When people describe steampunk, they often do so in relation to science fiction. “It’s like science-fiction from the Victorian period,” or “Neo-Victorian technology”. And certainly, yes. This is a large component. But I think that the relationship between steampunk as a literary genre and fantasy as a literary genre is too often overlooked. One of my goals with The Aldersgate Cycle was to create a steampunk fantasy world, where technology and a Victorian “feel” were part of the world itself, but not necessarily the defining factor.
The thing is, the steampunk aesthetic is as preoccupied with the tinkerer as with the alchemist, as invested in the blueprints as the spellbooks. Our Victorian and Edwardian ancestors embraced ideas of magic, the occult, an the otherworldly, perhaps moreso than any period before them.
Part of my argument rests on the whimsy inherent in the steampunk aesthetic. It’s not just about pipes and brass, it’s more than that. It’s making art that moves, that has a life of its own, that seems to impart its own power instead of just exist. The best objects I’ve seen, whether by Jake von Slatt and the Steampunk Workshop, or Datamancer, or any of the dozens of other makers out there, is when the creation is finished it looks like it should be magic. It looks worthy of magic, of mystery. (I think much of this dates back, from an art historical perspective, to the practice of making reliquaries… but that’s a whole other post in and of itself…)
The other side to my obsession with making steampunk fantasy is that I don’t think technology is that far away from magic at all. Of course, this is far from my own argument. But I think the line is blurred even more in the age of Steam, because technology is, at that point, such a well of fascination rather than a true science. From a historical perspective, you might say that the pursuit of technology was in some ways the pursuit of magic. I mean, if you go back to Newton, for example, one of the fathers of science, he was brilliant, yes; but Newton also was devoted to alchemy, and believed that he could find a way to turn metals to gold. That he and others failed in their attempts doesn’t mean it was any less noble to explore–simply that some things, in this world any way, do not seem to be possible.
It has to do with imagination, with invention. Steampunk is about reinventing the past, taking what we know and shaping it into something that it could have been. Take the whole concept of aether, for instance. It’s taken on a new, quasi-magical life in steampunk as something that’s hybridized science and fantasy.
I guess I just hate genre definitions in general. The reason SF and F are spoken in the same breath so frequently is because they stem from the same concept: “If ___ is possible, then ___” — it’s exploring capabilities, whether by magic or technology, and seeing what influences those capabilities have on greater societies, cultures, and universes. It doesn’t matter if it’s in the “past” or the “future” (or future present, past future, wormhole)–it’s an imaginative exploration of what is possible.
Some people prefer proton bullets to magic missles, of course. But at the heart, it’s important to remember that the blacksmith is just as ancient as the thunder god: in some ways, magic and technology have lived hand-in-hand since the beginning.
The Aldersgate Cycle 
February 16, 2009 at 9:28 pm
Quibbling over genre never really helped anyone. I find that doing so ends up killing creativity in the long run.
Personally, I’ve started to like Terry Pratchett’s take on it, which is that it’s all Fantasy anyway. Any imaginative work that represents a reality that differs from commonly accepted notions of our own (except for reasonable allowances) could rightluy be considered Fantasy, with Science Fiction being a subset of it.
Of course this brings me to my thoughts on the matter of “Steampunk” as a genre (or subgenre, or sub-subgenre). As far as I can tell the term “Steampunk” comes from “Cyberpunk”. The “-punk” in “Cyberpunk” actually means something, but people seem to have taken “-punk” as a way of signifying the type of technology that appears in the work. Now, apparently, some people are trying to make it more punk.
Unfortunately for me, this means that either the genre has an inappropriate name, (which irritates me as a lover of language) or it encompasses aspects that I do not want. I love the tech, but I loath all things punk. In fact, I think that Punk is antithetical to everything I love about steamtech. Thankfully, a couple of the big names are in agreement with me on this.
February 16, 2009 at 10:06 pm
@Eric Yes, I tend to agree with Mr. Pratchett and yourself. It’s all fantasy.
However, with the “punk” in steampunk. What I write is, in its own context, neo-Victorian. What people do, dressing up and inventing objects, is steampunk. I like the aesthetic, but from a writing perspective it isn’t “punk”. I have a lot of respect for the makers and tinkerers out there, they do some incredible things–they’re punks in the oldest sense, people who simply aren’t going by the rules of the current society, and don’t want to let the societal constraints denote how they act. While it’s connected to the goth/punk movements, etc., I think you have to broaden the definition a little for it to make the most sense.
I talk about steampunk here, because it’s the term people are most familiar with. Steampunk art and fashion have impacted and influenced a great deal of what I write, but as I’ve mentioned here before, it was sort of chicken before the egg conversion (if you can even call it that). I started writing The Aldersgate and discovered about 1/4 through that it had a great deal in common with the steampunk aesthetic–the technology, society, dress, etc., but still had a grounded root in the American West and mythology of Northern Europe. Which is why I call it a fantasy western, or, fantasy steampunk western.