Another Steampunk Question

One of my manuscripts is set in a fantasy land heavily influenced by Victorian England, and the recent development of steam carriages plays a part in the plot. Also cannons, because I like blowing things up in novels. The agent who offered me representation mentioned that it reminded her of steampunk, although I'd never thought of it that way - I just like throwing science into fantasy worlds.

Toothpaste said:

I asked this over at Verla Kay, but I am impatient so I thought I would ask here as well.

I am interested in writing some Steampunk, or at least a book with a Steampunk flavour. I have read around the net that Edwardian Steampunk does exist, but then all I ever hear talk of is Victorian. I am starting to second guess myself. So I ask the knowledgeable people here, is Edwardian Steampunk acceptable?

Thanks in advance!

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I should think in many ways Edwardian steampunk is almost too good of an idea...After all didn't HG. Wells write War of the Worlds and the Time machine in that period? Don't airplanes xray machines, special relativity, radios and Steam turbines and armored cars and functional submarines kind of tip the scales too far into the post-steampunk period?

I'm not really up on the exact distinction between Victorian and Edwardian. But I remember from watching the anime Last Exile that it seemed to be set in a non-standard steampunk period: there were standing armies, dogfighting airplanes, and carrier-sized airships as notable features.

sunandshadow said:

I'm not really up on the exact distinction between Victorian and Edwardian. But I remember from watching the anime Last Exile that it seemed to be set in a non-standard steampunk period: there were standing armies, dogfighting airplanes, and carrier-sized airships as notable features.

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Perhaps the internal combustion engine would signal the end of steampunk?

In which case airplanes are definitely post-steampunk objects.

On the other hand you could have transitionalpunk or aeropunk or radiopunk or artdecopunk or depressionpunk...I guess I've been setting a certain number of enigmaticpunk scenes in an enigmaticpunk period
that has radios and depressionpunk era carpunk cars with church picnicpunk decor....

sunandshadow said:

I'm not really up on the exact distinction between Victorian and Edwardian.

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Literally, Victorian refers to Britain during the reign of Queen Victoria, 1837-1901, and Edwardian to King Edward VII, 1901-1910.

The common use, however, is much less specific. Edwardian is often extended to the beginning of World War I in 1914, and both terms are frequently applied without any geographic consideration.

Isn't the whole point of steampunk that the technology is taken well beyond its normal bounds. Steam as a means of providing power is coming back into fashion. China Mieville's Perdiido Street Station seems to have this kind of stuff, as does The scar, with steam powered cyborgs given weird artificial appendages as punishments for crimes. I read a book called 'The Cassini Division' in which a nano virus means all computers are nanobot sized steam powered 'Babbages' after Charles Babbage, who effectively invented the computer in Victorian London. Clever stuff.

Of course I might be completely wrong in my definition and so will shut up.

Higgins said:

Perhaps the internal combustion engine would signal the end of steampunk?

In which case airplanes are definitely post-steampunk objects

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They are air-pressure powered airplanes though, like those childrens' toy rockets you pump them full of air and then fire them off. No gasoline or internal combustion.

The Edwardian period is an interesting time for steampunk-type fiction, IMO.

On the one hand, electricity is a big thing by the end of Victoria's life. She had electric light switches in Osbourne House in her lifetime. So in our world, steam is phasing out and cars and electric lights and such are starting to be part of people's lives. Unless you arrested technological development -- or kept steam-powered cars on the road or something -- it's hard to see how it's still an age of steam by Edwardian times.

On the other hand, the social changes that started in Victoria's time are really hitting in Edward's time; I think some of the colonies are starting to be "troublesome", there's the whole buildup to WWI, the growing middle class is starting to make claims on society (fashion and art aimed at them instead of the nobles; iirc Art Nouveau is a big thing (Art Nouveau Steampunk art: WANT!)) ... so it's a fascinating time for the sorts of social issues one sees dramatized in steampunk.

I think you could write wonderful fiction set then and worry if it's "steampunk" later

You know what I read recently? A guide to 'submarines of the world' or something. The steam powered submarines of that era are fascinating. There were also compressed-air powered submarines, and plug-in electric submarines. Really a neat era, before diesel engines took over. And there was the brief period of kerosene powered submarines. You can probably find that book at a good sized library, thats where I found it.

Toothpaste said:

I have read around the net that Edwardian Steampunk does exist, but then all I ever hear talk of is Victorian. I am starting to second guess myself. So I ask the knowledgeable people here, is Edwardian Steampunk acceptable?

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I'm going to venture out and say another reason why people stick with "Victorian" as a label is the aesthetic. Also, when you zoom out to the casual person who isn't familiar with history, they slap "Victorian" as a label to cover everything between Regency/Romantic and that crazy time when girls started cutting their hair short and wearing dresses with far too many tassels.

Though I do prefer the more technical lines, I'm a little cynical that everybody appreciates them

As always, in the end, if it works, write it.

dempsey said:

Also, when you zoom out to the casual person who isn't familiar with history, they slap "Victorian" as a label to cover everything between Regency/Romantic and that crazy time when girls started cutting their hair short and wearing dresses with far too many tassels.

