ENTROPIC WORLDS

Steampunk Prime

Edited by Mike Ashley

Foreword by Paul di Filippo

Published by Nonstop Press

Steampunk Prime is a very cool, if slightly vague, title, and against closer scrutiny the intrigue only seems to grow. Editor Mike Ashley has a very strong pedigree in the SF community as the editor of over 90 books. That credit alone should be enough to raise an eyebrow or two, throw in a foreword by SF stalwart (and author of The Steampunk Trilogy) Paul Di Filippo and, on paper, there is a lot to recommend this anthology. But what does the publisher mean by “a vintage steampunk reader?” Steampunk Prime is actually a collection of original Victorian and Edwardian science fiction stories from an eclectic assortment of little known authors. So is it really a steampunk anthology? The answer undoubtedly depends on who you ask – if you ask me, the answer is no.

I’m aware that many smart and influential people in the steampunk community cite Verne and Wells as the great progenitors of the genre, and I agree that there is a relationship between steampunk, Verne, and Wells. However, I believe that what those authors wrote was science fiction that was simply a product of there era, much the way that science fiction literature and art of the 30s and 40s was defined by the art-deco, atomic era aesthetic of that period, or the way that the original wave of cyberpunk was influenced by the new digital age that was rising, even more quickly in the imagination of authors, filmmakers, and artists than it was in daily life. Just as dieselpunk draws on the aesthetic of golden age science fiction, so does steampunk on that of the turn of the century British and American authors.

I believe, however, that there is something inherently postmodern about proper steampunk literature. I don’t mean that it needs to be something that is self-conscious or heavy-handed in its historical and literary deconstruction, in fact the best steampunk rarely is.  Yet, what makes steampunk unique is its ability to look at the present by examining parallels (or aberrations and anomalies) in the past. Steampunk assumes a working understanding of the social, technological, and cultural conditions of our own era as well as that of the Victorians. It allows a simpler and more transparent past to act as a framework that, when pitted against our more convoluted present circumstances, is capable of exposing some of its underpinnings and its basest driving mechanisms. Conversely – it occasionally introduces complexities and nuances originally absent from the Victorian era, that encourage authors and readers alike to speculate on the forces that drive behavior, politics, and economies.

Verne and Wells are neat tools and references for individuals who create steampunk art and literature, or participate in the culture; they helped to define a literary aesthetic that is heavily borrowed by many authors, and their works represents a fascinating and invaluable document of the contemporary attitudes towards technological innovation. Perhaps it is unfair to expound too heavily on the virtues of Verne and Wells here because the two authors are quite deliberately excluded from this collection, which focuses on the unsung heroes, as it were – but the point is, as with the work of Verne and Wells, the aforementioned qualities are completely absent from the stories collected in Steampunk Prime.

Despite my personal belief that a practical and useful definition of steampunk will radically increase both the volume and quality of discussions on the genre, I do understand the commercial value of labeling this as a steampunk collection, and frankly, I welcome it if it puts long forgotten stories back in print. At the same time, I wonder if the forced presentation detracts at all from the overall experience. In Mike Ashley’s introduction he writes: “there’s something so gloriously reassuring about steampunk fiction. The idea that the Victorians may have got it right….” And in his foreword, Di Filippo declares that “steampunk is the adolescent SF genre dreaming of the adult that it hopes to grow up to become.” Both of these statements run so counter to what good steampunk is and can be that it is hard not to be a little bit offended. My post on feminism in steampunk in particular looks at a handful of stories about just how wrong the Victorians had gotten it – and how challenging it was for the victims to fight back. Its true that there is a youthful flare that runs through many steampunk novels, but I would not hesitate to include Ekaterina Sedia’s The Alchemy of Stone, Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age and Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (just to name a few) among the most “adult” and “mature” novels the SF genre has produced, both in terms of craft and content.

I know I’ve delivered quite the laundry list of critiques of the anthology – but once one comes to terms with the fact they are reading an anthology of turn of the century science fiction, not steampunk, there are many things to recommend it, not the least of which are the detailed and informative introductions to each story. The brief background information provided by Mike Ashley provides biographic details about the array of largely unknown authors featured in the collection, as well as contextual background on the diverse themes and subjects and their relation to larger cultural and literary trends of the period.

