So What the Heck is Steampunk, Anyway?

Happy Friday, everyone!

Believe it or not, I get asked this question quite frequently when steampunk comes up in conversation:

“What the heck is steampunk?”

Feel free to replace “heck” with any term you’d like – it’s probably been said. I know many of you who visit us regularly at novelisthq are probably beside yourselves. Steampunk is currently one of the hottest genres out there – especially YA steampunk but that’s beside the point – and has gone through many ups and downs over its short lifespan. As with all things, though, to truly understand it we must delve into its history.

Before the first steam powered novel ever came into existence, there was… well… steam power. There are records of extremely primitive steam powered machines as far back as the first century AD and, to be honest, it wouldn’t be surprising if someone thought of it earlier. For as long as we’ve had fire and metal pots we’ve known that water boils and steam is the product.

Fast forward to the first industrial revolution (~1750 – ~1850) and the Watt Steam Engine. This bad boy fueled the industrial revolution and was a solid model for what would become the internal combustion engine. Society advanced like crazy and steam power was one of the dominant driving forces.

Now pause. A ton of other events happened in this 100 year span. The United States was formed, France went throughat least 3 revolutions of their own, and the creation of the small pox vaccination are just a few of the thousands of things that helped reshape the world. Because of these events, many people consider this time period a fantasy to live in. They think of the last days of true royalty, chivalry, and unity. They think of the great advances made by mankind. If you read any western historical fiction I can almost assure you a solid 1/3 of it takes place in this hundred year period.

This is where steampunk gets its roots.

However, steampunk as we know it didn’t really blossom until the 1980s. Tim Powers, K.W. Jeter, and James Blaylock are often considered the first three to really popularize what was considered a subgenre of science fiction at the time. Obviously, there were men and women before them but taking the Victorian setting and adding some cyberpunk flair to it – replacing high tech with steam power – was their calling card and the basic fundamentals of steampunk as we know it today.

So now that we know some of steampunk’s history – what the heck is it? Well, it’s the love child of science fiction, fantasy, and speculative historical fiction’s three-way that (as we discovered above) blossomed in the 1980s. Yes, the decade that gave us tight clothes, big hair, bubblegum pop, and hair band ballads actually gave us something of use (aside from Generation Y)! Steampunk is a look at whatcould have happened if we didn’t move into the second industrial revolution. It’s a peek at a modern-ish world that pushed forward with steam power and never dove deeper to discover things like the internal combustion engine.

Beyond that, most steampunk novels focus on the lower class (thus the “punk” in “steampunk”). In the genre you’ll find countless examples of rags to riches, riches to rags, and rags to more rags. Steampunk is usually lighter than its parent genres – meaning humor is an essential part – though not necessarily shorter. Though there are examples of steampunk not set in Europe (Wild, Wild, West anyone?) the vast majority of the genre is set in Victorian England or somewhere else in Western Europe – the heart of the first industrial revolution.

Time frame is also up for grabs in this genre. Though many people set their steampunk novelswithin the early stages of the first industrial revolution (electricity is not wide spread but steam power is still fresh and amazing) with a few “advancements” that never happened it is not uncommon to see a novel take place in a fictional world with many futuristic advancements that are simply powered by steam. How you want to write your novel will ultimately decide this. If you want to make historical jokes and make people do some research or think, you’re probably better off sticking to the timeframe. If you just want some really cool and really big machines, make your own world or set it in a steam-driven future. Needless to say, we’ll dive into this in more detail when we cover the settings of steampunk later this month.

So even though steampunk has gone through rises and falls in popularity much like the steam engines’ pistons all you steampunk authors write about, it is definitely a genre that has lasting power and a rabid fanbase. Now that we have a mutual understanding of what steampunk is, let’s make May a month to remember as we cover the ins and outs of steampunk and how it’s written.

As always, feel free to leave any questions or comments below, email them to us, or tweet them @novelisthq. Be sure to check in on Monday as we cover the aforementioned settings of steampunk and have a great weekend, everyone!