Steampunk Roundup and the Battle of the Chapter

This post is later than expected as I wanted to crack an early draft version of my second chapter into my supervisor. It’s entitled ‘The Haunting of the Architects: magic, myth, machinery and the spectre of Mayhew’ and analyses the trio of Steampunk texts that have come to be considered the formative texts of the genre: Morlock Night (Jeter 1979), The Anubis Gates (Powers 1983) and Homunculus (1986). I’ve focused down on excavating the early appropriation of Gothic tensions and tropes in these fictions together with the profound and distinct influence of Victorian journalist Henry Mayhew on the three authors and their novels. Currently, my structuring of this chapter really needs some more work. The strands aren’t as cohesive on paper as they are in my head and recognising that has been a little demoralising but the remedy to this, as ever, is to keep at it. I’ll try to apply my filming mantra to my PhD: ‘It’s all in the edit!’.

So besides working on my chapter and trying to keep my chin up in the wilting (for England) heat, I’ve been keeping my eye on various manifestations of Steampunkery on the web as it filters through my Twitter and RSS feeds. I thought I’d do a quick round up of some links that lit up my radar.

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‘Pump up the volume: the Sound of Steampunk’ by the author SF/dark fantasy author Kim Lakin-Smith has been posted on her website. An insightful piece on the nature of Steampunk music. I must say that the music side of this subcultural movement has been the hardest for me to appreciate. The definitions are so blurry and, being picky with my music choices at the best of times, I just haven’t liked a lot of what I’ve heard. However, I won’t name any bands because music – attached to a genre/movement or not – is a personally choice that everyone should explore for themselves.

http://www.kimlakin-smith.com/post/Pump-Up-The-Volume-The-Sound-of-Steampunk.aspx

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Courtesy of the mighty BoingBoing:

I very much enjoyed these Steampunk artifacts. Steampunk junk (Steamjunk?) sculptures by artist Marque Cornblatt

image from http://gomistyle.wordpress.com

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/25/junk-steampunk-sculp.html

http://www.marquecornblatt.com/art/sculpture/imagetwo.html



I also wanted to own all of these Steampunk robot sculptures by Stephane Halleaux

image from wired.com

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/22/steampunk-robots-wit.html

http://stephanehalleux.com

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Bruce Sterling’s Flickr set ‘Studies in Atemporality’ is well worth a look

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brucesterling/sets/72157619722832388/

His images mediate a search for the usefulness of ‘atemporality’ as a term to usurp ‘postmodernity’ and the photos serve almost as a definition of such, ranging from recognised empty juxtaposition to unique examples of non-fictional anachronisms, or to paraphrase Sterling ‘prepostmodern archeofuturism’.

This set has resparked my hope for a Bergsonian inspired reading of Steampunk texts. Maybe atemporality will prove to be the way in.

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I’m sure there’s more but I’ll leave it there for today. I plan to take a 24hr break from editing my chapter and fooling around with Bookends to get on with some reading. I’ve had Kim Lakin-Smith’s Tourniquet: Tales from Renegade City (2007) ready to go at my bedside for months and so I’ll crack on with that. Non-fiction wise, I’ll be starting Literature, Technology, and Modernity, 1860 – 2000 (2004) by Nicholas Daly.

Steampunk Tales: The Penny Dreadful for your iPhone

I came across this content via Steampunkopedia, a definitive online chronology of Steampunk. Unfortunately, this site no longer updates in English but its still useful for keeping up to date on the publication and occurance of all things steamy. It's written in Polish it's organised in a manner so that if you don't speak the language - as I don't - you can easily glean dates and titles.

Through a recent update, I learned that Steampunk Publishing LLC has released what it claims is "the world's first electronic pup fiction magazine created exclusively for iPhone and iPod Touch"

images from www.steampunktales.com

The issues are due to come out monthly, priced at $1.99 or £1.19. A bargain. According to the publication's website, Issue #1 contains:

1. The Mask of Tezcatlipoca by G D Falksen

2. Benedice Te by Jay Lake

3. Stormada: Red Blossoms for the Queen by Phil Brucato

4. The Anachronist’s Cookbook by Catherynne M. Valente

5. A Grain of Sand by Mark Rossmore

6. Lowlands Low by J Flesher

7. The Reanimation Emporium by Brian Rappatta

8. Project Möbius-5 by K. E. Kendall

9. The Man and the Robot by Noel Black

10. Tempus Fugit by Jennifer Wilson

This collection of fiction seems like an interesting idea both in terms of the direction of publishing ventures and the proliferation of Steampunk in new media formats. I've been following Jay Lake on Twitter recently and so am excited to see he is one of the contributors for the first issue. I've just purchased my copy and shall review when fully digested.

