Scalded by Steampunk

So I dropped into my blog reader today, and the number one topic of conversation seemed to be that steampunk sucks, is boring, is shallow, is revisionism(fictional revisionism, the horror!), is a commercial sell-out, is crap, is shit, is tiresome, is over-hyped, is racist, is colonialist, is adventurist, has not one really powerful story to its name, etc.

And then I saw that one of the people saying this was Charlie Stross, and I almost cried.  Because I love the books Charlie Stross writes.

And then I stopped and thought:  “People are getting worked up over a fucking sub-genre of fiction.”  Why?  What’s the point?  You don’t like steampunk?  Great.  Enjoy whatever it is you enjoy, but why attack a genre that’s never done anything to you?  Either write something better or move on.  Isn’t there some new Tolkien clone somewhere to bash?  Horrendous glorification of the middle ages and all that?

If speculative fiction was a house, steampunk would be the leaky boiler pipe in the basement.  Don’t stand in front of it and you won’t get burned.  Maybe you find it annoying.  Well, I find it annoying when people turn down the high while wearing a jacket indoors.  Tolkienesque fantasy could fit that metaphor very well.  But there are four other people in the house who agree, so I suck it up and move on with my day.  I don’t accuse them of oppressing the working class.

I’ve read some great steampunk, some good steampunk, and some shitty steampunk.  The latter category is much larger than I would prefer, but 90% of every genre is crap, so why the need to jump on one poor little sub-genre over having a few shity books, or books that disagreed with your politics by having a few noblemen protrayed in a positive light?  Nobody is making you read this, and I don’t know very many other readers or writers who would prefer to live in the 19th century because they loved the last steampunk story they read.

 

YA Fiction: Character Age and Target Audience

I was looking through my list of story projects toady, and I noticed that a large majority of my characters are not only younger than I am, but younger than one of my nephews.  I certainly don’t think of these stories as YA or MG, and I don’t really see myself as a YA/MG author.  Of course, I do read/watch a lot of material that falls into those categories, especially with anime/manga, so that might be influencing me quite a bit.

A perennial question among writers, especially younger writers, is how to decide what age category your work falls into—anywhere from preschool picture books to not-safe-for-under-50.  Especially because the lines between age categories get a little thin at the age when many new writers take their first steps.  For argument’s sake, let’s say this thinning begins at about the 13-year-mark.  That’s where many people start reading up into the adult fiction market, especially as regards the major genres.  Of course, plenty of people start earlier or later or not at all, but we’re looking at the average here for the reading public.

There are many great discussions online about this topic.  So many that I’d never be able to link to them all.  Here’s an article in the other direction on where YA starts and MG ends.  And here’s an article that gives broad coverage of many questions surrounding the genre.  I suppose I could cite this article on io9 as a bad interpretation of the genre.  It seems to take a rather negative view, which while it contains some good points, seems a bit too soap-boxy to address the real issues.   This article appears to be a slightly irritated shot taken by an author who felt unnecessarily “corralled” into the YA genre or the adult fiction market by labels.  While I agree with her in spirit, I think she’s taking the wrong approach to the issue of labeling.

Here’s a disturbingly accurate analysis of a major trend in the YA “genre” today.  And a short but sweet statement by Carrie Ryan on the wonder that is YA fiction.  A lovely treatise on “what is YA?” from the Alien Onion.  And some questions about where we draw the lines between “adult” and “child” themes.

You don’t have to read all of those links to understand this post.  I just wanted to give a small sample of the many, many discussions on this topic that are out there.  (For a sense of scale, all of the links above came from the first page of Google.)  I hope you now understand the enormity of the task of defining the line between YA and A(dult)G(enre) fiction.  It would be impossible for me to discuss every aspect of this conversation in one post.  I just want to touch on a few points as they pertain to writing.

First, you might be a bit miffed by my choice of terms here.  “YA” is “young adult”, obviously, but why “adult genre”?  One of the major differences between YA and adult fiction centers on the issue of genre.  YA is usually considered its own “genre”, based mostly on the similarity in themes and characters.  Yet it contains all of the “genres” of adult fiction.  Sort of begs the question, what’s with this genre thing, anyway?  Well, that’s another pretty common topic, and you’ll find ample reading with a quick google search.  Unfortunately, that’s not what this post is about.

