Infernal Devices - KW Jeter [118]
Jeter may be an American writing about London, but the quality of his descriptions does an excellent job of conveying action and place, as in the aftermath of a most chaotic encounter: "In the midst of the fishing tackle strewn about, and the copies of Izaak Walton that had been flung from the hands of the panicking Wetwick residents, the choristers lay tangled as though in the aftermath of some juvenile battlefield. Their shrill piping voices were silent now; the porcelain faces, those that were still intact, gazed with rosy-cheeked serenity at the ceiling."
Stories within stories also delight, as when the Paganinicon spins a yarn that includes "sympathetic vibrations" and decidedly eccentric methods of animation. The final revelations concerning the "Brown Leather Man" are appropriately bizarre and yet make sense. Even chapter and section titles are used to maximum effect, my favorite being "The Complete Destruction of the Earth."
There's a sense of playfulness in this narrative that works well even when events turn serious, and Jeter imbues his narrator with the kind of sardonic sincerity that both undercuts his account and supports it. You're left with the feeling you've been sold a bill of goods by novel's end, and yet you don't mind at all.
Mostly because of the spark and inspiration provided by the existence of the 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 – Jeter, Powers, Sterling, Gibson – are generally a small part of the influence on this next wave of steampunk, except through secondary associations. (It's somewhat ironic that some of the newer steampunk fictioneers are going to read Infernal Devices for the first time in this edition.)
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.
But a term can also become a trap, and although there's a certain element of ghosts and séances in the way that Infernal Devices has been called back into print by the new-found popularity of modern-era Steampunk fiction, it's also a kind of irritation that I feel in having Jeter conjured up this way. Jeter wasn't a Steampunk before the publication of Infernal Devices (and Morlock Nights) and he wasn't really a Steampunk afterwards. Instead, he was, and is, a subversive agent in the service of dark science fiction
Jeter's fiction, throughout his career, has been intelligently idiosyncratic and literary, with similarities to writers like Richard Calder and Philip K. Dick (who named a character in his novel Valis after Jeter). In short, he's always given readers his dark take on the world. It's with great fondness that I remember reading novels like Jeter's cult classic Dr. Adder, The Glass Hammer, Mantis, Farewell Horizontal, and Noir. Hopefully, Infernal Devices will serve as a gateway drug for readers who want more of Jeter's unique vision.
As for Steampunk, it's in the process of re-investigating itself, as publication of Infernal Devices proves, but also of going beyond what's come before. The commercial success of Steampunk fiction is gradually opening up possibilities for lots of strange and interesting stuff to be published under that term. In addition, more and more international and multicultural steampunk is being written, and Steampunk may even eventually move out of the 1800s, exploring other periods while applying a similar aesthetic.
Will Steampunk eventually eat itself and die out? Perhaps, perhaps not. But at least we'll always have Infernal Devices.
Jeff VanderMeer, Tallahassee, Florida, January 2011
Quotes attributed to Jeter are excerpted