Get yours through the iTunes App Store.

Morlock Night by K.W Jeter: Review

K.W Jeter's novel Morlock Night has been considered one of the three foundational Steampunk texts, alongside The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers and Homunculus by James P. Blaylock. It is by now well documented that it was Jeter who coined the term 'steampunks' in Locus magazine as a joke to describe Morlock Night as well as the work of his friends Blaylock and Powers. As revealed by Powers at the LX2009 panel 'The appeal of steampunk' in April this year, the three authors were influenced greatly by Henry Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor, originally published in 1851, a copy of which Jeter owned and loaned to Powers and Blaylock.* Published in 1979, Morlock Night was the first of the three novels to emerge in print.

I'm currently working on a chapter for my PhD that looks at these three novels and seeks to determine the apparent influences and precursors of early Steampunk and how accordingly, the themes of Steampunk were consolidated across the novels. In particular, I focus on the gothic landscapes and preoccupations of the work and trace how these aspects mutate into and influence the Steampunk fictions that have followed.

The premise of Jeter's novel is promising and the first few pages of the novel certainly enthrall. The story picks up directly after the events of H.G Well's The Time Machine. The question posed on the cover of my copy sums it up: 'What happened when the Time Machine returned?' Edwin Hocker, an attendee at the Traveller's extraordinary dinner, walks home through the mist of London, accompanied by a fellow diner to whom he refers as the 'Pale Man'. This strange gentleman relentlessly questions Hocker over his incredulous opinion on the Traveller's story and intimates that not only is the story true but that there are drastic consequences in store for civilisation, not merely in the millenia to come but in Hocker's nineteenth century present.

Hocker is shown a glimpse into the future, a devastated and crumbling London succumbing to an invasion by Morlocks, who have gained control of the Time Machine and used it to launch their attack on the past.

At this point - and I realise how as a Steampunk scholar this may sound - the novel takes a turn for the ridiculous.

The activities of the Time Machine have created a vast furrow through time connecting the nineteenth century with the far future of the Morlocks and Eloi. This furrow, while stable enough for the launch of the Morlock's invasion, will eventually cause 'the implosion of Time itself' (p.35). The Pale Man is revealed to be none other than Merlin. Yes, that Merlin. Next are introduced the once and future King Arthur and not one but four Excaliburs. Oh, and it is claimed that at least part of lost city of Atlantis lies in the sewers beneath London.

The mess of ideas eventually swallows up the intially quite interesting proposition posed at the beginning of the novel. That's my first criticism.

My second is that there is something fundamentally worrying about the activation of Arthurian legend in the text. Merlin's concern is not for the fate of humanity but rather of the English, in whose 'blood and soil' is inherent 'a certain spiritual power', 'an embodiment of the highest Western values' (p.34). in contrast, the Morlocks are likened to Southern Europeans...'unrestrained and excitable' (p.89). Hope came when Author delivered an impassioned speech, demanding why he should fight, in his many incarnations, for a country that enslaves at home and abroad and condemns the many to poverty for the sake of the few. This outburst, however, is brief and it is soon revealed that this Arthur if a decoy, the real Arthur redivivus being of a nature much opposed to the former's liberal plea.

My final criticism is that the plot is just littered with holes, the most annoying of which is the fact that at the novel's start, Merlin is able to transport Hocker to different moments in time. Later on, when travel to the past is necessary, it is claimed that only the Time Machine can facilitate such movement, although it has also been stated by Merlin that the Time Machine is can only move between Hocker's present and the future time of the Morlocks. Head spinning.

