What is Steampunk, anyway?

After Cruel Numbers got picked up for publication, I had to field a lot of questions about Steampunk. I expected this from my older relatives. Aside from Harry Potter, they’re not into speculative fiction. But I was a little surprised that many of my friends didn’t know what it was either.

They had an idea, of course. But they wanted it nailed down. Was it a specific setting, like Tolkien? Was it alternate history? Or was it a general term for, as one friend put it, “the gnome-stuff in Warcraft”?

I answered these questions as best I could. I usually focused on the idea that Steampunk was about technology and style more than setting. It's about fantastic steam or clockwork contraptions and the adventurous souls who build and pilot them. I also felt Steampunk was about alternate history. I was careful to mention that it had, on at least one occasion, mated successfully with Tolkienesque fantasy.

As I started promo work for Cruel Numbers, though, I noticed something. Most Steampunk literature took place in England. That didn’t bother me. England was a hopping place in the 19^th century, a natural hub for an adventure. What bothered me was how Steampunk books were decidedly pro-British. It’s an observation that I’ve seen repeated on several Steampunk oriented websites. This interest in England even extended to the writing style of the authors.

These websites and books made me wonder if I’d wandered off the reservation. Was Cruel Numbers Anti-Steampunk? ‘Anti-Steampunk’ meaning that it goes in the opposite direction from other Steampunk novels. It’s set in New York City, not London. Donovan—the protagonist—drinks black coffee and calls British people ‘limeys.' You have to forgive him, though. He’s got some unresolved issues concerning British involvement in the War of Southern Secession. While we’re on the topic, don’t ask him about Southerners either.

The fact that he has a low opinion of British people isn't meant to be a thrown gauntlet, however. It's the natural consequence of being an embittered veteran of a lost cause. Similarly, the prose in Cruel Numbers is gritty and American because the narrator is a hard-boiled former Pinkerton.

I could hardly blame people, though, if they preferred a certain style of writing. Many people were probably attracted to Steampunk precisely because they wanted the more disciplined, almost florid prose associated with British literature.

And there was another problem. When I wrote it, I used broad strokes of the 19^th century: sprawling Dickensian factories and soul-crushing inequality, the results of massive and relentless change. The divergent timeline only served to deepen these problems. In our history, national governments were outright incompetent in handling the technological innovations of the period (sound familiar?). So I found it impossible to imagine society adjusting well to the monumental changes of High Steampunk. This cynical interpretation heightens the noir element, though. That was, in many ways, more important to me than the technology. (I won’t debate noir today because frankly, it deserves its own post.)

My divergent timeline was thus dreary, pessimistic, and above all, industrial. For some reason when I imagined Steampunk, it was factories that I saw and the crumbling brick buildings around them. In contrast, several Steampunk writers on the Web described Steampunk and Retro-Futurism as "optistmic," which isn't a word I'd use to describe Donovan.

I was left wondering if I'd violated some kind of Steampunk Code. Would Steampunk enthusiasts appreciate a new viewpoint or would they see it as an act of war? Was I misreading them entirely on this Anglophile thing? Was Cruel Numbers really going someplace new or was this just my imagination?

Most of these questions hinge on what Steampunk is. Do dirigibles and mechanolimbs qualify a book, or is it more than just technology? Many people suggest Steampunk is an aesthetic rather than a genre. That seems clear when dealing with art, but what about literature?

Donovan’s trajectory has already been plotted. I completed the sequel a few months ago. It’s now navigating that hazardous strait between Manuscript and Book. His later adventures are also, for the most part, charted. I hate to be narcissistic, but this discussion is for my illumination. I may be opening a can of worms here, but I pose this question to you: What is Steampunk? Should all Steampunk follow one style or can it vary?

I guess I can't avoid those compound questions, even when I'm not teaching anymore. Some habits are hard to break. Leave your comments and I'll moderate accordingly. Thanks and I hope you enjoy Cruel Numbers.

Next week's can of worms: Noir.

Change of scenery

I swapped out the exploding dirigible at the top for something more...domestic. Call it 'a writer in his natural habitat,' which is to say his mind. You'll notice I'm wearing socks. That's because it's cold in here. I'd like to thank J.R. Stone of Punksthetic Art for capturing my essence. Check out his other stuff on Facebook if you want to be wowed.

