I got a nice comment the other day about my Time Quake trilogy saying that more people should read this English "steampunk" series. I keep seeing this term which (I think?) originated in the US. Does this tag have something to do with a modern bit of machinery (in my case an anti-gravity machine) within a historical narrative – or what? What exactly is "steampunk"?
Linda Buckley- Archer
When Linda Buckley-Archer's first novel, Gideon the Cutpurse, was published in 2006 it was described by the publishers as a "time-slip" novel and everyone knew exactly what they meant. Now the author finds she's written a "steampunk" story. Has she?
Steampunk is a genre which includes elements of science fiction, fantasy, alternate history and horror. The word was coined in the 1980s and it is generally applied to books set in an alternative history – as Gideon the Cutpurse is – in which steam power is widely used. Anachronistic technology is an essential feature of steampunk and, despite it not having been identified by then, both HG Wells and Jules Verne are now described as steampunk authors.
Since definitions are still being fashioned for this appealing word I turned to two authors for further enlightenment. Marcus Sedgwick, author of Floodland and White Crow described it as "is a witty blend of stylish nostalgia: one part Jules Verne, one part Mad Max, with a big side order of cool."
Mal Peet in a review of Steampunk!, a collection of stories edited by Kelly Link and Gavin J Grant published earlier this year, gave it a fuller definition including the centrality of strong females in steampunk stories:
"The exclamation mark in the title of this collection suggests an announcement, a new arrival. In fact, the term was coined in 1987 to denote a burgeoning sub-genre of fantasy in which the principles of Gibsonian cyberpunk are projected backwards onto a wildly reimagined 19th century. I can only guess at what yearnings underly this weird historical revisionism, but I find myself drawn to it. Perhaps this is because steampunk, despite its obsession with kit, boasts a great many feisty heroines who are handy with a wrench or a Temporal Displacement Occulator.
"On the basis of this anthology, it is no boys-only genre. Or perhaps it's because steampunk has no truck with the semi-conductor, preferring a world without i-things and e-things and eschews social networking and mobile phones, those pesky nuisances when it comes to suspenseful plotting.
"Instead, steampunk rejoices in steam-driven automata, coal-fired dirigibles, leather flying helmets and goggles, clockwork, and anything made of brass, including hair and prostheses. steampunk loves brass. There are computational machines, but they are by Charles Babbage, not Steve Jobs, and are powered by (brass) rods and pistons which occasionally trap limbs and rip them off. In visual terms, steampunk is Heath Robinson on peyote.
"Or Bladerunner directed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The narrative voice is frequently cod-Victorian, sometimes juicily inventive, sometimes plain silly. This book's editors identify Jules Verne as the granddaddy of steampunk, but I think HG Wells is its main man; time-warping (brass) devices are a leitmotif."
Presumably, as it is a relatively new genre, its scope and impact will grow and change as an increasing number of titles are labelled by it. Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines sequence seems a natural for it.
