Jan 30, 2021
G. Y. KAUFMAN - MARTIAN GIANTS CONSTRUCTING THE SPHINX, ILLUSTRATION FOR EDISON’S CONQUEST OF MARS BY GARRETT P. SERVISS
seen from United States
seen from Tunisia
seen from United States
seen from Lithuania
seen from Türkiye
seen from Australia
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from China
seen from China
seen from Italy
seen from United States
seen from Russia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from United Kingdom
G. Y. KAUFMAN - MARTIAN GIANTS CONSTRUCTING THE SPHINX, ILLUSTRATION FOR EDISON’S CONQUEST OF MARS BY GARRETT P. SERVISS
Science Fiction Subgenres from A to N
So, to start this blog off with something fun, I thought I’d do a series of big ol’ masterlists covering sci-fi and fantasy subgenres! There is a heckin’ large amount of them, so I’ve split it up into four sections with about five or six posts- this one right here is for, you guessed it, science fiction, from A to N. *cue distant cheering*
First up, a little recap:
Science Fiction: This can be considered a difficult genre to define, simply because it can encompass nearly anything- but the best definition I’ve heard is that it’s “the literature of change”, particularly in areas of scientific advancement and technological growth. According to Wikipedia, this is a genre of speculative fiction “typically dealing with imaginative concepts such as futuristic science and technology, space travel, time travel, faster than light travel, parallel universes, and extraterrestrial life.” (x) Science fiction generally encompasses imaginary worlds and universes bound to laws of physics (although not necessarily the laws we know of or follow) that are advanced in some way by science and technology, and experiencing some form of change because of that. To put it very simply, science fiction can be viewed as fiction based upon science. Science fiction tends to evoke thoughts of aliens, spaceships, robots, AI, new planets, futuristic cities, flying cars, high-tech things made of shiny metals, lightsabers and phasers, environmental sustainability, and far-future social themes. Examples include Dune (Dune series) by Frank Herbert, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor, The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley, 1984 by George Orwell, Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse series) by James A. Corey, Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee, and Parable of the Sower (Parable series) by Octavia E. Butler.
With that refresher in mind, let’s begin! (I’d apologize for the word count, but we’re all nerdy writers here.)
A quick sketch. This is an extrapolation of the Edisonade subgenre of early science fiction. The term Edisonade was coined in the 1990s and is defined like thus:
"a paradigm kind of science fiction in which a brave young inventor creates a tool or a weapon (or both) that enables him to save the girl and his nation (America) and the world from some menace, whether it be foreigners or evil scientists or aliens; and gets the girl; and gets rich."
The first of this type of story was The Steam Man of the Prairies, in which hunchbacked boy genius Johnny Brainerd invents a mechanical man to pull his cart across America where he and his friends fight Native Americans and such (did I mention this subgenre tended to be very xenophobic?). The Steam Man is described like thus:
"It was about ten feet in height, measuring to the top of the 'stove-pipe hat,' which was fashioned after the common order of felt coverings, with a broad brim, all painted a shiny black. The face was made of iron, painted a black color, with a pair of fearful eves, and a tremendous grinning mouth. A whistle-like contrivance was trade to answer for the nose. The steam chest proper and boiler, were where the chest in a human being is generally supposed to be, extending also into a large knapsack arrangement over the shoulders and back. A pair of arms, like projections, held the shafts, and the broad flat feet were covered with sharp spikes, as though he were the monarch of base-ball players. The legs were quite long, and the step was natural, except when running, at which time, the bolt uprightness in the figure showed different from a human being."
Subsequent Edisonades feature characters like Frank Reade, Tom Edison Jr, Jack Wright, Electric Bob, and Tom Swift, and features inventions such as steam-powered horses, giant ostriches, fishlike submarines, and the electric rifle (which the taser was named after, it being an acronym for Tomas A. Swift's Electric Rifle).
The Edisonade was largely confined to the Victorian era and the early 20th century, so I thought I'd take that and see how it would have advanced into World War One, with steam being replaced by diesel power.
After the Americans enter the war in its last year, they bring with them good ole' American ingenuity (and its capacity for destruction). The Diesel Men quickly supplanted tanks in the war, and subsequent American wars (WW2, Korea, The Soatseran Mars War, and the War of Olympus Mons, among others). Unlike the original Steam Man, which merely pulled a cart at high speed, the Diesel Men are fully functional vehicles and battle-suits with cockpits in the torso.
If I find the time, I might take this design out of the Dieselpunk era and take it into different eras like 50s/60s Atompunk and so on.
That fan fiction starred Thomas Edison, who starred in so many fan fictions that it became an entire genre.
From “Edison’s Conquest of Mars,” a totally illegal sequel to War of the Worlds.
The guy with the tashe in the back is Kaiser Wilhelm.
This is from a genre known as the Edisonade, about super-inventors and their inventions.