The quality and relevance of the stories varies drastically from one to the next; some are exceptionally well-written and maintain social or literary significance, while others feel more like forgettable pulp fodder, the relevance of which is largely historical. The collection, however, retains a sense of consistency as an anthology through its thoughtful and fluid organization that places stories in progressive thematic groupings rather than in chronological order based on date of publication. The anthology begins with a few stories set in a more or less contemporary London, that employ the relatively grounded tropes of mechanical men and steam-oriented technology. As the anthology progresses, the stories take greater and greater speculative leaps and progress further and further into the future, culminating in the penultimate tale, “The Last Days of Earth,” by George C. Wallis, which hurtles us 13 million years into the future. The final story “The Plunge,” breaks the pattern somewhat by returning to a contemporary setting, which Ashley chose instead because it “has all the standard images of steampunk,” and an “into-the-sunset” ending.

Among the mixed bag of entries, a few stories had a significant lasting impact on me, mainly because they came the closest to anticipating the narrative elements that I believe constitute true steampunk fiction. The second story, concisely titled “The Automaton,” is apparently based on the very real public fascination over the idea of a chess playing automaton, and an equally real hoax surrounding that idea. Its fascinating on one hand because aptitude for chess still seems to be one of the main qualities by which the public judges the success of A.I., and on the other hand, it is also a well executed early 20th century detective story. I also appreciated the funny image it presents of the idle amateur-gentleman chess enthusiasts in 1900 England, though I’m not sure all of the humor was intentional.

“Plague of Lights,” by Owen Oliver easily had the most imaginative and compelling concept in the anthology. The plot is essentially this: mysterious lights infect nearly all of the inhabitants of every major city with a consciousness from another world. At times, the alien takeover is described in quite chilling language and the general tone is one of confusion and outright paranoia. Readers looking for an iconic steampunk setting, however, may be disappointed. While a lack of Victorian indicators may leave the narrative without a certain aesthetic flair, it may also have helped it to age a bit more gracefully than some of the other stories.

It is hard not to notice how many of the themes and trends that dominate these stories actually clash with what we think defines a steampunk story today. Most notably is the preoccupation with technological disasters as a driving narrative force in and of itself. “The Gibraltar Tunnel,” by Jean Jaubert, is a heroic tale of a disastrous accident averted in an underwater train tunnel; “What The Rats Brought,” by Ernest Favenc, combines vampire mythology with the social anxieties of industrialized urban living; and “The Great Catastrophe,” by George Davey, is a story of electricity gone wild in London. technological catastrophe, while present in modern steampunk, is generally used as a narrative device rather than a narrative focus. Cherie Priest’s Clockwork Century series revolves around the ecological disaster set off by a steam-powered mining machine called the “boneshaker,” yet the stories are about the characters and political factions left in its wake, and while first generation authors like Blaylock and Jeter often pitted their protagonists against potential disasters, it was the shady conspirators and cabals that were the antagonists, and not the technology itself. After reading Steampunk Prime, its easy for one to assume that this paranoia surrounding technological progress consumed the Victorians, but in an era far removed from the pre-industrial anxiety, modern steampunk chooses to focus on the various social and political interests that competed for control of technology, both real and speculative.

Less surprising, but more disappointing, is the marginalized role that women play in these stories. Its no secret that women weren’t allowed much agency in Victorian fiction, but one of the major draws of steampunk is its ability to both revise and revisit the untold stories and untapped potential for women in the era of burgeoning feminism and rapidly shifting social paradigms, something that I wrote about more thoroughly in my post “I Sing the Body Pneumatic: A Brief Survey of Feminism in Steampunk Literature.”

I can’t speak for all steampunk fans, but I find steampunk appeals to my love for speculative fiction as well as my fascination with the social and political maelstrom that was the turn of the century. In that way, this collection is welcome as a glance into the social and cultural attitudes and preoccupations that defined the era. I enjoy this artifact because I read steampunk, not because it is steampunk.