Ok, phew! I was starting to think I was the only player on these forums that saw steampunk in Fallen London. I agree with you that steampunk is more nebulous a term than some might think. Sometimes it goes in the fantasy side of things, sometimes the sci-fi. Sometimes it goes towards technological, sometimes towards sociological, sometimes towards magic. Sometimes the hero is rich aristocracy, although I see a fair amount of grease-covered mechanics and pirates. It’s not even accurate to limit steampunk to Victorian Europe, when the late 1800s were happening all over the world. But I suppose it can be alienating to some to think steampunk is so ill-defined.
I agree with streetfelineblue who mentioned Fallen London fits inside a lot of genres, and I’ll pull back a bit to mention I think strwmpunk is one of those many genres, but can’t encompass ALL of Fallen London. Just as I can admit I see "cosmic horror" (now that it’s been defined for me) but it can’t really cover everything.
And Alexis commented on my thread. Yaaaay! It’s funny to hear "whirring contraptions" were added to the game while he wasn’t looking. Setting aside my thoughts on steampunk, I think the art for "whirring contraptions" are perhaps my favorite item art.[/quote]
Yeah, I see it as a decent mix of the two. Like if Lovecraft was a steampunk fan.
We have our Eldritch Beings, we have our dirigibles and zubmarines. If our steam runs off of hydrogen from Hell, then what of it? Let us thank the Devils for their trade and move on. Even in these depths we can strive for the skies.
And yes, Whirring Contraptions are awesome. What do they do nobody knows, only that they Whir! Wonderfully nonspecific. Was my faithful companion on a decommissioned steamer on a trip that never was. edited by Endy on 1/1/2014
I’d say it’s definitely steampunk, but I think I have a broader definition of steampunk than some others here. For me the genre, both in the literature and subculture, steampunk can take any number of directions, scifi or fantasy, as long as it begins in the Victorian era and follows a ‘what-if?’
My one sentence description for the uninitiated is "imagine what someone in the Victorian era would imagine our current year would look like" but that is somewhat limiting and I have no problem including fictions with more supernatural elements, since it’s only one step less plausible than the magitech common to the genre.
Edit to add, for reference’s sake, I’ve been active in the steampunk community since early 2007, and come at it from a more costume/visual art side than a literary one. Although less active in the last couple years, I still explore things from the visual side. edited by KatarinaNavane on 1/1/2014
Fallen London partly steampunk but I think it’s more a mix of romance, comedy, cosmic horror and a dash of city of adventure.
Earlier Cosmic horror stories (especially Lovecraft) tend to have a negative view of science so it’s a bit hard to fit steampunk in it. Fortunately, FL has a more balanced view about science with its Forgotten Quarter and University stories.
Lovecraft didn’t dislike science. (Quite the opposite.) He just operated from the assumption that the universe was both uncaring of and unimpacted by humanity on any meaningful scale. Too much human cleverness tended to bring this fact to the forefront, to the misfortune of his assorted rpotagonists.
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I have to respectfully disagree with you here. His works like Herbert West–Reanimator and From Beyond don’t paint science and discoveries in a good light. However, I do agree about the uncaring Universe part. He’s quite concerned that our scientific curiosity might one day disturb some ancient horror or open a horrifying dimension not unlike Tolkien’s Dwarves who managed to dig up a Balrog.
As the Lovecraft fanboy that I am, I think I have to point out that his early, Lord Dunsany-influenced more fantastical stories as well as the Dream Cycle tend to be coloured by rejection of the logical and scientific and the embrace of the romantic and irrational, but he was also fascinated by astronomy and in the end it was this fascination that led to his view on the insignificance of mankind and the incomprehensibe, amoral magnitudes of the natural world.
But Lovecraft is often painted as more of a wreck or a misanthrope than he really was. He absolutely loved writing letters to people, enthusiastically discussed and explained his works to fans, and he even threw in a little joke at the end of his explanation on how to pronounce “Cthulhu”.
