Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded Read online

  STEAMPUNK II: STEAMPUNK RELOADED

  © 2010 BY ANN AND JEFF VANDERMEER

  THIS IS A COLLECTED WORK OF FICTION AND NONFICTION. ALL EVENTS PORTRAYED IN THIS BOOK ARE FICTITIOUS AND ANY RESEMBLANCE TO REAL PEOPLE OR EVENTS IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE THIS BOOK OR PORTIONS THEREOF IN ANY FORM WITHOUT THE EXPRESS PERMISSION OF THE PUBLISHER.

  COVER DESIGN BY ANN MONN

  COVER IMAGE © 2010 BY DAN JONES / TINKERBOTS

  INTERIOR DESIGN BY JOHN COULTHART

  TACHYON PUBLICATIONS

  1459 18TH STREET #139

  SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110

  SERIES EDITOR: JACOB WEISMAN

  PROJECT EDITOR: JILL ROBERTS

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES BY WORZALLA

  FIRST EDITION: 2010

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  ILLUSTRATIONS

  Frontispiece and endpiece © 2010 by Eric Orchard.

  “The Unlikely Career of Portia Dreadnought” text and art © 2008 by Ramona Szczerba.

  “Obadiah Theremin” and “Artemesia’s Absinthe” text and art © 2009 by Ramona Szczerba.

  Two images attributed to “American Tinker Under the Influence of Absinthe” in A Secret History of Steampunk © 2010 by Ivica Stevanovic.

  All other images, if not in the public domain, © 2010 by John Coulthart.

  ORIGINAL TEXTS

  “What Is Steampunk?”

  © 2010 by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer.

  “Dr. Lash Remembers” © 2010 by Jeffrey Ford.

  “The Unbecoming of Virgil Smythe”

  © 2010 by Ramsey Shehadeh.

  “Lost Pages from The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana” © 2010 by Jess Nevins.

  “A Secret History of Steampunk” section © 2010 by Jeff VanderMeer.

  “Which Is Mightier, the Pen or the Parasol?” © 2010 by Tofa Borregaard.

  “At the Intersection of Technology and Romance” © 2010 by Jake von Slatt.

  “The Future of Steampunk: A Roundtable Interview” © 2010 by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, Libby Bulloff, S. J. Chambers, Jaymee Goh, Margaret Killjoy, Evelyn Kriete, Jess Nevins, Mike Perschon, and Diana M. Pho.

  All text and images in the main text of “A Secret History of Steampunk” attributed to the Mecha-Ostrich or the editors © 2010 Jeff VanderMeer, except for: all quotes attributed to “Electric Bob’s Big Black Ostrich; or Lost on the Desert,” first appeared in the New York Five Cent Library in 1893; quotes attributed to Michael Ellsworth and Pozukuddi Nagalakshmi, which were adapted from correspondence with Ellsworth and Shweta Narayan; excerpts from The Adventures of Saturnin Farandoul by Albert Robida (“The Railway Wars,”) originally published in 1879, translation © Brian Stableford; “Science of Morality” rant, Matthew Cheney; excerpt from pg. 41, “Roseveine,” The Word Desire by Rikki Ducornet, 2005 Dalkey Archive Edition, used by permission of the author; excerpt from “The Arrival of the Cogsmiths” from the online magazine Every Day Weirdness © 2009 Fábio Fernandes.

  With regard to the materials contained in the Appendices to “A Secret History of Steampunk”: “Two pages from The Russian Book of the Improbable” — “Sea of Ingenuity” © 2008 by Ekaterina Sedia. First appeared in The Endicott Studio Journal of Mythic Arts, August 2008. “Eclipse of the Sky” © Ekaterina Sedia 2010, original appearance. “Mimeographed 1976 Bulletin of New Hampshire Folklore & Miscellany, Mecha-Oliphaunt” © 2010 by Matthew Cheney, original appearance. “Notes & Queries” related to the Prisoner Queen (a collaboration riffing off Jeffrey Ford’s “Dr. Lash Remembers,” © 2010, original to this anthology) © 2010 by L. L. Hannett and Angela Slatter, original appearance. Excerpts from Shelley Vaughn’s journal © 2010 by L. L. Hannett, original appearance. Excerpt from “The Titan Unwrecked” © 2005 by Brian Stableford. Mary Lewis’s letter to Eudamien Fontenrose © 2010 by Angela Slatter, original appearance. “An Ode, On Encountering the Mecha-Ostrich” © 2010 by Felix Gilman, original appearance. All editor notes and other marginalia © 2010 by Jeff VanderMeer, original appearance.