Air pollution and the gothic tone of 19th Century literature
Or why Britishy steampunk and literature feels gloomier than Americanishy steampunk. Victorian Britain lends itself rather well to bleak interpretations of society (and in the case of steampunk, technology) namely due to the very things that fueled the nation's rise to the center stage in the first place: the Industrial Revolution. The drab, gloomy bleak atmosphere of Dickensian squalor and Burtonesque comedy horror is made chillingly real by the historical presence of noxious air pollution from burning coal (that and the natural rainy climate of that archipelago more or less made dark and gloomy a given). A similar thing is observed in the United States in roughly the same space of time, but is mostly concentrated on the Industrialized northeast of the country (historically Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Nantucket; today it'll likely be a joking reference to New Jersey) where climate and air pollution gave rise to something akin to Britain's 19th Century Milieu. In fact, such an environment was so gloomy and disgusting, particularly when paired with the technological wonders that came with, that it even came with a very disparaging name: the Gilded Age, one that looks like a golden age in the surface, but is far from it below. Here we have you Edgar Allan Poe murder stories, your crazy ship captains and white whales, Cthulhu, and that thing about rat poo in your sausages that came up because it involved Upton Sinclair fighting for worker’s rights. The rest of America, meanwhile, was mostly agrarian areas and wilderness still tended by people on horseback (and stolen from the Native Americans) and the arrival of technology meant the heroic triumph of civilization over the apathetic and dangerous wilderness, thus leading to Westerns and Cowboy-themed Steampunk, also known as Edisonade. That and since the cities were spread out, air pollution took time to actually make a visible impact on the country. Moreover, frontier settlement in the United States led to the idea that the gloom of “decadence,” as exemplified by social stratification, terrible work conditions, and air pollution of the Atlantic Coast, can all be left behind by going west.
Tom and Big Sir
Is "Ex Fumo Gaudiam" steampunk? I can send you a copy of the novella, or google it. Blurb: In a Roman Empire powered by steam, Procurator Marcus Amandus has fallen in love with the wrong woman. Makki is a barbarian from the newly discovered Western continent. Unfortunately, Marcus is betrothed to the governor’s daughter, who has arrived for a tour of the colony. Then Makki’s cruel husband Wotanake returns, and Marcus must prove himself a lover and a fighter to protect their lives and his honor.
Oh dear. Not even a day old and we are already buzz-marketing, are we? Well, I suppose such self-promotion cannot be helped in today's paper-cut-throat world of literary creation. I am prepared to let loose the floodgates, and have the tumultuous tidal waves of typists spew forth their works upon this very site. Let us drown in the turgid ichor of marketing together, shall we? Hand in unlovable hand, as is our want.
But those are thoughts of the future. At this auspicious moment we are concerned with nothing less than the past. The far, far past, if I understand your blurb correctly.
Before we begin, I do wish to point out that while you are very gracious to offer a copy of your novella for me to read, the last thing I want to create is a façade of a gentlemen who has read nothing less than everything we will speak of on this website. Of course I have read your novella. Please do not take the fact that I seem to only refer to things mentioned in your blurb as evidence that I have not read the work entire. I do this only to protect my readers from spoilers, should they wish to seek your novella on their own. Were this a private conversation between you and I, Nobilis, perhaps it would be different. Let us assume so.
Now, you are very kind to point out that this Roman Empire you write about is powered by steam. If we were working with the literal definition of "steampunk," you would certainly be half-correct, right out of the gate. But there is a slight issue with your choice of setting the piece within the ancient confines of the Roman Empire. While certainly industrious, the Roman Empire never had what one can call an "Industrial Era." In fact, Italy's national insecurity concerning this bled far into the 20th Century. Though your Romans made it to what I am assuming in North America, they needed not industrial power to do so. On their own they got as far as the British Isles, and the Vikings crossed the Atlantic from that launching point without a single steam kettle.
So while you do have steam technology, il y a quelque chose qui cloche.
Upon first glance, I am inclined to place your story not with steampunk, but instead with the Edisonade, steampunk's literary predecessor. The Edisonade involves a young son of Empire, often an inventor, who cuts a swatch through a savage land with only his manifest destiny and advanced death-machines to guide him. Steampunk is often looked upon as a reaction to these stories, creating a narrative that is urban with a pessimistic view of technology as opposed to a rural exploration where all that is needed is the right device in the right place. The unfortunate smattering of colonialism in your narrative certainly speaks to this, and I believe I have established my thoughts on the dangers and difficulties of colonialism.
That said, if we were to take every work with a gloss of colonialism behind the shed to be shot, we would live in a world without My Fair Lady and the Indiana Jones films. And who would stand to exist in such a place? No one I would like to meet, to be certain. Such a world would not be, to filch a phrase, lovery.
Let us adjust our collective bifocals and give your work closer look. While indeed you have all the hallmarks of a Class 1 Edisonade, I am compelled by the essential conflict of your story. Your dutiful Son of Empire seems less concerned with cutting a swath of civilization than with reconciling disparate cultures. This idea, of a multitude of backgrounds thrown together and difficulties that engenders is a basic tenant of urbanism. As the urban sociologist Manuel Castells eloquently informs us:
“That is what the essence of the urban is in the last resort. For the city creates nothing, but, by centralizing creations, it enables them to flower."
Your story does not take place in a city, nor in the Industrial Era, the time of cities. But you do explore the way that cultures that would never meet change those it comes in contact with—especially that Son of Empire, who has no real reason to change. And if this was an Edisonade, he wouldn’t. But since he does, and sense his experiences are very urban in nature, if not in actuality, I am going evoke my primate ancestors and stretch out onto a limb and call this steampunk.