“The best approximation one can make is to grunt, bark, or cough the imperfectly formed syllables Cluh-Luh with the tip of the tongue firmly affixed to the roof of the mouth. That is, if one is a human being. Directions for other entities are naturally different.”
I suspect that we will have to agree to disagree, then. I always saw it as HPL having more faith in science than he did in humanity’s capacity to deal with unvarnished truth.
EDIT: Replying to Pyro, not Nathaniel. edited by Mordaine Barimen on 1/1/2014
Very astute, although for some reason I suspect this gentleman is not the genuine Mr. Lovecraft, though he is a quite studious imposter.
Photographic evidence suggests that the real Lovecraft once attempted to smile, and failed catastrophically.
"Steampunk" is a vague concept. AFAIK, there is no single universally approved definition. Therefore, many people have subjective, personal interpretations of what Steampunk is and consists of. Differences in personal definitions can result in some people classifying everything in the 1800s as Steampunk (this is a purposefully vague, impractical and extreme definition I just created for illustrative purposes only); while others have very specific and restrictive subjective definitions. The conflict between definitions can lead to a conflict between opinions. A practical example: A and B both know what X is like. A is of the opinion that X is Steampunk; B is of the opinion that X is not Steampunk. They are both discussing about the same thing (and there should be no arguments there subject-wise) but their definition for the label of "Steampunk" is different, which leads into a fruitless and endless debate about personal preferences for the definition of Steampunk.
My personal definition for Steampunk: any piece of science fiction which contains an alternative universe based around steam-powered sci-fi machines which were never created in real life. These machines have become a central piece of everyday life in a way which has changed the society permanently, in the same way as mobile phones and the internet have changed the Western society in recent years. Fallen london does not fulfill my definition; the Bioshock video game series does.
EDIT: My personal definition has no restrictions whatsoever for what Steampunk visually looks like. Therefore, I would consider alien space frogs invading the earth with steam-powered UFOs to classify as Steampunk. And any 1800s influenced people not using steam-powered contraptions in everyday life, no matter whatever inventor’s goggles and stuff they are wearing, to be strictly NOT Steampunk. edited by Karhumies on 1/3/2014
If by “steampunk” you mean “relying on stock tropes with no new ideas”, then FL does not qualify - nor would anyone admit to qualifying. If you mean “Mostly Victorian society and mostly Victorian technology, but with magic and/or sufficiently advanced technology used by an elite few”, then I have a hard time disqualifying FL from the category.
Then again, I’m the kind of person who is comfortable categorizing light neither as “a wave, and not a particle” nor as “a particle, and not a wave”. If you need light to be exclusively one or the other, then my mappings will generally not be much use to you.
Steampunk is about the known? Is that a generalization which would be accepted among those who call themselves steampunk authors?
[quote=Alexis Kennedy]
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[color=#009900]I can’t leave this thread without recommending Felix Gilman’s [/color][color=rgb(0, 153, 0)]The Half-Made World[/color][color=#009900] and [/color][color=rgb(0, 153, 0)]The Rise of Ransom City[/color][color=#009900], which are two of the books I’ve had most fun with this year. Gilman has, as it happens, also said that they’re not steampunk, although they’re set in something very like an alternative nineteenth century (starring Evil Trains and an alternate American frontier). [/color]Crooked Timber did one of their occasional seminars about it[color=#009900] - major spoilers, read the books first. And if you care enough about this stuff to make it to the fourth para of this post, you totally should read the books.[/color]
[li] edited by Alexis on 12/31/2013[/quote]
[/li][li]Thank you for the recommendation - I am absolutely loving The Half-Made World. [/li][li]
I would just like to politely point out that it is remarkably unlikely for Fallen London to be steampunk, as it is possible (even likely) to invent steampunk in-setting.
[The above comment is, of course, made with my tongue nearly burrowing out of my cheek.] edited by Bonchance on 2/18/2014