As a text central to the development of Steampunk as a genre, it's hard to say how influential the novel has been, as opposed to Homunculus and, particularly, The Anubis Gates. Certainly, the Mayhewian element is strong. In Morlock Night, a sewer-man named Tom Clagger claims to have been interviewed by Mayhew for London Labour and the London Poor. In fact, he owes his fortune to Mayhew who pointed out to him the error of his gambling and drinking ways and showed how, if he just saved a little, he could elevate himself from poverty. Simple!

Morlock Night also features several passages of classic description of steam machinery, in the case a submarine that surfaces in the depths of the sewer:

The compartment in which I lay bound appeared to be the submarine’s engine room. Several yards away was a maze of pipes and shafts, some covered with black grease, some glowing red with heal, all twisting and intertwined about the great cylindrical mass of the main boiler, from whose various gauges and apertures gouts of steam hissed out as though a covey of dragons had housed themselves in it. Long bass rods for the purpose of controlling the engine’s valves and other parts were connected to the machinery by intricate systems of gears and chains, then led through metal rings on the ceiling toward the other end of the vessel. (p. 86-81)

However, the submarine's Atlantean origin is, within the context of the plot, both unnecessary and more than faintly ridiculous.

In summary, the novel is useful for me in terms of my research and interest in the origins of Steampunk and its early fictions. But usefulness does not equate with good, I'm afraid, in this case. And while it is referred to alongside the works of Blaylock and Powers, the comparisons will only ever serve to magnify the novel's many faults. A great shame for a novel with such an excellent opening.

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Selected Sources:

Jeter, K.W. (1979) Morlock Night. Daw Books: New York.
Mayhew, H. (1985) [1951] London Labour and the London Poor. Penguin Classics: London.

Notes:

* Cory Doctorow blogged this connection previously at Boing Boing, immediately following the panel.

Lovelace and Babbage - a webcomic

I came by this via Jake Von Slatt's post at The Steampunk Workshop who in turn came across it via Twitter (@nathanfhtagn). It's a webcomic by Sydney Padua over at 2D Goggles - although Padua describes it as less a webcomic than 'a really, REALLY long punchline. With footnotes'.

It's well drawn and manages to cram in quite a few facts with its fiction. Plus (and most importantly) it's very funny.

Well worth keeping an eye on.

Two for One Monday: Tim Powers and China Miéville

I was reminded by Cory Doctorow's post over at Boing Boing that Secret Histories is out. It's John Berlyne's annotated bibliography of the work of Tim Powers. The Boing Boing post also alerted me to the fact that there is a free PDF sampler of Secret Histories available online at: http://news.pspublishing.co.uk/2009/05/29/free-sample-excerpt-from-secret-histories/

After attending a panel/interview of Powers by Berlyne at LX2009, the book was already on my 'to-get' list. However, having dipped into the PDF sampler I see that Secret Histories includes an article written by China Miéville on how influential The Anubis Gates was for him. It's a stunning tribute by one of my favourite authors for one of my favourite books. I'm going to order my copy ASAP. If you have an interest in Tim Powers' work...this is the book to get.

Progress Update

An update on my PhD progress:

Just handed in an early draft of my second chapter. It was painful to do so because I was aware of lots of places where expansion was needed and structure reorganising. When writing anything, the first flow is almost blissful in comparison to coming face to face with your shortcomings later. I hate rereading my work. It's like looking into a circus mirror...

Hopefully, the feedback from my DoS won't be to hard to hear and will help with the rewrite. In fact, I've already started that process but feedback will be critical to what stays and what goes. I'm hoping that I will have this chapter in the bag by the end of June. Unfortunately, its my birthday this month and the sun is shining but sacrifices should and shall be made!

In other news...I'm reading K.W Jeter's Morlock Night at the moment. As the chaper I'm currently writing focusses almost entirely on the work of the early Steampunks, I had to exclude the book until my very delayed copy arrived from Abe books. Even though it's work related, I'm enjoying reading something easy and light. The opening is fantastic but the direction since taken is a bit worrying...Author Pendragon and Merlin have turned up in a Morlock infested late Victorian London. No further comment until it has been fully devoured. I'll post a review here as there is a distinct lack of commentary on a novella that has been consistently quoted as one of the formative Steampunk texts.

It's a bit hard to make out but I thought you might appreciate the pure pulpiness of my edition:



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