Steampunk and Empire
I'd been vaguely pondering nanowrimo this year, and had got as far as the basis of an idea for some steampunk:
Miniturised mechanical technology develops, with sapphire as the crucial material playing the role of "silicon" in contemporary technology. This leads to a project to build a rail link from London to India. The story itself plays out at a remote location on the railway in the Middle East. An explosives depot, with sophisticated automated defences. Protagonist starts to worry as the dump grows larger and larger - hubristic engineering project? Administrative error?
Chekov's armoury leads us to believe that the depot will be detonated - but by whom, why, and with what effect?
Today I read:
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/10/stupid-things-we-say
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/10/the-hard-edge-of-empire.html
to which I think the response has to be, yes: steampunk is linked to the Empire, and yes, it ignores the dark side of that time. However, I'm going to defend it on escapist grounds, and argue that this applies a lot more widely, to historical fiction in general as well as quite a lot of classics. People should be able to guiltlessly enjoy escapist fiction. This probably needs more unpacking, but that's for another time.
Miniturised mechanical technology develops, with sapphire as the crucial material playing the role of "silicon" in contemporary technology. This leads to a project to build a rail link from London to India. The story itself plays out at a remote location on the railway in the Middle East. An explosives depot, with sophisticated automated defences. Protagonist starts to worry as the dump grows larger and larger - hubristic engineering project? Administrative error?
Chekov's armoury leads us to believe that the depot will be detonated - but by whom, why, and with what effect?
Today I read:
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/10/stupid-things-we-say
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/10/the-hard-edge-of-empire.html
to which I think the response has to be, yes: steampunk is linked to the Empire, and yes, it ignores the dark side of that time. However, I'm going to defend it on escapist grounds, and argue that this applies a lot more widely, to historical fiction in general as well as quite a lot of classics. People should be able to guiltlessly enjoy escapist fiction. This probably needs more unpacking, but that's for another time.