Guest Blogger: Steven Harper
Hi all. Please give a big Talk in the Shadows Welcome to my buddy Steven Harper!
He's here to edumakate us on the ever growing world of steampunk, and his wonderful new series, The Clockwork Empire, which begins with THE DOOMSDAY VAULT.
Take it away, Steve!
NON-TRADITIONAL TRADITION
The Victorian era had a number of progressive moments. It introduced the ideas of compulsory education, child labor laws, women's suffrage, and divorce. But, quite rightly, it's also remembered as a time period of terrible restrictions. The poor were used and abused. Orphans were openly bought and sold in London. Women's clothing was designed to hinder their movements. The laws and customs regarding relationships were so strict, it's amazing anyone managed to brush hands, let along have children.
It's the restrictions, of course, that fascinate us. Tell someone you can't have something, and it becomes all the more enticing. Forbidden foods. Forbidden books. Forbidden relationships.
We love to read about people caught against the rules, and that's what steampunk is about--non-tradition people in a traditional society.
When I wrote THE DOOMSDAY VAULT, I deliberately set out to explore a non-traditional relationship. And I got shocked responses before the book was even published. Weird, huh?
DOOMSDAY, which is set in nineteenth century London, has two protagonists: Alice Michaels and Gavin Ennock. Alice is twenty-two. Gavin is seventeen. What with one thing and another, Gavin ends up locked in a high tower. Alice manages to free him, and is a little unnerved to find herself falling for him. Gavin feels the same way about Alice.
When I started sending chapters through my writers group, many of the members reported feeling squicked about this. Gavin is too young for Alice. "Bleah! Ew!"
A few weeks after he meets Alice, Gavin turns eighteen, so he's of legal age, and he lives in an era when people grow up more quickly than in our own. My writers group's response? "Bleah! Ew!"
But we must ask a corollary question: if Alice had been eighteen and Gavin had been twenty-two, what would be the response?
"Ble--what?"
In the Victorian era, no one would blink at a man in his twenties marrying an eighteen-year-old. Why, in our modern, more equable, times, are we upset about the reverse?
To be fair, the book does make the age difference a point of conflict in their relationship. Alice, a traditional woman, worries about it, while the free-spirited Gavin wonders why it bothers her. They have to work through this if they want to be happy.
It's fiction's job to look at what our society sees as traditional and ask questions about it, because even when a book isn't set in our society, it's still about us. Why do we allow one thing and not the other? Why do we think this way? Can we allow such thinking to go on and call ourselves fair and open?
Steampunk mixes the traditional and non-traditional in new ways that lets us ask these interesting questions. And maybe we'll eventually change the answers.
Steven Harper usually lives at http://www.theclockworkempire.com and http://spiziks.livejournal.com . His steampunk novel THE DOOMSDAY VAULT, first in the Clockwork Empire series, hits the stores in print and electronic format November 1.
He's here to edumakate us on the ever growing world of steampunk, and his wonderful new series, The Clockwork Empire, which begins with THE DOOMSDAY VAULT.
Take it away, Steve!
NON-TRADITIONAL TRADITION
The Victorian era had a number of progressive moments. It introduced the ideas of compulsory education, child labor laws, women's suffrage, and divorce. But, quite rightly, it's also remembered as a time period of terrible restrictions. The poor were used and abused. Orphans were openly bought and sold in London. Women's clothing was designed to hinder their movements. The laws and customs regarding relationships were so strict, it's amazing anyone managed to brush hands, let along have children.
It's the restrictions, of course, that fascinate us. Tell someone you can't have something, and it becomes all the more enticing. Forbidden foods. Forbidden books. Forbidden relationships.
We love to read about people caught against the rules, and that's what steampunk is about--non-tradition people in a traditional society.
When I wrote THE DOOMSDAY VAULT, I deliberately set out to explore a non-traditional relationship. And I got shocked responses before the book was even published. Weird, huh?
DOOMSDAY, which is set in nineteenth century London, has two protagonists: Alice Michaels and Gavin Ennock. Alice is twenty-two. Gavin is seventeen. What with one thing and another, Gavin ends up locked in a high tower. Alice manages to free him, and is a little unnerved to find herself falling for him. Gavin feels the same way about Alice.
When I started sending chapters through my writers group, many of the members reported feeling squicked about this. Gavin is too young for Alice. "Bleah! Ew!"
A few weeks after he meets Alice, Gavin turns eighteen, so he's of legal age, and he lives in an era when people grow up more quickly than in our own. My writers group's response? "Bleah! Ew!"
But we must ask a corollary question: if Alice had been eighteen and Gavin had been twenty-two, what would be the response?
"Ble--what?"
In the Victorian era, no one would blink at a man in his twenties marrying an eighteen-year-old. Why, in our modern, more equable, times, are we upset about the reverse?
To be fair, the book does make the age difference a point of conflict in their relationship. Alice, a traditional woman, worries about it, while the free-spirited Gavin wonders why it bothers her. They have to work through this if they want to be happy.
It's fiction's job to look at what our society sees as traditional and ask questions about it, because even when a book isn't set in our society, it's still about us. Why do we allow one thing and not the other? Why do we think this way? Can we allow such thinking to go on and call ourselves fair and open?
Steampunk mixes the traditional and non-traditional in new ways that lets us ask these interesting questions. And maybe we'll eventually change the answers.
Steven Harper usually lives at http://www.theclockworkempire.com and http://spiziks.livejournal.com . His steampunk novel THE DOOMSDAY VAULT, first in the Clockwork Empire series, hits the stores in print and electronic format November 1.
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