I’ve digressed a bit in this post, but I think what I had to say was important background for the real discussion.  The primary question here is, how do you decide how to present your work to agents and publishers?  I mentioned above that I have a great number of stories with young protagonists, and yet I did not set out to write YA or MG fiction, and I don’t really consider them to fit in those categories.  But do they really fit in AG either?  Could an adult reader relate to a twelve-year-old?  I can think of some examples of such books originally published as adult genre fiction.  Ender’s Game by Orson Scott card comes to mind.  Yet when I read the book, it was in middle school, and it was a new printing with a cover and format that seemed geared towards younger readers.

So should I attempt to submit my twelve-year-old to YA agents and publishers or to those who deal in adult fiction?  Well, let me elaborate a little more about the book, although I can’t be too specific.  There’s a cast of characters, mostly under 14 when the first book opens—yes, it may be part of a series).  It’s multi-pov, with at least four young perspective characters and possibly two more—one another child, the other an adult.   There are some very dark themes in this story.  These characters are not Harry Potter, or Lyra Silvertonuge, or Unico.  It’s a semi-medieval fantasy and the world reflects that.  There won’t  be any gratuitous sex, or much foul language.  But anything else can happen, and does.

Do kids/teenagers mean YA/MG?  Not in GRRMs ASOIAF, they don’t.  “Arranged” marriage, teenage pregnancy, rape.  All trials faced by what we would consider young children today.  But my story won’t have that either.  Does that mean it’s safe for YA?  Plenty of YA has worse.  So what about themes?  YA runs the gamut, and so does my story.

And what about character?  Desires, goals, experience?  Many of the articles I linked to pointed to classic “teenage” themes of independence, discovering your place in the world, knowing who are—and failing to achieve those goals.  But are those themes absent in adult literature?  They’re certainly not primary angles in my story.  I’m looking more at betrayal, character change, corruption, war.  Pretty common themes in adult fiction.  Yet again, are they absent in YA?  Lauren Oliver’s Before I Fall deals with the question of change, and it is emphatically YA.  Corruption, betrayal?  Plenty of that in YA.

So where do we draw the line?  Themes?  Doesn’t seem like it.  Character age?  Nope, not a chance.  Audience?  Plenty of adults read YA, and plenty of teenagers read AG.  Marketing?  That’s up to your publisher. 

So what about your own goals, you might ask?  What if you want to be a YA author—or not?  Well, that’s up to you.  Personally, I find it a bit limiting to label myself like that.  I don’t have a problem writing for either market.  But I do have stories that more clearly fall in both the YA and AG categories.  So it’s not that simple for me.  Which I think is more of a feature than a bug.  But if it doesn’t apply to you, you might reach a different conclusion.  Just like any other area of writing, there’s more than one right answer to this question.

But you’ve got to have some answer.  Any thoughts?

 

Things I Wish SF(F) Had More Of

So, after thinking about my last post on education, I’ve come to some conclusions. I’ve been reading less and less science fiction lately, and I haven’t been able to figure out why. But now I think I know. It’s because I’ve been seeing a lot of the same things recently. Here’s a list of recent sub-genres I’ve become disillusioned with lately, and some ideas I think could infuse them with new life:

1. Space Opera–Don’t get me wrong, I love this sub-genre, but we’ve been harping on post-humanism and alien combat quite a lot lately. How about we try something new? Like some new thoughts on STL travel, or Near-Earth Space exploration.

2. Near-future SF–Love this genre as well. (Futurismic, here’s to you!)  But we’ve been seeing a lot of the same thing, lately.  Nano-tech, cyberpunk, bio-punk.  I’d love to see some more stories on information technology pre-singularity.  VR’s been a common theme, but very few books out there seem to be addressing Augmented Reality(AR), which–for those who don’t know–is the mapping of virtual information, such as audio and video, onto the real world.  The more well-known application here is the good old “heads-up display”, or HUD, in use in targeting systems and mapping.  Stories about AR that come to mind:  Dennou Coil, Rainbows End, Eden of the East.  There’s a lot of potential in this technology, and a lot of conflict that it could create.  Virtual ads in fields, or modern digital graffiti are two.  And think of the networking and social media applications.

