Steampunk for the Layman
I’ll be the first to admit that I am no literary scholar. I enjoy Tolkien stories and C.S. Lewis adventures and even Lord of the Flies. But I don’t enjoy them because they have something to teach me about life. I enjoy them because they’re fascinating, engaging reads that allow me to see things in my minds eye that I’ll never see with my real eyes.
So what does this have to do with Steampunk? Well, I’ll admit only a very little. There are some who believe Steampunk has a philosphy that is an “aesthetic technological movement.” Now I don’t disagree with their assessment. The forum post I linked to was actually a very intriguing read.
However, I simply don’t care. I love steampunk and the idea of steampunk because it’s a mixture of all things fantastic. All the things that I love, fantasy, sci-fi, different eras of the past; they’re all rolled into one with steampunk and it tickles me to no end to see this in work and with such harmony. Although Fantasy and Science Fiction are often lumped together, I also see the two genres claim sides and rarely do I find people who read both kinds of stories with equal fervor like I do.
The first encounter I had with Steampunk was through another medium that I adore for its ability to show me fantasy and make it amazingly beautiful: anime. The show, Robot Carnival, was recorded by my older brother at college and then brought home for us to ogle to our hearts content. I probably would have worn that VHS tape out if he’d let me, I watched it so many times. Robot Carnival was made up of nine different short segments done by different directors.
There were only a two shorts that reminded me the most of Steampunk. Presence, directed by Yasuomi Umetsu, about a man who creates a robot girl in order to gain affection he feels he is lacking from his wife and family, then destroys her, but is still haunted by memories of her forty years later. A Tale of Two Robots — Chapter 3: Foreign Invasion, Directed by Hiroyuki Kitakubo, which is set in the nineteenth century and is about two robots powered by humans inside of them. While each had robot elements in them, I still think they were steampunk in style and execution. They just had a feel to them.
Of course, at the time, I didn’t even know what steampunk was. Not until I came across Castle in the Sky a few years ago. And after doing some reading, I came across that term. And eventually remembered other things that I’d seen that had Steampunk elements to them. A more recent movie is the Golden Compass, which I admittedly haven’t seen, but the books certainly have a steampunk feel to them. Though obviously steampunk isn’t the main theme to the series.
I admit that most of my experience with Steampunk has been through movies. However, I’m rectifying this currently. I’ve read HIS DARK MATERIALS in its entirety and will soon be cracking open the shiny new copy of Steampunk I recently acquired from Barns & Noble. I’m almost giddy with anticipation and even partly reluctant to start because I know it has an end and I truly have a love/hate relationship with endings.
And so why do I bring this all up? Because I’m going to try my hand at creating a steampunk novel. Like I said in my last post, I’ve got the beginnings of a story that I hope will develop into a novel that’s both fun and exciting to read. And if there are humorous parts in it as well, that’s clearly by accident, because whenever I try to write comedy it falls flat, but if I let things flow, they tend to come out on top.
Though I’ll be writing steampunk, I’ll continue to cover some other subgeneres on this blog that I love, including cyberpunk, dieselpunk and perhaps take a peek into what clockpunk is all about. And then I’ll move on to other sci-fi and fantasy subgeneres. (Which apparently includes *gasp* elfpunk!)
So little time and so many books to read.
Two Psychics, One Mega-Corp, All Around Bad Behavior