Come the end of November, I will be attending the third Dances of Vice Festival in New York City. The event, which takes place from November 20th through 22nd, looks to be great fun. Focused around an adventurous nautical theme, this “Grand Shipwreck Ball” will combine the thrill and wonder of the Age of Exploration with the opulence of European empire.
For those of you who are not familiar with Dances of Vice, it is a club night run by the very charming Shien Lee, and features periodic theme events like the Shipwreck Ball. Dances of Vice is a lovely blend of gothic decadence, Rococo fantasy and sensual fairytale rarely seen in this day and age. Speaking from experience (I have attended both of the previous DoV festivals as well as several of the regular nights), I can say that Dances of Vice is truly a haven for fops and debutantes, cavaliers and courtesans. It goes without saying that I for one am looking forward to the Grand Shipwreck Ball with great anticipation.
More information on Dances of Vice in general can be found at their website; the Grand Shipwreck Ball can be found here.
G. D. Falksen enjoys gothic fantasy, grand balls and any excuse for a smashing party. The historian in him is looking forward to seeing Fort Hamilton firsthand at the event. More details about him can be found at his website, www.gdfalksen.com, and his Twitter, twitter.com/gdfalksen
With Tor.com’s steampunk month now behind us, I would like to ponder what may come next. Certainly, steampunk as a genre and as a subculture is here to stay, there’s no doubting that; in all ways, steampunk is still heating up and will probably continue to grow for years. However, trends naturally evolve and new ones come into being, and I have pondered what the next aesthetic of interest will be. There is no doubt in my mind that the whole neo-vintage trend is still going strong, so the next big genre will be another subset of retro-futurism.
During the Cold War, the United States and its allies supported certain governments and organizations that could well be regarded as being ideologically contrary to them. Though the term “the free world” was used to describe non-Communist states collectively, several of them were in no way freer than the Soviet Union and its allies. Dictatorships like Pinochet’s Chile and Batista’s Cuba were hardly in ideological accord with the United States’s fight to preserve freedom and democracy, but the threat of Communism was perceived as being so great that the US would rather prop up anti-liberal governments rather than risk losing the countries to the influence of the Soviets. Whether reasonable or not, these alliances of convenience rather than ideology were a significant aspect of the Cold War period.
Such alliances of convenience were hardly new to the world of international politics, but one can see a certain degree of absurdity added by the rise of powerful democratic states in the 19th century. Not only was it rather hypocritical of democracies like the United States, France and Britain to maintain empires over people who in turn were denied democracy, but they also had a habit of forming alliances with rulers who were ideologically opposed to the concept of instituting democratic reforms. Perhaps the most glaring one of these was the Russian Empire.
When one thinks of the term “arms race,” it is generally in the context of the Cold War struggle to amass larger stockpiles of newer and more effective nuclear weapons. However, in the years leading up to the First World War, Europe witnessed a very significant pre-nuclear arms race fought primarily between Britain and Germany, but effectively including all the major naval powers on the continent. This arms race dealt not with the production of weapons, but rather with the machines that used them.
Warships have historically been among the most advanced pieces of technology of their age, and for good reason. They enjoyed greater speed and maneuverability than pre-mechanized land travel, and possessed a combination of mobility, armor and firepower that would not be seen on land until the invention of the tank. In addition, water travel provided easy transportation of goods and people, which made them useful for both trade and war. Control of the seas was a key means of maintaining imperial power—as demonstrated by Britain—and failing that, possession of a powerful navy to defend one’s own holdings was a must. Warships carried some of the most modern artillery, employed advanced building techniques, and eventually enjoyed armor.
One of the most incredible examples of the 19th century Cold War-style maneuvering can be found in the struggle between Russia and Britain for control of Central Asia, a conflict known collectively as “the Great Game.” During the Great Game, the two greatest imperial powers in the world expanded into the various small states in the Central Asia region, sometimes annexing them and sometimes pushing them into treaties of friendship. The Russians generally preferred the first tactic, and the existence of modern former Soviet republics such as Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are a testament to Russia’s 19th century conquests. Britain’s expansion was largely focused on securing the northern states of India; outside of their prized colonial possession, they were content to establish treaties with buffer states, such as Afghanistan. In both cases, they were not above using shows of force to ensure allegiance, and if that failed they had no concerns about supporting a rival claimant to the throne in exchange for greater loyalty.
The difference in tactics can largely be traced to a difference of interests. Both Russia and Britain wanted access to Central Asian markets, which had previously been closed to European merchants, but Russia also wanted a strong foothold in the region, which it originally lacked. Britain, in contrast, already possessed one of the most prized parts of Asia, the Indian subcontinent, which had been coveted by countless would-be conquerors from Alexander to Timur to Tsar Paul I. While it is uncertain if the 19th century Russian Empire truly had its eyes on India—or whether it simply wanted control of the khanates and emirates further north—anything that potentially threatened control of India was enough to worry the British.
