As Someone Who Has An Interest In Sf/fantasy Depictions Of WWI, I’ve Been Puzzling For Years As To
As someone who has an interest in sf/fantasy depictions of WWI, I’ve been puzzling for years as to why authors dabbling in steampunk have been reluctant to tackle the conflict. My own theory is that steampunk is, at heart, an American creation, and the Great War is an event that has mostly vanished from the American consciousness. For most American writers, steampunk is a fantasy world set in an imagined version of 19th-century Britain or America which draws more from other stories than from reality, and the question of international politics and war doesn’t really come into it. That said, I have found British authors working in steampunk to be far more willing to broach the subject of World War I, both because the war had such a huge impact on the British national psyche, and because it ties into the greater question of what Britain is, its relationship to the empire, what role Britain has in the world after empire, and so on. As for examples, two authors stand out to me. While a hard sf writer by trade, Stephen Baxter’s steampunk excursions always seem to be haunted by the war. His 1993 novel Anti-Ice is for the most part a romp about a 19th-century excursion from the Earth to the Moon thanks to the titular substance, an exotic form of antimatter. However, by the end of the book the use and exploitation of anti-ice has led to Britain, France, and Germany locking themselves into a Cold War-style nuclear arms race. His 1995 book The Time Ships is a sequel to the The Time Machine that riffs in all manner of ways on HG Wells’ work, but the middle third of the book is set in an alternate 1938 where the First World War has dragged on for decades, transforming Britain into a dystopian state influences by Wells’ most pessimistic views. (While I haven’t read Baxter’s 2017 followup to The War of the Worlds, entitled The Massacre of Mankind, some of the elements I’ve seen, like a police-state Britain and a bloody Russo-German war in Eastern Europe, suggests that the Martian invasion of the original book has become the Great War of the sequel’s world.) For something a little more literary, Ian R. MacLeod’s Aether duology, The Light Ages (2003) and The House of Storms (2005), is set in an England where a magical substance called “aether” has locked the country (and by extension the rest of the world) in a sort of static industrial revolution for centuries in some ways reminiscent of Keith Roberts’ Pavane (1968). Change does eventually come to this static eternal England, sadly in the form of a civil war whose depiction draws heavily from that of the Western Front.
I didn’t include it in the list of favorite stories because I like it more in idea than in execution, but Caitlin R, Kiernan’s story Goggles really hit me hard. She says it was her idea of where all steampunk is leading, but most authors don’t want to admit: the conflict that became World War I in our world destroys the steampunk world in technologically advanced nuclear fire. I read it yesterday and I can’t get the concept out of my head.
More Posts from Nesterov81 and Others
“He reminds me of that delightful FBI agent with the future-glasses from that old David Cage game.”
These aliens have names like Garvin, Skorin, and Talur. And this kid comes up with Jayden. The hell, writers?
Picard: “...well, fuck me, I guess.”
All I want to know is why the dead are reenacting the Normandy landings and why Mads Mikkelsen commands a squad of men from the 101st Skeleton Airborne.
when you buy shit from amazon and get pisst off that it doesnt get there fast enough i want you to think about norman reedus crawling through the field of fetus demons with a crying baby on his chest…that’s the sacrifice the mailmen make to bring you your fucking gamer mouse
Honestly, you’re actually one of the most interesting people I know, and I’m glad I got to know you.
i know im not very interesting but i try so hard that you should all humor me
There’s a line in George Orwell’s 1946 essay “In Defence of P. G. Wodehouse” where, in the course of discussing how Wodehouse’s work hewed closer to a fantasy Edwardian England than a fantasy interwar Britain, he wrote “...and Bertie Wooster, if he did exist, was killed in 1915.” That line has always haunted me in a way, and I believe that both for his good and our own, Bertie should always be kept far away from the horrors of the Great War.
Question: do hallucinations of past events count as “time travel” for the purposes of this watch-through? Would “The Inner Light” come during your run of TNG, or should you watch the Kamin scenes when you get to c. 1368 AD? Do you watch the hallucinatory Occupied Terek Nor scenes of “Things Past” during season 5 of DS9, or before you start TNG?
And what about erased future timeline? How do you fit in “All Good Things,” “The Visitor,” and “Endgame,” as well as ENT’s “Twilight?” Do you watch them chronologically, or do them all after as a sort of appendix to the project?
Gotta admit, this is a pretty dumb idea...but it’s exactly the sort of thing a hyper-obsessive nerd with a editing suite could devote a decade of his or her life to splicing together. I suppose it might make a cool endurance-style video installation.
I have just had a worst best idea:
Watch Star Trek in in-universe chronological order… Time travel included.
So you start by watching the 3ish minute scene of Voyager where a Q takes Voyager back to the big bang, then you move to the 4ish minute scene of Next Generation where Q takes Picard to the start of evolution on Earth, then to the DS9 episode where they go back to the 1930′s, then Star Trek 4 in the 1970′s.
Then you’re finally able to start watching Enterprise.
“GREETINGS CITIZENS. THE DATE IS SUNDAY, APRIL 14, 1974: CIVIL RESURRECTION DAY. PLEASE PROCEED TO THE LAGOMORPHIC DISPENSIARY IN BLOCK 5 BETWEEN 1000 HOURS AND 1630 HOURS TO RECEIVE YOUR SUPPLEMENTARY DIETARY ALLOTMENT COURTESY OF THE GLORIOUS STATE. BE WARNED THAT NONCOMPLIANCE MAY RESULT IN DEMERITS ON YOUR FAMILY RATION ACCOUNT. WE THANK THE LEADER FOR THIS GIFT; MAY SHE LIVE FOREVERMORE. MESSAGE ENDS.”
The SOS Brutalism Team wishes you Happy Easter!
RT @BrutalHouse Behold! The Brutal Easter Bunny Returns — (Jyväskylä, Finland 1982) https://twitter.com/BrutalHouse/status/979631924586172416
Speaking as someone who does a fair bit of reviewing and occasionally writes for an ezine filled with people steeped in academia, I often feel the same way. I'm always worrying that I'm not being "insightful" enough or that I don't know the correct language to properly discuss a particular theme. I find it helps to remind myself that, at the end of the day, I don't really want to be an academic or write in that environment (or have to force myself to learn that unfathomable prose), and that it's far better to work on something I enjoy doing rather than making myself miserable slaving away on something just to sate my insecurities or gain the approval of some imaginary person I don’t care about.
i feel dumb because i write fiction instead of theory or critical work
-
isaacsapphire liked this · 6 years ago -
uncultureddoubloon liked this · 6 years ago -
nesterov81 reblogged this · 6 years ago -
nesterov81 liked this · 6 years ago
-
sandbirde liked this · 6 years ago -
icouldntthinkofabetternamesook reblogged this · 6 years ago -
sigmastardust liked this · 6 years ago -
jet-dawnbringer liked this · 6 years ago -
sockdrawerdemon liked this · 6 years ago -
morteledraco reblogged this · 6 years ago -
lichprincessceleste liked this · 6 years ago -
bluestockingbaby liked this · 6 years ago -
neverputsaltinyoureyes liked this · 6 years ago -
fantasticblazepoetry liked this · 6 years ago -
softgirlgretchen liked this · 6 years ago -
creativepup liked this · 6 years ago -
reds-revenge liked this · 6 years ago -
forthegothicheroine reblogged this · 6 years ago
Hello there! I'm nesterov81, and this tumblr is a dumping ground for my fandom stuff. Feel free to root through it and find something you like.
215 posts