  STORIES

  “The Gernsback Continuum” © 1981 by William Gibson, first appeared in OMNI Magazine.

  “Great Breakthroughs in Darkness” © 1996 by Marc Laidlaw, first appeared in New Worlds 2, edited by David S. Garnett (Gollancz).

  “The Unblinking Eye” © 2009 by Stephen Baxter, first appeared in Other Earths, edited by Nick Gevers & Jay Lake (DAW).

  “The Steam Dancer (1896)” © 2007 by Caitlín R. Kiernan, first appeared in Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy.

  “The Cast-Iron Kid” © 2007 by Andrew Knighton, first appeared in Alienskin Magazine.

  “Machine Maid” © 2008 by Margo Lanagan, first appeared in Extraordinary Engines: The Definitive Steampunk Anthology, edited by Nick Gevers (Solaris).

  “The Mechanical Aviary of Emperor Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar” © 2009 by Shweta Narayan, first appeared in Shimmer Magazine, Issue 11.

  “O One” © 2003 by Chris Roberson, first appeared in Live Without a Net, edited by Lou Anders (Roc).

  “Wild Copper” © 2006 by Samantha Henderson, first appeared in Lone Star Stories, June 2006.

  “The Bold Explorer in the Place Beyond” © 2010 by David Erik Nelson, first appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction Feb 2010.

  “Tanglefoot” © 2008 by Cherie Priest, first appeared in Subterranean Magazine, Winter 2008.

  “A Serpent in the Gears” © 2010 by Margaret Ronald, first appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies #34.

  “The Strange Case of Mr. Salad Monday” © 2009 by Geoffrey D. Falksen, first appeared on TOR.com.

  “The Persecution Machine” © 1994 by Tanith Lee, first appeared in Weird Tales, Spring 1994.

  “Balfour and Meriwether in the Adventure of the Emperor’s Vengeance” © 2009 by Daniel Abraham, first appeared in Postscripts 19.

  “As Recorded on Brass Cylinders: Adagio for Two Dancers” © 2010 by James L. Grant & Lisa Mantchev, first appeared in Weird Tales, March 2010.

  “Lovelace & Babbage” (“Origins with Salamander,” images and text) © 2009 by Sydney Padua. First appeared at HTTP://SYDNEYPADUA.COM/2DGOGGLES/

  “Flying Fish Prometheus” by Vilhelm Bergsoe. Originally appeared in Illustreret Tidende (Illustrated News) 1870 (Issues 537-539). Translation © 2010 by Dwight Decker. Original appearance.

  “The Anachronist’s Cookbook” © 2009 by Catherynne M. Valente, first appeared in Steampunk Tales.

  Art by Eric Orchard

  Ann & Jeff VanderMeer: What Is Steampunk?

  Fiction

  William Gibson: The Gernsback Continuum

  Marc Laidlaw: Great Breakthroughs in Darkness

  JeffreyFord: Dr. Lash Remembers

  Stephen Baxter: The Unblinking Eye

  Caitlín R. Kiernan: The Steam Dancer (1896)

  Andrew Knighton: The Cast-Iron Kid

  Margo Lanagan: Machine Maid

  Ramsey Shehadeh: The Unbecoming of Virgil Smythe

  Shweta Narayan: The Mechanical Aviary of Emperor Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar

  Chris Roberson: O One

  Samantha Henderson: Wild Copper

  David Erik Nelson: The Bold Explorer in the Place Beyond

  Jess Nevins: Lost Pages from The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana

  Cherie Priest: Tanglefoot (A Clockwork Century Story)

  Margaret Ronald: A Serpent in the Gears

  G. D. Falksen: The Strange Case of Mr. Salad Monday

  Tanith Lee: The Persecution Machine

  Daniel Abraham: Balfour and Meriwether in the Adventure of the Emperor’s Vengeance

  James L. Grant & Lisa Mantchev: As Recorded on Brass Cylinders: Adagio for Two Dancers


  Vilhelm Bergsøe: Flying Fish Prometheus (A Fantasy of the Future)

  Catherynne M. Valente: The Anachronist’s Cookbook

  Sydney Padua: Lovelace & Babbage: Origins, with Salamander

  The Mecha-Ostrich: A Secret History of Steampunk

  (With contributions by Matthew Cheney, John Coulthart, Rikki Ducornet, Fábio Fernandes, Felix Gilman, L. L. Hannett, Albert Robida, Ekaterina Sedia, Angela Slatter, Brian Stableford, Ivica Stevanovic, and more.)