3.  Science fantasy:  There’s been a rise in this genre lately, which I have greatly enjoyed.  Some examples are anime’s Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou, which postulates a modern form of magic created with digital information instead of personal energy and ancient symbolism.  A great deal of steam-punk also falls into this category, although it’s generally not as modern as the normal idea of the genre.  Of course, I’m somewhat misrepresenting this term to describe a combination of scientific and fantastical elements.  I’m not really refering to just planetary romance or dying earth scenarios, as much as contemporary or near-future fantasy outside of the UF genre.  We might also include some space opera works in the category.  Anime provides the example of Heroic Age, while C.S. Friedman has given us the Coldfire Trilogy.

4.  Let’s also throw in alternate universe science fiction here.  Earth-like worlds with different cultural and geographical settings that nevertheless approximate our present level of technology.  I’m hard-pressed to come up with an example of this grouping that doesn’t involve alternate dimensions or the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.  I’m not talking multiverses or dimension-hoppers here.  I’m thinking of entirely independent worlds.  Which makes me want to read this sort  of story even more.  Perhaps Jeff Vandermeer’s Finch could be an example book, although that veers closer to Science Fantasy/New Weird than I’m trying to go.

5.  Oh, and let’s not forget the Chimney-punk.  This isn’t a recognized genre yet, but I’m hard at work behind the scenes, spreading awareness(lol) and writing material.  New Weird isn’t the only interstitial genre out there–at least, not for long.

Anyway, those are a few genres I’d really love to see some new material in.  Does anyone have particular areas of their own that they find interesting but under-populated?

 

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

I don’t normally do book reviews.  In fact, this is barely a book review at all, for all it’s marked with that tag.  Suffice to say that if you have not read Susanna Clarke’s “Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell”, you ought to get right to it.  I know I’m woefully out of date, the book being published in 2004, but I can only say it’s the best historical fantasy (or possibly fantasy in general) that I have had the fortune to read.  Damn long, though.  But worth it.

 

The Two Types of Urban Fantasy

Looking at the genre from one angle, there are two types of Urban Fantasy, Type-P fantasy and Type-D fantasy.

Type-D, named after Harry Dresden–because he is awesome and I saw the TV adaption on the Sci-Fi channel (before they came up with that ridiculous re-branding “SyFy”), and because someone over on AW used it– is fantasy where the MC is aware of the story’s supernatural elements.

Type-D can further be divided into stories where magic is “out of the broom-closet”, and known to the world at large, and the much more common set of stories where it’s a Big Fuckin’ Secret. You might guess which one I prefer. It’s probably due to my bias from secondary-world fantasy, where even if it’s a distant existence, both physically and mentally, magic is usually known to the general populace.

Type-P, named after Harry Potter–which is one of the more famous examples currently–is fantasy where the MC discovers that magic exists.

These stories come in two common varieties, stories where the MC does have magic, and stories where they don’t. The latter are usually the most popular.

Both types have their advantages and disadvantages:

Type-D can throw you right into the action. The plot is to the fore and it is where most of the attention is focused. Demon-hunting, vampire cabals, changeling conspiracies. A great example is Harry Connolly’s Child of Fire. MC knows about magic, is involved in magic, and is going to have a great time hunting down the “bad” kind.

Type-P is different. You might have some action at the beginning, such as the kid-napping or murder of someone close to the protagonist–or of the protag themselves. But then you have to deal with the fact that, “ZOMG! Magic!” Whether you’ve got a reluctant protagonist or one who Jumps at the Call, they have to process their reaction some time. You get a lot inner dialogue, friction with more worldly allies, and a great deal of shock and awe. All of these contrive to distance the beginning of the story from the real plot.

Which could go either way. Sure, their twelve-year-old sister got kidnapped, but… “Level 12 Fireball!” How can that not be cool? And that’s one of the major differences.

Type-D is often about the surface events, the plot, even though it is likely to be quite “character-driven”. Type-P is often more about the character arcs, the themes. Of course, these are only generalizations. You can still have fantastic character arcs in Type-D UF, and run around collecting plot coupons and fighting bad-guys in Type-P.

