flemmings | (no subject)

Howl's Moving Castle is steampunk? (The book, not the anime-- because the anime doubtless is.) Perdido Street Station? Temeraire? Sabriel? "...works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used—usually the 19th century, and often set in Victorian era England—but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy, such as fictional technological inventions like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, or real technological developments like the computer occurring at an earlier date." Um yes well. Perdido is an Elsewhere, though I guess it's steampink-ish in feel; but Temeraire... (shakes head) Surely that's straight historical AU fantasy.

Picked up a useful and dated little book called About Chinese, that introduces Chinese to, well, anyone wishing to be introduced to it. Wrtten in 1971, which is the past and hence another country: they do things differently there:

But then why learn to speak Mandarin?

Largely because it might be useful: the prospects of travel to China are far from bleak. (J note: need I say the author is British, or could you figure that from internal stylistic evidence?) When this book was in first draft, the Peking authorities were launched on a full-scale tourist drive... Since then the country has had a 'cultural revolution', one of whose side-effects was a new allocation of economic priorities following the chaos early in 1967; the drive to attract foreign visitors seemed at an end. But the priorities, significantly, were economic rather than political. (J note: they were?) There is money in tourism... The tourists will soon reappear, their journey made easier and cheaper by growing competition among travel agencies anxious to build up the Far Eastern circuit.

Somehow 'has had' doesn't seem the right tense to use about the Cultural Revolution c. 1971; but maybe he was going by Mao's own proclamations and not actual conditions?

Whatever, this makes me more sanguine about another statement of his:

For the foreigner, classical Chinese and the literary style of writing must remain specialist subjects. They require at least five years of groundwork, and this, enough time for two Western languages and their literatures to be laid open, is not willingly spared by many people

because otherwise I'd be saying Oh shut up in a very cross tone indeed. Two and a half years of study-- not intense study, you know, just the usual-- would see me conversant in German and its various authors? would give me a good grasp of Magyar? is quite enough time to read through most of French literature? I very much Do Not Think So. Really, she mutters, these people who read 300 pages in an hour or two, like Meril and her ilk: we hates them, we do, oh my precious yes. And more when they read foreign languages that fast.

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hrm. I would not call Temeraire steampunk by any stretch, no. *scratches head*

How do you define 'focus'? Because I'm pretty sure League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is steampunk, but I don't recall much steam in that either.

What works would you call steampunk, for interest's sake?

Well, not that many, since I haven't read much. However, from the list you linked, the ones I would agree with:

Leviathan
Boneshaker - just finished it, fun light read
The Diamond Age
20,000 Leagues (although I've not read it *recently*, it's held up as one of the earliest examples)
Neverwhere - waffling on this, as to me it is more dark urban fantasy than steampunk
Clockwork Heart

Gah. Most of the rest I haven't read or even heard of. However! I would add League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, without having read it. There's something about the improbable/impossible science that makes it fit.

For me, there's a certain flavour about steampunk that involves a fair amount of suspension of disbelief -- you KNOW that steam contraptions didn't actually do those kinds of things or develop in that way, but the story builds the science and steam and world in such a way as to make it plausible. As comparable to cyberpunk, where we KNOW the internet didn't develop like that (a la Gibson), but it makes sense in its own timeline.

Steampunk is a setting in which a story is told

I kind of had that impression too, which may be why bookthing's implied definition is as broad as it is. For those of us who like Victorian gone bahlooey- steam machines, clockwork gadgets, mechanical automatons, (mad) scientists, dirigibles, springloaded surprises and sharp dressing- but who prefer to have that as background rather than fore-. Rather like sf, actually: give me the people, keep the technology minimal.

What I sort of want from steampunk is that sense of history/ technology redacted, with style and not just as an exercise in what-if. Alas, there are rather a lot of contraptions in steampunk (as N says, it's about *steam*; except I think it should be about critiquing Victorian assumptions about the civilization that produced steam) and people keep wanting to talk about them (or the cover blurbs do.) That may be why it works so well as graphic novel. Stuff is there, you can see it, you needn't describe it; and the style is unmistakable.

Thanks, I like your definition (prolly because after reading it I'm less confused about what steampunk exactly is :D)