  Nonfiction

  Gail Carriger: Which Is Mightier, the Pen or the Parasol?

  Jake von Slatt: At the Intersection of Technology and Romance

  The Future of Steampunk: A Roundtable Interview

  Biographies

  Transition art & text by Ramona Szczerba

  What Is Steampunk?

  Ann & Jeff VanderMeer

  BY NOW, “STEAMPUNK” has become a somewhat ubiquitous term in the media. Every week, it’s the subject of Internet debates. Is steampunk “in” or “out,” in good health or staggering toward the junkyard? Is steampunk progressive or reactionary, a movement or “just” an aesthetic tool kit used by a variety of creators in different media? Every week, too, writers for websites and blogs grapple with defining the term, often armed with second- or third-hand knowledge of the facts or the history.

  Here are those facts, and that history. Modern steampunk fiction derives at least in part from works by Jules Verne and H. G. Wells in the 1800s and early twentieth century that featured steam-powered inventions, airships, and (sometimes) mad inventors. These books tended to be somewhat cautionary in nature, with a healthy unwillingness to accept “progress” as always inevitable and good. Some scholars, like Jess Nevins, also believe that the American Edisonades of the 1800s can be viewed as a form of proto-steampunk, although it’s unlikely that modern steampunk writers much influenced by these long-out-of-print works, which used steam inventions as a way of visualizing Manifest Destiny through simplistic, optimistic “cowboys-versus-indians” adventures. These adventures sometimes contained the racist overtones common to the times and have not dated well.

  How long did it take proto-steampunk to become “steampunk”? Despite several Verne or Wells homages in the early part of the twentieth century, it wasn’t until the 1970s that a true Godfather of modern steampunk would emerge: Michael Moorcock, who wrote his Nomads of the Air series over a period from 1971 to 1981. These books feature amazing battles between opposing fleets of airships, along with complex political and military intrigue. The novels were, Moorcock says, “intended as an intervention, if you like, into certain Edwardian views of Empire... They were intended to show that there was no such thing as a benign empire and that even if it seemed benign it wasn’t. The stories were as much addressed to an emergent American empire as to the declining British.” In a political sense, then, Moorcock’s novels supported Verne’s cautionary posture toward the role of technology in the world. They were also intensely progressive, a blistering critique of Victorian Imperialism, and hugely sympathetic to those peoples subjugated by the British.

  However, the term “steampunk” was not invented until 1987, when K. W. Jeter coined it to describe his new novel Infernal Devices and previous novel Morlock Nights. In the pages of Locus magazine (#315, April 1987), Jeter wrote, with no little amount of mischief in his tone, “I think Victorian fantasies are going to be the next big thing, as long as we can come up with a fitting collective term...like ‘steampunks,’ perhaps.” Jeter along with fellow writers Tim Powers (The Anubis Gates) and James Blaylock (the novella “Lord Kelvin’s Machine,” featured in our first anthology) spearheaded the steampunk literary movement.

  Three years after Jeter’s letter to the editor, William Gibson and Bruce Sterling published The Difference Engine (1990), which is most often cited as the seminal steampunk novel. It also had more in common with Moorcock’s work, in terms of its undisguised insertion of social and political commentary, than novels by Powers, Blaylock, and Jeter. Set primarily in 1855, The Difference Engine posits an alternate reality in which Charles Babbage successfully built a mechanical computer, thus ushering in the Information Age at the same time as the Industrial Revolution. Juxtaposing Lord Byron, airships, and commentary on the unsavory aspects of the Victorian era, the novel’s many steampunk pleasures include a vast and somewhat clunky mechanical AI housed in a fake Egyptian pyramid. Sterling and Gibson, like Moorcock, also comment on the role of technology in building empires.

  Although other steampunk works were written during this time, the “movement,” such as it was, died out or became part of the mainstream of science fiction. Throughout the 1990s and early parts of the aughts, steampunk mostly took the form of comics and movies (for a discussion of such works, refer to the essays in volume one)—and found expression through the nascent steampunk subculture. The subculture riffed off of those movies and comics, the works of Verne and Wells, and the Victorian era itself to create a vibrant fashion, arts, maker, and DIY community. While parts of this community might pay too little attention to the dark underpinnings of true Victorian society, in general it is progressive, inquisitive, and inclusive.

