Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, enough is enough. I,
we, can no longer allow the degradation of a genre for the sake of politeness. After everything I've seen, all I've done, and how I've hard worked...
Steampunk, my friends, is dying, and the fault lies squarely with those in control of our tiny, boxed-in online world. Every
steampunk art group on
DeviantArt, every administrator for the
Facebook '
Steampunk' page, every bug-eyed television journalist describing the Doctor's new T.A.R.D.I.S., or trying to describe the water-powered robots of Leonardo
da Vinci (that particular one, for me at least, was like a dagger through the heart.) New fans are fed false information, old fans have the tide turned against them faster than they can fight back. I know, because I've tried. I have
tried explaining the history of science-fiction, the division of the
subgenre from others of different time periods, the use of
steampunk as a mechanism for historical exploration as well as science fiction, the use of subtlety, and grace, and
superheaters, and
cavorite. And after they'd laugh, and tell me how sorry they were, and how they'd be sure they never made mistakes like that again. They were
happy to be told they were wrong because, ultimately, man desires knowledge, and yearns for catharsis. To know they are in possession of the facts, regardless of whether this comes the expense of what they previously believed. No man craves ignorance.
And I'd say my apologies, my goodbyes, wish them luck, and immediately come across another boy painting numbers on a brass owl, '-just like Jules Verne used to do.' It really is too much. So I've decided; we are no longer
steampunk disaster-response team. Now, we are the
obudsmen of a genre. Selecting, refining, punishing.
Do not misunderstand me. I have no issue with these other
subgenres of science-fiction existing. To the contrary, I believe that all work has the right to exist, as long as it has earned it; if it is good, if it is
worthy, it deserves to be shared. Nor do I feel that no element of work should ever differ from its source material, as the evolution prevents stagnation and allows the exploration of new ideas. But
steampunk...
steampunk is a special case, a narrow avenue. Describing something as '
steampunk' is not the same as saying 'post-apocalyptic' or 'cyberpunk' or 'science fantasy'. At least on its own, it denotes a specific time period, political context, and technological origin, and even when fused with other genres it doesn't give much room for much leeway.
It may seem as if these criteria are too specific to produce any great number of works of any really differentiation, but I plead with you to recall; the Victorian Era lasted for 63 years. 63 and 216 days of inventions beyond the scope of imagination, of unsolved murders and mysteries, of an American Civil War, and the Tokugawa Shogunate and Meiji Restoration, the British Raj and the seeds of revolution in Russia, the beginning of European dominion in the Middle East, slavery in Africa and piracy in the Caribbean, the growing colonisation of Terra
Australis and the Arctic
Circe, and always,
always, the growing
storm clouds of the greatest war the planet had ever seen.
If you cannot find something new to write about, you've only yourself to blame.
Sincerely,
- Anderson A. Armitage IV
