McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Are Readers Growing Tired of New Urban Fantasy?
Shecky:
The few steampunk stories I've read and enjoyed reminded me of this little plum: "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Which describes the "accidental" (i.e., an ill-understood discovery in an alternate timeline) steampunk stories quite well.
LDWriter2:
--- Quote from: Shecky on June 20, 2012, 01:12:12 AM ---The few steampunk stories I've read and enjoyed reminded me of this little plum: "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Which describes the "accidental" (i.e., an ill-understood discovery in an alternate timeline) steampunk stories quite well.
--- End quote ---
I haven't read that many yet but I can see why some people would have problems with having to put aside their unbelief. Some of the tech does seem to defy certain physical laws even though I have read a couple with no real paranormal...at least what I usually think of as paranormal.
But in that case sorry to report that they are on the raise. I don't think but I'm not sure if it will take over like UF did but there will be quite a few new ones.
BTW I like some of it, especially a spy thriller type series I am reading.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Shecky on June 20, 2012, 01:12:12 AM ---The few steampunk stories I've read and enjoyed reminded me of this little plum: "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Which describes the "accidental" (i.e., an ill-understood discovery in an alternate timeline) steampunk stories quite well.
--- End quote ---
Indeed. And come to think of it. I'm very fond of The Adventures of Brisco County Jr., and I suppose that's close enough to steampunk that I should modify my earlier position thereon.
I do think there is a difference in scale, though between a story that intentionally takes place in a world with intentionally alternate physics that look like magic (not that I can think of very many; Richard Garfinkle's Celestial Matters, which did not quite work for me, and a couple of excellent Ted Chiang novellas particularly "Seventy-Two Letters") and one that is sloppy on conservation of energy solely for the sake of getting to have cool clockwork automata.
Figging Mint:
I find the correlation between clockwork automata and colonialist attitudes rather interesting, do you attribute that to outright copying (and perhaps over-nurturing) of 19th cent. prevalent attitudes or to something within the technological premise itself?
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: (FM) on June 20, 2012, 06:40:32 PM ---I find the correlation between clockwork automata and colonialist attitudes rather interesting, do you attribute that to outright copying (and perhaps over-nurturing) of 19th cent. prevalent attitudes or to something within the technological premise itself?
--- End quote ---
I think it represents some authors taking on steampunk/Victoriana as one fused monolith of ideas and images and implications rather than really analysing deeper consequences of changing some elements of a setting. But then, I have an ongoing grumble about failure to think through economics of fantasy worlds, or consequences on population growth of magical healing, or consequences of magic in general, that really I am resigned to only getting very occasional counterexamples for. (Short of writing them myself.)
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