Balticon 46 Wrap-Up – Part 2, Steam Powered: The Rage of the New Victorians

OK, I’m back with Part 2 of the Balticon 46 Wrap-up, and for some reason it is not June anymore. How did that happen?

Well, things are a few weeks late, but now I’ve worked out enough to get them moving forward. So here we have the first audio from Balticon 46 panels. This audio is from a Reader’s Track panel on Friday night at 5 PM. The Panel was called Steam Powered: The Rage of the New Victorians. On the panel were Phillippa Ballantine, Tee Morris, and myself. Tee ended up subbing for our missing moderator, and even let Pip and me talk from time to time.

Show notes below the cut.

Show notes:

Who’s the Moderator?
The New Media Cookout
Introductions

Tee, your moderator
Pip, the author
Doc, the new guy.


Ten years of Tee at Balticon
What is Steampunk?

Victorian Science Fiction
“What he said.”

Goggles and Corsets
Retro-futurism
Doctor Grordbort
Fun and Adventure, with a dark underbelly.


K. W. Jeter and the coining of the term “Steampunk”


What puts the punk in Steampunk?

Steampunk vs Gaslight Fantasy
The DIY movement and unconventional behavior

Eliza is the punk in Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences
Except when Wellington is the punk
They’re a couple of punks.
Tee plugs “Sins of the Father (Tale from the Archives)“


Going against the grain
The originals in Victorian Society

The proper facade

Private lice


The improper private lives
Being your own person in a conformative society




Can you take the punk out of Steampunk?

You can take the steam out of steampunk, but you can’t take the punk out.
The Wright Brothers


Fracturing the punks

Dieselpunk?
Ricepunk?
Bustlepunk?


What gives? Does it help or hurt Steampunk trying to have a niche for everything?

It’s counterproductive to subdivide.
Tee tells a story about his dad and the Steampunk Bible.

The Wild Wild West is Steampunk!
There’s a good way to do it, and a bad way to do it, and the Wild Wild West is both examples.
Mis-casting in the Wild Wild West movie.
Was there a question?




The fashion of Steampunk

Which one is really Steampunk?

It’s splitting hairs.

It’s not just literature.


The Frenemy thing.




The New Media Cookout, reprise
What would you recommend for a starter Steampunk experience?

Phil and Kaja Folio’s Girl Genius graphic novels.
Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series.
Cherie Priest’s Clockwork Century series.
The Prestige

David Bowie is Tesla!


Time After Time
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang


Questions and Comments from the audience

The Wright Brothers revisited

Flight will never be commercially viable
Great day to be a geek
The Hugo Awards

Neil Gaiman’s Famous Hugo Acceptance Speech (NSFW)




Steampunk Month in Massachusetts. (and New Zealand)
Steampunk Town in New Zealand
Beyond Victoriana
Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Steampunk Contest

“We gotta pick two winners.”


“There were lots of things going on in the rest of the planet”

You can go anywhere in the world and throw a stone and hit an Englishman.


The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne
The Airship Goliath
Brute Force Studios

Castle Steampunk episode


Brazil

Doctor Parnassas




Do you like your Steampunk Light or Dark?

Light, adventurous and fun, with just a touch of dark.
Light smudged with soot and grease.

“You just like it dirty!”
Hold onto high ideas, but don’t lose touch with reality.
Need some kind of bad to fight
Characters need their own foibles.
The contrast makes it interesting.




Why is Steampunk popular now?

We are in the future.

Nostalgia
Yearning for the frontiers


Finding ways to survive in a rigid and constraining society.

Expressing individuality without being crushed by society.
The individual can make a difference in the world.


DIY, the maker movement, and the trend to physicality

We want to see the gears




The pimpage!

Doc Coleman.com

The Nifty Tech Blog
The Shrinking Man Project
Swimming Cat Studios

Treasure Island
Taming of the Shrew




Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences
PJBallantine.com
The Shared Desk Live and Janus Affair Trailer release, Sunday 4PM
New Media Picnic reprise, part two
Val Ford is pushing me to do an anthology of Steampunk Fairy tales.
Aladdin and His Wonderfully Infernal Device


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