But if you look at my examples, you might notice something. How old are the characters in Dresden Files and Child of Fire? How old in Harry Potter? What about, dare I say it, Twilight? You can argue that it’s PR, not UF, but the genres are pretty close, and there’s a great deal of crossover. If you look back at most of the recommendations in my original post, you’ll see that the trend continues.

Now, I’m not dumping all Type-P UF in the YA category–although if you look at the whole Fantasy genre, you’ll see it follows the trend closely as well. There are counter-examples, naturally. Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, for example, has a discovery plot and an adult MC. And it is not alone. Nor do younger characters always qualify a story as YA (or MG). But it’s a trend.

And one of the reasons for it is the ability to use magic as a metaphor for just about anything we don’t know about, or are uncertain of. Including growing up, love, getting out of the school environment, learning that life isn’t so simple as you thought, etc. And Type-P UF, and Type-F for that matter, handles these themes very well. Issues of self-discovery, personal identity, social identity, cultural identity, sexual identity. All of these have been addressed within Type-P. Being a wizard, a shifter, a vamp. These are all things that separate someone from the rest of humanity, just like being gay, or black, or female might set someone apart.

In Type-D, characters are usually more stable in their identity, more confident. They aren’t dealing with so many first, so many new things. They’ve already honed their skills, learned their lore, chosen their profession. And this allows for all sorts of stories that you couldn’t have in Type-P. It makes for different approaches as well. Whereas a twelve-year-old is not going to go undercover in an ab-dead dreamshit ring, a thirty-year-old were-falcon cop could do so easily. And vice-versa. Middle-aged investment bankers aren’t going to be wandering around in the attic, or playing hide and seek in the wardrobe. 9-year-olds certainly won’t be hunting down strange sorcerers who turn children in burning piles of grubs that burrow away into the soil.

There are many other ways to divide or classify urban fantasy. There’s N. K. Jemisin’s Stylistic vs. Contextual UF, over on Jeff VanderMeer’s Ecstatic Days. You could classify by protagonist type: “Kick-ass broad” vs. suave vampiric playboy. Or smart, tough, magic detective. There’re the various lineages and influences I mentioned in the last post. The list goes on. They all provide some insight, and some context.

Next time, we might talk about those lineages a little more in depth. I think the term “lineage” in general makes for a great sub-category of “sub-genre”, unless you’d prefer “sub-sub-genre”? Either way, we’ll explore the idea soon.

 

Genre of the Week Revival

First, I would like to acknowledge that “Genre of the Week” is not entirely accurate at this point, considering how long ago I posted about Steam-punk, and the fact that the proposed next GotW, “Space Opera” never appeared. It’s more like “Genre of the Three Months”. But I’m going to try again, and circumstances permitting, I’d like to get these posts up and written more regularly, and to add a small feature of actually posting more than one post about each genre a week. So that, you know, it’s actually the Genre of the Week, and not a third variation called “Genre of a Random Day which Happens to be in this Particular Week”.

Now, this is already Tuesday night, so it’s a late start. But I will in fact introduce a new genre this week: Urban Fantasy(UF), and there will be one or more supplementary posts looking at more specific aspects of the genre. In particular, I have already written one describing one of the possible breakdowns of the UF genre, Type-P UF vs. Type-D UF. You’ll learn what those two terms mean when the post goes up sometime after Wednesday. Until then, you’ll have to make do with my Introductory Post on UF which will hopefully go up sometime tonight. Hope you enjoy it.

 

Magics’ Price

Or, On More Principles Tricks of Good Fantasy and How Authors Screw Up The Third Principle of Good Magic

 

Now, those of you in the know have probably noticed there was something missing in my previous post on balanced magic. That’s right, the most abused principle of good magic systems: The Principle of Appropriate Cost. Oh, and its corollary The Principle of Suitable Sacrifice.*

The most widely used excuse for poorly balanced magic systems is the “cost” of magic. Cost can be physical energy, physical backlash (as in Lackey’s brilliant cost of… headaches?**), life essence(whatever that is), actual years off of life, powered by nebulous energy which may or may not be renewable or unending, blood, human and animal sacrifice, deals with spirits or demons, and many others. After “limits”, cost is the most badly abused balancer in fantasy. Why? Because a lot of costs don’t really “cost” anything. Maybe, if the author is feeling really reasonable, cost can limit the duration or strength of magic, but it’s still transient. The mage is back after some bed rest and a good meal, ready to go at it again. Or they just snag the nearest ley-line.

