I'm Something of a Fan of Science Fiction
And within science fiction, there is something peculiarly attractive to me about certain subgenres: steampunk is one of them.
Reprint Time--Helena
A comment from the blogkeeper at Underbelly (thank you Buce) inspired me to look this up. I was fairly certain that I had reviewed the book in the recent past, and so I discovered this. a good book is worth appreciation--over and over and over again. Also, while you are appreciating, you might want to take in Underbelly's look at Helena as well. La Belle Hélène on March 18, 2005 8:11 AM In reading Helena last night I stumbled across a large number of passages I would like to share. But I thought the more important thing to share was an observation. Evelyn Waugh liked this best among his books. There are a good many reasons why this might be so: it is splendidly written--both the prose and the coherence are several notches above some of his earlier, more frenetic work. It is tightly done, with just the right strokes and exactly the right selection of detail. But I suspect the reason Waugh prized this above all the other works is that in t...
One of my first signs that the internet would change everything was when I read The Difference Engine, shared it with a friend, and we argued over some obscure point. It got to the point where they said, "I guess we'll never know unless we meet the authors" and something clicked. I spent a few minute searching and found Bruce Sterling's email address (this was the pre-web era) and sent him a question. He answered in a an hour. It was a stunning example of the connectedness that was to come.
ReplyDeleteDear Randy,
ReplyDeleteI remember you showing this to us at one of our meetings--or at least sharing it as it happened. And it was significant. We are connected, at times, perhaps too much so. But so much good has come of it.
shalom,
Steven
I've read several steampunk novels and found them OK. THE steampunk novel, which probably many would consider to be Gibson and Sterling's The Difference Engine, is not one of them, though. In fact, I lost interest about half way through and stopped reading.
ReplyDeleteI was surprised as both Gibson and Sterling are favorites of mine, having read many of their works. I am much happier with them when they are writing cyberpunk.
One author mentioned in the article was KW Jeter, who really doesn't fit into any category since he also writes cyberpunk and horror. One of his best, or at least, one that I like best is his _The Glass Hammer_, which is probably best classified as cyberpunk, if anything. I have also read his _Infernal Devices_ and enjoyed it. I didn't think of it as steampunk, but I could see that it could be labeled as such.