  Mostly because of the spark and inspiration provided by the existence of this subculture, more and more writers are once again writing steampunk fiction. However, it’s very different from what came before. The books that form the core of the canon from the first wave of steampunk—Moorcock, Jeter, Powers, Sterling, Gibson—are generally a small part of the influence on this next wave of steampunk. This next wave is also largely dominated by women, including Gail Carriger, Cherie Priest, Karin Lowachee and Ekaterina Sedia, and has begun to move away from being purely Victorian or English in setting or culture. In another generation, the true energy behind steampunk may have moved away from Anglo settings and perspectives altogether.

  More importantly for the health of this anthology, perhaps, much more steampunk short fiction is being written than ever before in the history of the subgenre. Inspiration for this fiction is as likely to include the novels of manners as Verne and the growing influence of non-Western cultures. The influence of the maker movement is also apparent in what we would call a burgeoning of “steampunk tinker” stories that also speak to the themes of self-sufficiency and DIY aesthetics that permeate the subculture. In short, steampunk has indeed become an aesthetic toolbox useful for a range of approaches.

  Within this anthology, you’ll find a rich sampling of that toolbox, from the mixing of Indian legend and the maker movement in Shweta Narayan’s “The Mechanical Aviary of Emperor Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar” to G. D. Falksen’s use of steampunk to satirize our current fixation on the Internet, from Margo Lanagan’s brilliant feminist take on automatons, “Machine Maid,” to Samantha Henderson’s original mash-up of faery and trickster stories in “Wild Copper.”

  We’ve also been careful to provide some historically relevant material from before the last decade, including Marc Laidlaw’s cautionary tale about the beginnings of photography, and “The Gernsback Continuum,” the story by William Gibson that not only presaged the steampunk maker movement but also inspired the steampunk offshoot of “Raygun Gothic.” (From Wikipedia: “a visual style that incorporates various aspects of the Googie, Streamline Moderne and Art Deco architectural styles when applied to retro-futuristic science fiction environments.”)

  Adding additional context to all of these great stories is a delightful and unexpected find: Vilhelm Bergsoe’s “Flying Fish,” translated here for the first time from the original Danish. “Flying Fish” isn’t just an interesting story in its own right, but a great example of proto-steampunk from Verne’s day and, in its progressive politics, a generally progressive stance, an antidote to the reactionary approaches taken by the Edisonades of that time period.

  “Flying Fish” isn’t the only original material included herein—there’s the 17,000-word “A Secret History of Steampunk” featuring contributions from the likes of Rikki Ducornet, Angela Slatter
, L. L. Hannett, Fábio Fernandes, and Felix Gilman. We’re also proud to present new fiction from rising star Ramsey Shehadeh’s “The Unbecoming of Virgil Smythe” and multiple World Fantasy Award winner Jeffrey Ford’s “Dr. Lash Remembers.”

  Finally, essays in the back of the book by Gail Carriger and Jake von Slatt provide more context on the steampunk subculture, with a closing “The Future of Steampunk” roundtable interview giving some glimpse of what steampunk might be like in the next decade.

  In short, steampunk is alive and well and manifesting in a myriad of ways. We feel that this anthology provides an essential snapshot of that variety and that energy. Enjoy!

  “OBADIAH THEREMIN, MD”: Say what you will about Dr. Theremin, but there can be no question that the man was a dedicated clinician. Most psychiatrists rely on pills and talk to treat their patients, but since Obadiah saw the most hopeless of cases, he saw no harm in going that extra mile. Postulating that disturbed thoughts, like hot air, tend to rise only to precipitate misery upon their hosts, the good Dr. Theremin fitted himself with a device of his own invention that funneled the offending thoughts through a mysterious centrifuge and directly into his own cerebral cortex where he could process them thoroughly with his own unimpeachable sanity. Offending byproducts would pass harmlessly, he theorized, out of the handy faucet he implanted in his left ear, or could be simply exhaled with his pipe smoke—simple! In addition, those plagued by tortuous indecision could present their quandary to him at which point one or the other side of his forked beard would curl slightly at the tip, providing the querent with a definitive response. Meanwhile, his patented Mood-O-Meter hummed eerily on his desk, its needle spinning wildly to indicate his patient’s current state. Okay, it’s true that he was eventually committed himself, the protective goggles he swore by notwithstanding, but among the seriously deranged, he remains a legendary favorite.