Another form of abuse is one that violates my First Law of Delayed Gratification, which most simply translates to “the sooner, the better”. Sure, years off your life sounds bad, but it’s a long way into the future. For example, how many teenagers do you know who would sacrifice ten years of life in the future for the chance to fly or throw fireballs now? Or get whatever wish they want most met? How many adults like that do you know? Probably enough to understand my point. Just like a newly married couple handing over their first-born child. “That’s okay. We don’t want kids.” Right… Readers like costs now, or at least costs that they know about. Writers, don’t wait too long to bring on the pain. Or we will bring on the wall.

There are all sorts of great costs that magic could have, but authors afraid to really hurt their characters will not use them. Happily-ever-after is fine, but have them earn it. There’s no conflict in an obvious decision, authors. Characters should suffer, have regrets, feel guilty, make tough choices. And while we’re at it, no fake costs. No fair bringing a character back to life after they’ve sacrificed it to drive the magic. No, Ms. Lackey, not even once. Or as a ghost. Paid costs should stay paid–unless the magic is undone in return… and it matters that it is.

Another thing that is commonly ignored is external costs. That is, the cost to other people of the character using their magic. Call up an earth quake to trap the villains in a rockslide? What about the village a mile down the road? Is it still standing after? Magic nuke that destroys the enemy? What about the innocents caught in its path? Burn down the vineyard the enemy is hiding in? How is the owner going to pay his taxes? Everything has consequences, and those consequences have consequences. Drain this node and the one down the road, and how will the next village’s magic dam stop the flood? But now we’re leaking into logical effects. More on those later.

Summation: Make your costs cost—permanently.

 

*As in, headaches don’t make fire.  And sacrificing squirrels doesn’t defeat the Dark Lord.  Now, the hero(ine)’s Love Interest… that could do it.

**I love Lackey, really. Not the best fantasy I’ve ever read, sure, but I was using light sarcasm; I don’t bite.  And she gets it right, sometimes.  Lavan Firestorm, anyone?

 

Next post: On Setting Limits and Why Breaking Them is Bad. Bad. Bad!

 

Getting Ahead of Myself: What is Magic and Why Do We Like It?

I’ve learned my first lesson about blogging. It is very easy to get ahead of yourself. After re-reading my post about magic “systems”, I’ve decided to put the horse back before the cart. In order to talk about how to create a form of magic in fantasy, we have to define what magic is, and why it is being created in the first place. So, here we go:

Fantasy- anything that is an impossibility in real life

Magic- the method by which these impossibilities are achieved

There are many things people wish they could do that they can’t do in real life. The reason fantasy and magic are attractive is that they allow these impossible things to occur. Personally, I’ve always wanted to fly. With magic, I don’t need a plane. I could grow myself wings, or levitate with the power of my mind. Now, magic doesn’t really exist. I cannot really grow wings or levitate. But through a well-crafted story, I can pretend—even if only until the story ends—that I can out-fly Superman. This is the attraction of all kinds of fiction. They allow us to imagine that we are doing what the characters are doing, and experiencing what the characters are experiencing. People find this sort of thing very enticing. And there is nothing wrong with that.

But that’s just wish fulfillment—or, as the mainstream writers will snidely remark, it’s escapism. That dreadful thing! What else, then, can magic offer to a story? It can offer conflict. Sure, it’s cool to do the impossible. But if the character can do anything, then there really isn’t much room for interesting plots, or suspense, or tension, or conflict. These things are formed by competing possibilities, and having the power to do anything means that the possibility of failing is minimal. Thus, all-powerful characters are contradictory to the idea that a smaller possibility of success leads to greater conflict and tension. Which is what the reader craves.

So, the purpose of magic is not to make anything possible, but to make something possible enough that the reader doesn’t get thrown out of the story when that something occurs. Why could the peasant boy defeat the Dark Lord? Magic!

But magic isn’t easy. Magic is a balancing act, and the possibilities it opens up are what makes it so interesting. Conflict comes from competing possibilities, and possibility is what magic provides.

