Steampunk Prime_ A Vintage Steampunk Reader - Mike Ashley [0]
Foreword © 2010 by Paul di Filippo
Interior illustrations © 2010 by Luis Ortiz
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher.
Book design by Luis Ortiz • Production by Nonstop Ink
ISBN 978-1933065-18-2 Trade Paper
ISBN 978-1-933065-19-9 Epub
ISBN 978-1-933065-21-2 Mobi
Nonstop Press
www.nonstop-press.com
Contents
FOREWORD: BRIT BOFFIN DELIVERS STEAMPUNK’S PURE QUILL! or AFTER SUCH KNOWLEDGE, WHAT THRILLS?
INTRODUCTION: WHEN STEAMPUNK WAS REAL
MR. BROADBENT’S INFORMATION
THE AUTOMATON
THE ABDUCTION OF ALEXANDRA SEINE
THE GIBRALTAR TUNNEL
FROM POLE TO POLE
IN THE DEEP OF TIME
THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE SEVEN KINGS
THE PLAGUE OF LIGHTS
WHAT THE RATS BROUGHT
THE GREAT CATASTROPHE
WITHIN AN ACE OF THE END OF THE WORLD
AN INTERPLANETARY RUPTURE
THE LAST DAYS OF EARTH
THE PLUNGE
SOURCES
Contributors
FOREWORD: BRIT BOFFIN DELIVERS STEAMPUNK’S PURE QUILL! or AFTER SUCH KNOWLEDGE, WHAT THRILLS?
Paul Di Filippo
“IT’S NEVER TOO LATE to have a happy childhood.”
This bumper-sticker-quality slogan, often interpreted as a slightly disreputable excuse for intransigent Peter-Pan-style misbehavior and shirking of adult responsibilities, seems to me somehow admirable and endorsable on a higher plane, and also to be a sentiment particularly tied up with the science-fiction weltanschauung.
We all know another expression that is a kissing cousin to the one above: “The Golden Age of science fiction is thirteen.”
Put the two maxims together, and you get something that may be more tediously and laboriously expressed thus:
“A youthful sense of wonder invoked by apprehension of the true dimensions of the cosmos and the depiction of the mysteries of creation in the literature of the fantastic — a frisson frequently experienced most intensely in early adolescence — may, with some effort and imagination, be recaptured even by jaded and stale adults via a deliberate and forceful re-virginization of the intellect and emotions, in the presence of appropriate eidolons.”
Whew! I warned you it was going to be a laborious and tedious restatement, didn’t I?
In any case, I believe you now grasp how these twinned sentiments define the core ethos of the true science fiction fan. Even in our most cynical moments, appalled by the flood of stale, mercenary literary trash masquerading as novelty, coarsened by our own addiction to mindless repetitive kicks, beset by the quotidian hardships of mature existence, teased and betrayed by the empty eye-candy of Hollywood, we somehow maintain an undying spark of idealism that may be fanned back into a flame with the proper attitude and objects of worship.
When I ponder along these lines, I am always reminded of a self-observation made by legendary SF editor David Hartwell, who — not bragging, and with all due humility and gratitude — was once heard to say, “I became the adult I envisioned myself being as a child.” Lucky Hartwell! For most of us, invoking — and living out! — that youthful, idealistic self-concept requires the painful stripping away of layers of hardened indifference and disappointment, guilt and fear of betrayal.
One method of summoning up such potent ghosts of our heart’s dawn is to return to our roots, whether literally or literarily.
The SF reader today is lucky enough to have easy and unimpeded access to the entire corpus of our genre’s history. True, much of the canon remains lamentably and in a technical quibble “out of print,” in the sense that no major or minor publisher lists a certain title on their official backlist. And yet, as critic Barry Malzberg has observed, when sixty seconds of internet activity is sufficient to secure either a digital or hard copy of practically any book you can name, then “out of print” has very little practical meaning any longer.
But of course, having curated