF and fantasy remain, but current steampunk literature is anything but a coherent genre (and this is assuming steampunk ever was one to begin with). Steampunk is not a narrative structure, but an array of aesthetic elements. It is a visual style that can be imposed upon a genre, as well as multimedia: art, music, fashion, decor. Science fiction and fantasy are still the mainstays of steampunk texts, but we are already seeing steampunk applied to horror (Alan Campbell’s Scar Night), romance (Gail Carriger’s Soulless), and even mainstream fiction (Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day). In film, steampunk is used in period pieces (The Prestige), as well as contemporary (Franklyn). In novels, the steampunk aesthetic is used for whimsical, high-flying adventures, such as Philip Reeve’s Larklight, as well as serious, politically minded works like Theodore Judson’s Fitzpatrick’s War.
Some might construe derision in my definition of steampunk as visual style, not narrative substance. This definition does not reduce steampunk: it enlarges it. If steampunk is only science fiction or fantasy, it is restricted. Genre is structure, and while structure can be a skeleton, it can also be a straight jacket. If steampunk is an aesthetic employing the conventions of science fiction and fantasy, it can use them in other genres, allowing writers to move beyond homages to Verne, Wells, Reade, or Burroughs into those of Austen, Conrad, Melville, Poe, and Lawrence. It offers the possibility of applying this aesthetic to other forms of fiction, such as medical, political, or philosophical novels. It offers the possibility of being applied to novels as substance, as well as fluff.
So while I have some concern about the current state of steampunk, I disagree that it has reached its expiration date. There are still unexplored horizons for steampunk. And while I have limited my suggestions to the literature of steampunk, I hope they find application in other expressions and media. If steampunk is only a genre, then we can continue rehashing the themes of imaginary voyages and scientific romances. If it is an aesthetic, then the sky in which the airships fly isn’t even a limit.
DIANA M. PHO, known in the steampunk world as Ay-leen the Peacemaker, writer, wanderer, wonderer, and the founding editor of BEYONDVICTORIANA. COM.
The definition of steampunk shouldn’t limit itself to a “past that never was”; it presents a great opportunity to examine how the past binds us and how we, today, are breaking free from those rusted, time-eaten chains. Currently, steampunk examines the development of modernity in the West. But modernity doesn’t end there, and neither should steampunk. I’d like to see steampunk’s cultural range broaden in order to decenter its current Western, Eurocentric framework. I want to hear about steampunk from more folks who aren’t white, middle-class, straight, Christian, and male. Most importantly, I want steampunk to foster an open and equal exchange between various sets of global experiences. As other countries become more developed and as the world becomes more interconnected, I’m fully expecting new voices to start celebrating, questioning, and subverting their own pasts. For history’s breadth cannot be limited to simple dualities: East versus West, North versus South, industrial versus developing. The face of history is a compass and steampunk is its wandering arrow, pointing out the ways where we can go.
EVELYN KRIETE has been actively involved in the steampunk subculture since its development in the early 2000s, WWW.JABORWHALKY.NET.
I would like to see steampunk continue to develop as an artist movement. I would like to see the community grow and gather more positive public attention, because an influx of new people is very important to the longevity and vitality of a subculture. And I would definitely like to see steampunk prove to be a viable market to support the numerous artists in the trend. At this point it’s pretty much inevitable that steampunk will hit the mainstream, which is fine so long as the increased popularity doesn’t drown out the people who have been working in it for years. If the artists, writers, and fashion designers who have been making steampunk art since the mid-2000s and before are able to make a living off their work, steampunk will have been a good thing. On the other hand, if mainstream products and fans who have just gotten into steam-punk end up stealing the spotlight from long-established steampunk artists who need to make a living off their work, it will be a terrible thing. And let’s not forget that because artists are so busy making their art, there is a very real risk that they will be overlooked in favor of new people who spend more time in the public eye than contributing to the steampunk trend.
That said, I would also like to see people continue to explore the whole range of what steampunk has to offer. There’s a lot of potential diversity in steampunk in terms of aesthetics and subject matter, and I really do hope that people will explore the wide range of what they can do in steampunk. And I would also like to see steampunk keep a solid sense of its identity and origins. It’s inevitable that people are going to try to capitalize on the word “steampunk” without wanting to stay true to the genre.
At some point, people are going to try and strip steampunk’s historical 19th-century-based identity away from it, and I hope that the community is strong enough and dedicated enough to stand fast and maintain steampunk’s identity as Victorian sci-fi. Because once steampunk loses its historical grounding, it really has lost itself and the key thing that makes it unique. And I hope we won’t see that happen.
Art by Eric Orchard
Nonfiction
GAIL CARRIGER is an archaeologist, self-titled fashionista, and steampunk author who, when not excavating in Peru, lives on a vineyard in Northern California with one cat, three vehicles, and fifty pairs of shoes. She began writing in order to cope with being raised in obscurity by an expatriate Brit and an incurable curmudgeon. Her debut novel, Soulless, received a starred review in Publishers Weekly and won an Alex Award despite its irreverent, and often facetious, mash-up of several fiction genres. She has two more books in the same series due out in 2010, Changeless and Blameless.
JAKE VON SLATT is a steampunk contraptor and proprietor of the popular website The Steampunk Workshop (steampunkworkshop.com). He has built many of the iconic computer and keyboard “mods” widely circulated on the Internet and has had his projects featured numerous times on Boing Boing, Make, and W
ired magazine’s blogs (BLOG.MAKEZINE.COM and WWW.WIRED.COM) as well as countless others. Jake has been interviewed on the subject by the New York Times, the journal Nature, Newsweek, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, PBS’s Wired: Science television show, and he was the keynote speaker at the California Steampunk Convention in Sunnyvale, California, in 2008.
Artists
JOHN COULTHART is an illustrator, graphic designer, and comic artist. His recent work includes CD designs for various record labels; book design for Savoy Books, Tachyon, and Underland; and a cover for Alan Moore’s magazine, Dodgem Logic. A book collection of his H. P. Lovecraft adaptations, The Haunter of the Dark and Other Grotesque Visions, was published in a new edition in 2006. His website is www.johncoulthart.com. He lives and works in Manchester, England.
ERIC ORCHARD, who contributed the frontispiece and endpiece for this anthology, is an award-winning illustrator and cartoonist living in Canada. He grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he began illustrating stories in grade school. He studied painting and art history at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Eric has illustrated three children’s books. His third children’s book, The Terrible, Horrible, Smelly Pirate, was released in the spring of 2008 and was nominated for the Lillian Shepherd Memorial Award. In 2008, his work was featured in the Totoro Forest Project charity auction. His work has been recognized in the Spectrum Annual of Fantastic Art and the Society of Illustrators annual exhibit, winning silver in comics in Spectrum 17.
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