tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32085591.post7737670992921211483..comments2023-11-07T21:12:19.852-06:00Comments on Wyrdsmiths: My Thoughts on the Genre of Steamtate hallawayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06631759014508937940noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32085591.post-18354960027500485242010-11-12T16:42:56.287-06:002010-11-12T16:42:56.287-06:00Wish I'd made the conversation last night.
I ...Wish I'd made the conversation last night.<br /><br />I think writing it off as mainly a visual phenom that doesn't translate to the page is a cop-out. Yes, a lot of the people who are into the making/playing aspect of it are more into the visual, but that's the medium they're working in. Making cool stuff and dressing up, by definition, results in eye-candy. But that doesn't have to be where it stops.<br /><br />I think there is a deeper esthetic that can be touched within steampunk. There is a sense of both wonder and entitled ability (in the sense of "People can solve anything they put their minds to), along with a sense of discovery & adventure among the frontiers of civilization, that can easily run through steampunk. It simply hasn't been tapped yet. It's a combination of the SF space opera ethos combined with an old west sensibility, all topped off witha dab of mystery and the (vaguely) fantastic. Think Verne plus Doyle plus Indiana Jones, or the like. *That* kind of thing can work very well in literature--people just need to get past the gears and goggles and leather and put it on paper. I know that if I did any steampunk, it's what I would aim for.Douglas Hulickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04221190213829107139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32085591.post-80863747407794677912010-11-12T12:32:56.981-06:002010-11-12T12:32:56.981-06:00Charles Stross called Steampunk: "...what hap...Charles Stross called Steampunk: "...what happens when Goths discover brown..."Jonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09581880415411016683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32085591.post-36552435015091187232010-11-12T10:58:24.321-06:002010-11-12T10:58:24.321-06:00The conversation at Wyrdsmiths last night was inte...The conversation at Wyrdsmiths last night was interesting. What the others were saying was, steampunk is really a visual art and graphic novel phenomena, and it works better as visual art: the amazing pseudo Victorian computers we find on the Internet, the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and so on. <br /><br />It's really hard to get the effect of a visual art in a novel. How much description do people want to read, anyway? Fiction is usually more about character and action than it is about surface. Science fiction is usually about character, action, ideas and history, rather than surface...Eleanorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07014586558046317266noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32085591.post-36924353518440444462010-11-11T13:55:35.348-06:002010-11-11T13:55:35.348-06:00Which is closely related to why I don't much l...Which is closely related to why I don't much like the word "truth." I'm good with "fact," but truth is very slippery as it seems to mean very different things to different people and sometimes very different things to the same person in two different contexts. I suspect that an awful lot of disagreement happens because we don't really have consensus meaning for a lot of words that many of believe we have consensus meaning for. Which is why I don't like to use good and bad in terms of talking about the art of writing.Kelly McCulloughhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06399122960869198042noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32085591.post-75336751806839108812010-11-11T10:50:15.249-06:002010-11-11T10:50:15.249-06:00Kelly, I think the question is one tied up in the ...Kelly, I think the question is one tied up in the meaning and interpretation of that final word you used there: art. It's a slippery concept, with pseudo-rules and guidelines, and very little agreement about an actual definition when it comes to its application. Every reader, inside, has a sense of what they consider good story, and while much of that maps to a broader audience, there are always these intersection points where what I love is ghastly to you, or vice versa. The rest is ego, as far as I can tell, or lack thereof.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32085591.post-15246604698256629002010-11-11T09:54:29.061-06:002010-11-11T09:54:29.061-06:00The funny thing about the whole kerfuffle for me i...The funny thing about the whole kerfuffle for me is that I'm not actually all that interested in steampunk. It doesn't really hit my literary kinks for many of the same reasons you're talking about here. What really interests me is the meta argument (which is a form I see time and again in the history of art) and why people feel the need to try to map their literary kinks into some sort of objective scale of good and bad art.Kelly McCulloughhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06399122960869198042noreply@blogger.com