Words, we has them

[rolanni]

Reminder to the folks who don't have LJ accounts: I love your comments, but do remember to sign your posts! It unsettles me to not know who I'm talking to. Thanks!

Still soliciting suggestions for good, new SF over here, and being amused by the interesting ideas about What Is Science Fiction and What Is Fantasy.

Not that we're helping any, I know. Writers like to mashup genres.

We do have a question down in that thread that I'm throwing open to the Group Mind, since I have embarrassingly not read either Escapement,The Difference Engine or enough Steampunk literature to have formed an opinion. The question from Lauretta at Constellation Books:

Watching this thread and thinking about this, I must ask - What do you consider steampunk? Fantasy or Science Fiction?

PS Steampunk as defined as The Difference Engine, Larklight (YA - very good), most of Jay Lake's work, etc.


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Comments

[herbmcsidhe.livejournal.com]

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[jaylake.livejournal.com]

The Light Ages
The Steampunk Trilogy
The Difference Engine
Warlord of the Air
Newton's Cannon etc.
Perdido Street Station (up to a point)
The Diamond Age (up to a point)

(and yes, some of my work, specifically MAINSPRING, ESCAPEMENT and a portion of my short fiction)

[pgranzeau.livejournal.com]

I'd say steampunk is SF, however, just as alternate history has usually been called SF, psi powers are SF, etc. Fantasy usually seems to involve magic in one way or another, without any SF explanation of the phenomena (thus negating A. C. Clarke's definition, I guess).

[jelazakazone.livejournal.com]

Isn't steampunk the flip side of cyberpunk, where everything is driven by steam, rather than computers?

Airborn and Skybreaker by Kenneth Oppel epitomize the genre to me. Oppel is an amazing YA writer, by the way. His series about bats is wonderful (until the last one where he lost me towards the end).

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Computers can be driven by steam as well (see the Difference Engine -- Babbage's original, that is, not necessarily the book, being purely mechanical it could have been driven by steam or water or any other mechanical source).

I regard steampunk as SF, in fact 'hard' SF, because it is mainly about technology. Alternate Universe technology (or it can be considered as our universe but with stuff being invented earlier or not invented at all). I include Harry Harrison's "A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!" (set 20th century but in an AU where steam is still the main motive power) and "Queen Victoria's Bomb" by Ronald W. Clark which is set around the Crimean War but someone makes a nuclear bomb.

'Steampunk' isn't necessarily actually about steam, as in the case of QVB above, it is generically any 'old' technology being used for 'modern' things, so for instance a story about something like the Difference Engine being built in Roman times using water and animal power would still fit into the genre. (Hmm, that definition would seem to also include Clarke's early space stories, where a communications satellite had to be manned because it needed someone to replace the vacuum tubes! But since that technology was current at the time the story was written I don't think it counts. However, one which used vacuum tubes in jet fighter aircraft in the late 20th century would -- oh, no, the USSR did that in real life...)

[baggette.livejournal.com]

I recently re-read a paperback full of Soviet-Era Sci-fi short stories from Russia. It was interesting to note what escaped the censors , politically speaking. Also interesting to read about what they considered a futuristic society might look like.

no suggestions but...

[(Anonymous)]

I saw Fledgling on Sept 2009 webscriptions and I was SO HAPPY!!!!!

Lizah C

[(Anonymous)]

Very cool, thank you everyone!

The whole reason I asked the question in the first place was I wanted to recommend SF and had second thoughts after mentioning Escapement. (Hi Jay! Great stuff!) I *do* recommend steam punk as a whole, and the books/stories mentioned here get a thumbs up from me. Now that I know y'all don't think of it as Fantasy, my 2nd thoughts have been beaten back.

Thank you, Rolanni - enjoying the blog as always
Lauretta @ Constellation Books

[anisosynchronic.livejournal.com]

I think of it more as Alternate Universe Mechanical Engineering Fiction rather than Science Fiction....