[Espionage, intrigue, and the 19th century’s answer to the AK-47...]
The Cold War of the mid- and late-20th century has been a profound influence upon our modern, 21st-century world. Though it experienced significant changes over the decades from 1945 to 1991, this period saw the world dominated by the competition between the Western democracies and the Soviet world. Even attempts by various nations to remove themselves from this dualistic view of the world still occurred within the context of Western-Soviet relations, and were forced to take this situation into account (one might say that the Cold War represented the zeitgeist of the second half of the 20th century). The problems of today—nationalist struggles, destabilized regions, terrorism, and state corruption among young nations—can largely be traced to the Cold War and its events.
However, the Cold War was not without precedent. The concept of two superpowers struggling against one another through indirect expansion and the acquisition of client states has existed ever since there have been superpowers to struggle. In particular, the concept of such a “peaceful conflict” is especially fitting in the context of the 19th century, which was marked by a continuation of Europe’s tradition of imperial expansion and mutual hostility, but was also marked by profoundly few general European wars. For all intents and purposes, the century from the end of the Napoleonic Wars (1815) to the onset of the First World War (1914) was one of a general European peace. This is not to say that the European nations were peaceful by any stretch of the imagination; indeed, they were extremely aggressive toward the rest of the world and in general were engaged in extra-European conflicts for largely the entire century of peace. However, for the most part they were not at war with one another, certainly not to the degree found in earlier centuries, nor in the devastating manner of the First World War that would soon be upon them. In fact, Europe was at peace in much the same way that the Western powers and the Soviets were at “peace” during the Cold War, but were still engaged in wars and military actions in other parts of the world throughout the mid-late 20th century.
As you read in my recent Cities of Ether story “The Strange Case of Mr. Salad Monday,” tit-tat is steampunk’s answer to blogging. Where blogs and online posting boards exist in a digital world kept alive by electricity, tit-tat finds an analog equivalent: the printed page. In tit-tat, commentators submit articles on current events and public issues to printing houses, which in turn compile them and print them out on large broadsheets. Practitioners of tit-tat (called “tatters”) read these articles and then submit comments to the printing houses in the same way that modern blog followers leave comments on blog entries. The tit-tat comments are then compiled by the printing houses and printed up along with the next edition of broadsheets. Tags and reference numbers are used to keep track of which comments are responding to which articles; many comments are even directed partly or entirely at other comments.
Because of the space limitations inherent in the printed page, tit-tat uses a system of abbreviations to signify long statements and ideas in only a few letters. These abbreviations have their own phonetic pronunciations, which are used in everyday speech. In addition, the tatting subculture that has developed around tit-tat has created its own set of slang terms, which are used both in tit-tat comments and in common conversation.
The office is a major aspect of modern post-industrial life. Its system of organized bureaucracy can be found in various institutions worldwide, from governments to corporate businesses to the service industry. The flow of paperwork and data processing that allows the modern world to function would be impossible without the concentration of clerical staff provided by the office environment. As with many other aspects of modern life, the modern office traces its lineage most clearly to the structural changes of the 19th century; changes which still define our society today.
What is steampunk?
In three short words, steampunk is Victorian science fiction. Here “Victorian” is not meant to indicate a specific culture, but rather references a time period and an aesthetic: the industrialized 19th century. Historically, this period saw the development of many key aspects of the modern world (mechanized manufacturing, extensive urbanization, telecommunications, office life and mass-transit), and steampunk uses this existing technology and structure to imagine an even more advanced 19th century, often complete with Victorian-inspired wonders like steam-powered aircraft and mechanical computers.
Image courtesy of Tyrus Flynn (www.tyrusflynn.com)
Where did steampunk come from?
In some sense, steampunk has existed since the 19th century. The Victorian period had its own science fiction, perhaps most famously embodied by the works of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, and throughout the 20th century there have been later-day science fiction stories set in the Victorian period. However, the term “steampunk” was not coined until the late 1980s, when author K. W. Jeter used it humorously to describe a grouping of stories set in the Victorian period written during a time when near-future cyberpunk was the prevailing form of science fiction.
While steampunk is most easily summarized as “Victorian science fiction,” it is important to remember that this terminology is used to reference a period of time rather than a specific culture. While it is sometimes mistakenly assumed that Europe or the West must inevitably be the dominant subject of steampunk fiction, this could not be further from the truth. In fact, the blending of science fiction and alternate history found in steampunk make it possible to take the existing complexity and diversity of the 19th century world and bring non-European discourse into an even greater form.