I'm the guest blogger at Blue Chocolate Diaries!

Here's the link.

Donovan's New Look

Many thanks to Jamie R. Stone from Punksthetic Art for the sketch! You can win a sketch of your own by answering the question of the week on the Punksthetic Facebook site.

This is a wonderful description of Cruel Numbers

Excerpt from the Carina Newsletter:
Our Staff Loves…Cruel Numbers

Cruel Numbers by Christopher Beats ePrice: $3.99 Our Price: $3.59

The Big Sleep. The Maltese Falcon. Key Largo. Film noir classics that have all the hallmarks of the genre. The cynical, hard-bitten private-detective hero; the tough yet vulnerable heroine; the twisting plot that evokes a bygone era when men where men, women were dames, and you didn't pull your punches. Now imagine a noir mystery like these but set in an alternate history 1800s America, with all the elements of steampunk analytical machines, steam-powered gadgets, and sci-fi with a Victorian twist. Put all that together and you have Cruel Numbers, a steampunk noir mystery. In this book the core elements from two genres I adore film noir and steampunk are mixed and balanced within a compelling storyline. The jaded hero with a heart of gold is Donovan Schist, a war vet who makes a living finding missing persons, usually girls who came to the big city looking for fame and fortune and who found trouble instead. This time the girl he's looking for Bridget Cleary isn't just lost in the big city; she's been hidden away. But by who, and why? As Donovan works to untangle the mystery, he encounters characters worthy of both a Raymond Chandler novel and an H.G. Wells story. Don't miss this unique, gripping mystery! —Jenny Bullough, Manager of Digital Content

Steamed!

I'm the guest blogger at Steamed! this week. I wrote a little piece about ideology, Racism, and cowardly filmmakers.

Check it out.

What's in a name?

It's hard not to like parallel dimensions. I grew up seeing He-Man and Krang come from their dimensions to save or plunder ours, according to their preference. That stuff probably had an impression on me. Since I haven't donned a mask or dismembered innocent people with a sword, I'm going to say that impression was good.

To some maybe that was bad thing, though, because I've spent an awful lot of time thinking about things that didn't happen. Or at least, didn't happen in our timeline.

I can't blame Saturday morning cartoons for all that fantasizing, however. Science gets to take some credit, too. Imagine my delight when, as a young man, I discovered the beautiful possibilities in post-Einstein physics.

Men with a PhDs were out there saying parallel worlds were not only possible, but likely. The technicolor hue of reality began to suffuse my created domains. Maybe this stuff was happening somewhere. Rather than make me feel small or unimportant, these theories excited me. What if you could meet your other selves? What could our world look like with just a small change in history?

Physics didn't just give me justification in that way. It inspired me. I stumbled on all sorts of fun ideas, like the fact if I were in the right reality, I might be immortal (you might be immortal too, by the way). I also learned along the way that my ideas weren't daydreams, they were thought experiments. I could pat myself on the back. All those hours I whiled away glassy-eyed in school weren't wasted, they were mental exercise.

The rabbit hole, as people like to say, just got deeper. Turns out, it wasn't just weirdos like Tolkien or Lovecraft that dreamed up imaginary worlds. Even some literary types engaged in the practice. There were tons of thought experiments out there. Some were fantastic places where the possibility of legends were realized, while others were like our history, with a slight twist. Science fiction isn't just speculation about what might be in our world, it's a speculation about what might be period.

What separates thought experiments from ideal dreaming is the structure. Fake histories take work. They require an understanding of cause and effect. A math problem on a classroom blackboard was tedious. But a math problem created by a die roll to represent a fake reality is exciting!

Small surprise then that anyone who knows me will tell you that when I'm playing, it looks an awful lot like work. When I was younger it involved pencils, paper, and fingers stained with graphite. Nowadays, it involves furious typing. Sometimes I even scowl.

It's all deceptive, though. When you play sports, you sweat (this is an absolute for me; I live in Florida), The fact you're sweating doesn't make you say "hey this is work"--what would sports be without sweating?

So a lot of my fun looks like work to other people. Hopefully, the finished product doesn't feel like work, though. The goal, as with everything else, is to make this look easy. So take my hand, follow my lead and, if you'll let me, I'll show you other worlds...