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Fri
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Jul '10

My theory on the appeal of Steampunk as a writer

I have this theory about Steampunk’s appeal from a writer’s standpoint. Or at least, from my standpoint. I think there are two things working in concert.

  1. There’s the aspect of beautiful utility. Typewriters and the like used to be functional technology that was also built to be attractive.
  2. It gets me out of the black box of technology.

Item one is easy to understand. Steampunk looks cool. Really, really cool. Awesome. Sexy. Stylish and at the same time, gets stuff done.

Item two requires some explanation. Right now, when I want to write SF I have to break the technology that my characters have access to in order to allow them to surmount the obstacles facing them by using their wit. Most of the technology I use in real life is in a “black box” which means that I don’t have an understanding of what is going on inside. How does an smart phone work? It’s a magic rock.

Steampunk resets the technology level.

It takes me back to a world where I press a key, which moves a lever, which strikes a platen. The causality of technology is restored to understandable levels. Once again, it is possible to have inventors who create something new, something that world has never seen, in order to triumph. So if I want to write old school SF with inventors, steampunk opens a door to do that.

Also, did I mention that it looks really good?

15 Comments »

  • tobias s buckell

    I always thought the comment that it was just a modern form of pastoralism to be quite clever. ie: we always idolize golden ages. And the golden ages for earlier writers was farm life, pre-industrial, pastoral, hence Tolkein and fantasy (never mind that life was better in the city, people would look out at the countryside and ignore famine and backbreaking labor in favor or focusing on the ideas and window dressing they liked: green hills, slower pace of life, fewer people). But now in the 21st century, our previous age was industrialization, that’s the age we look back to that’s *just* outside of our horizon where we can strip out all the negative stuff of the Industrial Age and think of it as a simpler age, and acquire the window dressing of it to use in our various Fantastic Tales.

    • http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com Mary Robinette Kowal

      Oh, that IS an interesting theory. Certainly nostalgia fiction has been around for ages in varying forms and looking back at different things.

  • Mary Kay

    I think you’re both really smart there, and saying essentially the same thing. Mary has formulated it practically & specifically, while Toby is more general and theoretical.

    And, yes, it looks SO cool…

    MKK

  • http://johnburridge.blogspot.com John Burridge

    As was said in an earlier post, Steampunk takes us back to a pastoral age before the effects of mass production were more obvious. In addition to resetting tech back to a pre-black-box era, it also enables a Steampunk society to be more individualized (something alluded to in that the individual triumphs by creating something new — as opposed to something mass produced by a mass of factory drones).

    Additionally, my idea of Steampunk usually takes (at least) me back to England of 1880′s, when Theosophy, the Golden Dawn, and other similar occult movements were afoot. All of these movements were interested in, and felt they were close to discovering, The Great Key of the Universe (kind of like a Grand Unified Theory of Physics, only with ectoplasm). Through the proper use of technique, the veil in front of the Face of God could be pulled away. Substitute mechanical tools for technique, and “Nature’s Secrets” for the Face of God, and I think you get that same sense of Wondrous Clockwork.

    And yes — the level of craftsmanship in Steampunk is visually stunning.

    • http://www.will-ellwood.com Will Ellwood

      Except of course I’d argue that one of the main advances/concerns/historic themes of the Victorian era was mass industrialization and decline of the individual craftsman. Great Britian being the workshop of the world etc.

      But nostalgia is usually always predicated on ignoring something massive, and that’s all right, to a certain extent, because Steampunk is a fantasy where the practical design choices and limitations of yesteryear are taken as being aesthetic and then amplified in a way no real designer would choose to develop.

      As Tobias said, it’s myth making about our recent past. Comfort food for the mind.

      • http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com Mary Robinette Kowal

        Ah, but to say that the Victorian era was all about mass industrialization ignores the Craftsman movement, which started in 1840 and then really took off in the 1880s. The Craftsman movement was precisely a response to the Industrial revolution and at least as influential on the latter part of the Victorian era.

        William Morris, one of the founders, still shows a heavy influence in the Steampunk aesthetic because of the Gothic themes he employed in his design. He favored those because they required handcrafting. Then too, housekeeping books from the era are full of DIY projects to beautify the home. Upper class ladies, in particular, often had nothing to do with their time but get dressed and do handicrafts.

        My own persoanl nostalgic fascination with the era is in the combination of the industrial and the craftsman.

        • http://www.will-ellwood.com Will Ellwood

          I was going to mention William Morris, but alas a lack of coffee and an early morning start. Yes, the Art’s and Crafts movement has had a influence, but I think that the influence and techniques of mass industrialization has lead, for better or worse, more to our present situation. The assembly line pioneered by Ford is what has driven the world economy and not the small craftsman.

          Design-wise I think the No. 14 chair is the most beautiful object from that era and that’s a flat pack design meant to be mass-produced by unskilled labour. But one that is designed to the strengths of the material. It also lacks the heaviness of the medieval throwback designs favoured by the Arts & Crafts movement.

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._14_chair

        • http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com Mary Robinette Kowal

          But we’re looking at the nostalgic aspects of the period, not where we actually wound up today, especially since Steampunk is all about alternate history. Your initial premise was that the Victorian period was all about mass industrialization which I disagree with. I think it was a major component but that Steampunk’s DIY aspects tie into the Craftsman movement.

        • http://www.will-ellwood.com Will Ellwood

          And I happen to think that is a reflection of the place we’ve ended up as.

          We are, apparently, nostalgic for a time and place without mass-industrialization because we live in a world produced by it. I would be interested to know why the trappings of steam and brass and not, say, wooden gears and windmills of the time prior to the industrial revolution. These are “simpler” and more rustic appearing objects after all.

          I also said one of the main themes, and not the only theme. The nature of the individual craftsman changed during that period and Steampunk often works to promote the DIY aspect.

          What do you think to the idea that Steampunk fiction has an element of moral nostalgia? An era of kings, queens, empire and trade. Alternate histories which aren’t as grey and morally complex as our current times.

  • http://johnstoysoldiers.blogspot.com/ John Lambshead

    Dear mary

    I think you are right. My best received story ever was steampunk. I wonder whether it is an urge for a simpler more ‘heroic’ world where things were crafted, beautiful, and lasted. I suspect another attraction is that sexual and class relations were more codified so that people knew where they stood. Modern sexual relations are a minefield for both men and women. None of this is entirely real, of course, but what does that matter?

    Men were true men, women were true women, and tentacled things menaced London.

    John Lambshead

  • http://johnstoysoldiers.blogspot.com/ John Lambshead
  • http://www.springtimecreations.com Spring

    I think the artisinal aspect and times past fantasy always appeals to us, but then there is the pure engineering aspect of it. These documentaries on newfangled things fascinate me:

    http://science.discovery.com/videos/how-its-made/
    http://science.discovery.com/videos/deconstructed/

  • Chad

    Steampunk turns me completely off. I have never had a desire to look back, so I guess I miss what everyone sees in this style.

  • Jonathan Strahan

    I’ve always thought it was science fiction for people who were (a) afraid of science and/or (b) the future. It’s all that old-fashioned tech-fetishism without having to actually learn about stuff and make that work out. I like steampunk, I’ve LOVED some steampunk, and I have oodles of respect for the writers, but it’s sort of anti-sf.

    • http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com Mary Robinette Kowal

      I can see that theory. It’s not what appeals to me about it, although the opportunity to be somewhat less rigorous with science might be tempting me and I just haven’t noticed.

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