Tomorrow, I will talk about ways to make conflict with magic, and how these enhance the story.

 

Subgenre of the Week: Steampunk

Genre of the Week:  Steampunk

Personally, I’m a big fan of steampunk.  It’s a great genre with possibilities.  Despite the fact that it’s been around for 30 years, there just isn’t that much available in the area of steampunk novels.  Wikipedia lists 21 works of fiction that fall into this category. (See link below)  Of course, there is a lot of material in other mediums.  Anime, manga, video games, comics, graphic novels, films.  But the whole of steampunk material is just not that big.  Even thought there are many aspiring authors working in the genre.  Will they get published?  I don’t know, that’s up to their own effort and the decisions of publishers.  But I would like to see more steampunk on my shelves.  I don’t care if it crosses genres, or has “elements”, or what.  I just want more.  And it doesn’t seem like it will be hard to find original and creative material…  After all the genre isn’t as played out as UF or High Fantasy.  There’s still lots of room to grow and develop.

Which brings me to the next cool thing about steampunk.  It crosses genres like crazy.  There is historical steampunk, AU steampunk, steampunk fantasy, and even steampunk romance.  Nothing is out of bounds.  I’m just waiting for that steampunk mystery….  Steampunk, despite it’s façade as a very specific category of fiction, is one of the most open genres out there.  It even has a sub-genre, “clock-punk”, that deals with non-steam mechanical technology, usually set in the Renaissance.  That’s pretty good for a genre with a catalogue of 21 works.

Now, even though steampunk isn’t as “dystopic” as cyber-punk, it isn’t all bubbles and sugar either.  Common issues are class struggle, the dangers of time travel, magical conspiracies and war.  Even nuclear war.  Another common theme is creation of life, playing god.  And honestly, who doesn’t prefer a sexy steam-bot over some clone grown in agar gel?  Gross…

Forecast:  As for me, I think steampunk will only increase in popularity as time goes on.  I see so many new writers working in the genre, and the fact that it has a dedicated _lifestyle_ implies a similarly dedicated audience, even if it may be a small one.  My favorite new writer in steampunk is Alan Campbell, who wrote Scar Night, Iron Angel and God of Clocks, in his trilogy, the Deepgate Codex.  See?  The genre is alive and well.  So keep on the lookout.

Recommendations:

1. The Alchemy of Stone by Ekaterina Sedia

2. Perdido Street Station by China Mieville

3. Scar Night by Alan Campbell

4. White Chapel Gods by S.M. Peters

5. The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling

6. Mainspring by Jay Lake

7. Anime: Last Exile

8. Anime: Fullmetal Alchemist

Description: Steampunk is a sub-genre of speculative fiction generally set in a time period similar to our 19^th century, and that may even be our 19^th century, depending on whether or not the author wants to ground their work in real-world history.  The most common Earthly setting is Victorian England.  But as the genre has grown, settings in many countries on all continents have been portrayed.  The most visible trait of the genre is the use of steam-power, thus the title.  Over time, several other branches of technology have become popular and occasionally even ubiquitous: mechanical computers, dirigibles(blimps for the uninitiated), and basically anything that we would do with electricity but these societies do with mechanical means, such as robots or replacement body parts.

Themes: Although the term “punk” implies a certain dystopic, counter-culture atmosphere, much as was present in cyber-punk, many steam-punk works downplay or lack these elements entirely, preferring to focus instead on the sense of discovery and wonder inherent in the improbable and baroque creations they describe.

History:  The term “steam-punk” originated as a play on the name of the “cyber-punk” sub-genre.  K.W. Jeter originated the term in a letter to the sci-fi mag Locus where he suggested it as a catchy name for what he believed to be “the next big thing”: ‘Victorian fantasies.’

Influences:  Steam-punk was greatly influenced by the scientific romances of the 19^th century.  Writers in this area included H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, Mark Twain and Mary Shelley.  Important precursors in terms of books include: Titus Alone, Queen Victoria’s Bomb, A Nomad of the Time Streams, and Worlds of the Imperium.  Technically, Jeter’s Morlock Night is considered the first true work in the steampunk genre, as he coined the term. 

Complete List of Works: See here