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Steampunk is a visual art Steampunk and steampunkish style are very popular in comic books and movies, and features increasingly in role playing games. Steampunk literature is rare, as is true steampunk music. How come? To give a definition of steampunk one considers many things. But other than in horror, epic fantasy and romance, for instance, steampunk has no definition in it’s plot or content. All kinds of plots and literary genres can be put into steampunk mode... because steampunk seems to be a visual art. What makes steampunk steampunk, is a certain flair or atmosphere of the setting and the characters. It is the little gadgets and the way of speaking that makes steampunk, not a predictable plot for the genre. In fact, one can see two kinds of steampunk, I will call them “soft steampunk” and “hard steampunk”. The difference between the two is in which amount the steampunk setting is responsible for the plot. In hard steampunk, the story could not be told in another setting, all steampunk aspects of the story carry the plot. In soft steampunk, a story is told against a steampunk background, but the same story could have been told in an entirely different setting. Steampunk is usually seen as a sub-genre of science fiction. In science fiction we see a similar diversion between hard-SF and other SF, where the space operas are the most infamous because they bear more resemblance to fantasy or soap operas than they do to science or fiction. In soft-SF it is the setting that makes the genre, not the plot. In hard-SF, the makers of it carry on and on about scientific fantasies and each nut and bolt of a spaceship, where these fictive inventions carry a lot of the plot. It is easier for the visual arts (as comics and films) to show steampunk than writing down the background in a novel. The style of dressing, the colours of the setting, the plate work of things, small gadgets: easy to show it in something visual, but rather boring if you have to read about it. For visual arts, it doesn’t matter what story has to be told: the details of the setting make the genre. Another example in science fiction might be “Star Trek”. Even though it is set in a future world in space, many episodes of the series could take place somewhere else. On one hand side, that may be the strength of the series (one can easily adapt the ideas and dreams to ones own world), on the other hand side it blurs the idea of science fiction where the fictive science does make a major difference in the story. Is there no such thing as a steampunk plot? Even for hard-Steampunk, I think there is not. Partly because steampunk is a very small genre and there are no steampunkers who only write steampunk because they want to. Most steampunk artists are labelled steampunk without them even attempting to make steampunk. Where steampunk started with The Difference Engine by Bruce Sterling and William Gibson, it shows that it is just another cyberpunk story (both are cyberpunk writers) in another setting. From there on, more literature was labelled steampunk, even avant-la-lettre. Other genres seemed to have similarities to the genre (as the books by Jules Verne) and were drawn into it or at least were made part of the same family. In horror, the writer attempts to frighten the readers. In a detective story, the reader goes searching for the criminal, in a love story the reader just has to wait when the lovers start to kiss. In pornography, one knows what to expect. In epic fantasy, a young hero rides out to save the world from the evil overlord. Most genres will tell you what to expect. Steampunk does not. Adding the steampunk setting to any other genre will make steampunk: a steampunk horror-story, a steampunk detective-story, a steampunk love-story. Steampunk seems to be the ultimate cross-over genre. In fact, that problem can be found in the mother-genre cyberpunk as well, especially in modern cyberpunk where future science is no longer the core of the plot. Now there is a problem with this. Most people can tell you if they like a certain genre or not. But if someone has been brought into contact with a steampunk horror-story, that person might like the setting, but the same setting in a steampunk detective-story might be a lot less interesting. Or the other way around: who has been brought into contact with steampunk crossed with a less popular genre, might never pick up steampunk again. The core of steampunk seems to be the setting with its fantastic techniques, with the touch of Victorian life-style, with its pseudo-historic attitude that has been combined with modern ideas: best viewed through the eyes. © Yaghish 2004 |
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