With 50k of my steampunk WIP, TELL ME NO LIES, under my belt, I return to my weekly Monday Inspirations posts in order to focus on some of the central elements of the steampunk genre. As you can see from the title, I intend for this to be the introduction to a miniseries on steampunk technology, a chance for me to explore a world that I find both exciting and slightly intimidating. Luckily, I have you, dear friends, to accompany me on this journey. 😀
This is more my speed. Credit: Alwyn Ladell, via Flickr
As much as the admission pains me, I must confess that tackling anything related with technology makes me all sorts of crazy inside. I don’t do technology, or at least anything more advanced than, say, an automatic crossbow or a horse-drawn carriage. I prefer swords to guns, magical staves to anything science-y (unless, y’know, we’re talking about some sort of alchemical process), and flesh-and-blood humans and animals to androids or clockwork creatures. I’ve never been really intrigued by how things work — I want to press a button on my computer, or turn the key in the ignition of my car, and have it work, period. (There is a reason why I am a sociologist/writer, and not an engineer or a scientist.)
It's all about the pretty, folks. Okay, the train is cool too, I suppose. Source: RocknRollBride.com
Clearly, it wasn’t the excitement over building worlds dominated by airships or great clockwork structures that motivated me to write a steampunk novel. No, I was seduced by the aesthetics (I feel a little guilty about this). I like the 19th century. I like England. I like bustles and corsets and mini-fascinators and top hats. Granted, I also like the dark side of society that steampunk allows me to explore, particularly the social upheaval that accompanied the Industrial Revolution.
Better yet, I love the possibilities that engaging in alternate history provides. What happens if we shift our attention from the stately parlors and fancy drawing rooms of the British Empire in favor of another locale? What sorts of stories can we tell if we move beyond the dominant paradigm of the wealthy European lady or gentleman, the common protagonists of steampunk novels? This is a topic I’ll return to later on down the line, but for the moment, I will refer you all to Beyond Victoriana, a blog where such questions are tackled on a regular basis.
"Into the Far West" takes the spaghetti western, adds tropes from Chinese Wuxia, along with steampunk to break free of the dominant western European paradigm. Source: http://intothefarwest.com/
But I digress. While TELL ME NO LIES currently features a host of automatons, a rakish airship pirate, steam-powered trolleys, and one very awesome mechanical menagerie, at the moment they’re little more than wee references sprinkled in — here a robot, there a steam-powered thingie, and by the way, my main character is wearing a bustle. See? Steampunk, right?