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Vampire Victoria, who took over the UK in 1810 and ruled till 1920, actually lived over 200 years! In fact, she's still around, going "My descendants are doing what now?"

Edwardian steampunk? DOO EEEEEEEEEEEEET.

There is also the advantage of there being only one Queen Victoria, while there are a lot of Edwards.

When I thought of 'Edwardian Steampunk' I immediately thought of invading Wales with a steam powered catapult.

Sarpedon said:

There is also the advantage of there being only one Queen Victoria, while there are a lot of Edwards.

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There were actually three Queen Victorias, but they were clones, so nobody noticed.

Toothpaste said:

I asked this over at Verla Kay, but I am impatient so I thought I would ask here as well.

I am interested in writing some Steampunk, or at least a book with a Steampunk flavour. I have read around the net that Edwardian Steampunk does exist, but then all I ever hear talk of is Victorian. I am starting to second guess myself. So I ask the knowledgeable people here, is Edwardian Steampunk acceptable?

Thanks in advance!

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I'm sorry. The RASA (Royal Academy of Steam-powered Artisans) has not yet provided a ruling on Edwardian Steampunk. Until their final decision, sometime in June of next year, we must insist that you write Victorian Steampunk only.

Violation of this injunction will result in the dispatch of a crack team of highly trained gentleman-adventurers, great white hunters, and indomitable memsahibs armed with nuclear-steam-powered blowguns to enforce against you the Ultimate Sanction: a lifetime warning off of the MCC Cricket Grounds.

Yr. obdt. & hble. svt.
H. Prout
Headmaster

....I am intrigued. And CLEARLY had my head in the sand. Steampunk...how nifty-keen. I'm big into Victorian and Edwardian culture, with a special interest in the Progressive Era of America. How nicely this would fit.
As for whether or not to write Edwardian "Steampunk" - how could you not? That is the era that produced the Titanic, after all - I'd say it's perfectly ripe for such a twist. Cheers!

Shweta said:

Vampire Victoria, who took over the UK in 1810 and ruled till 1920, actually lived over 200 years! In fact, she's still around, going "My descendants are doing what now?"

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And yet another theory about Lady Di's death has born

Sarpedon said:

When I thought of 'Edwardian Steampunk' I immediately thought of invading Wales with a steam powered catapult.

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To Quote IceCreamEmpress: DOO EEEEEEEEEEEET

Toothpaste said:

lol! Thanks guys! A lot. Very helpful.

I also bought the anthology "Steampunk" yesterday, and there was an interesting article that totally confirmed that Edwardian Steampunk was perfectly acceptable. I think someone said this up thread and they were right, "Victorian" has become a general term for a certain period that spans through Edwardian. For example, the American version is technically called "Edisonade" and it's what we see in films like "Wild Wild West", which is clearly the same time as Edwardian England.

Anyway, thanks for the reassurance. I have set myself a daunting task, revisioning Shakespeare, Edwardian time period, and Steampunk, a genre to which I am very new - all within one glorious book.

Oy vey I say.

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Sounds good. I'm a bit puzzled as to what the aesthetics of "steampunk"
mandate or disallow. It seems you get to avoid all that was grim and terrible about the 20th century and substitute a world where social hierarchy is innocently imposed on masses who are unknowingly fortunate not to be heading for the ideological meatgrinders of the century we have all just thankfully gotten through...sounds good, but doesn't some of the tension of Sci -fi arise from the horrors of the 20th century? So isn't steampunk more along the lines of goodpunk cleanpunk funpunk on a world without the more or less apocalyptic century between the 19th and the 21st?

There was a panel at the convention I was just at including Lou Anders of PYR Books, Chris Roberson, and Martha Wells (2 very talented authors of steampunk), the author who has read every SF book, ever, and knows them upside down Scott Cupp, and I sat in on the audience because I is no steampunk expert.

Steampunk as a term is silly and innaccurate and an accident of the proximity of cyberpunk.

Chris called it "Yesterday's Tomorrows". It's a kind of alternate history wherein that moment when technology was still tinkerable, tactile, and visceral - as opposed to electric and digital - became the mainstream. The Babbage Engine was completed, and steam was the heart of computers. Airships were made practicable, and aether - an abandoned scientific theory - is real.

however, chris calls this a form of alternate history: "Yesterday's Tomorrows". He argues effectively that it's bigger than we know.

I think Chris' term is accurate. I also suspect that outside of alternate history, what people often refer to as "Steampunk" (for instance, Martha Wells' books) are fantasy with Victoriana influences.

Thus, Steampunk doesn't exist. It's two things being shoved together, both of which are very different. 1) Yesterday's Tomorrows, and 2) Victoriana.

Many, many people disagree with me, including Lou Anders of PYR.

Adrienne, you'll do wonderful things. Pick whatever you need to use, and do the heck out of it, and don't worry about "Steampunk" defined.

One of the great advantages of SF/F is, as I learned from a DVD extra from Joss Whedon, all history and myth are human. So, when you pull influences together, you are pulling together all sorts of human things that wouldn't necessarily be together in reality, but can teach us about being human.

I hereby third the "DOOOO EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET" motion.