Boulder Book Club discussion

Steampunk! http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic...

Page 3 and the mighty Boneshaker's already run its course and sunk Seattle's waterfront. It's like Paint your Wagon or something.

Dirigibles are green: http://www.grist.org/list/2011-05-09-...

I ordered the incorrect version of The Boneshaker, so now I'm awaiting the arrival of the correct Boneshaker. Man, I'm missing out (or not, if Mark's review is to be believed, though I haven't read it and won't until I'm done.

Ben wrote: (stuff)
Ben, for a change my review isn't full of spoilers. I did kind of pan it, but that doesn't mean it was BAD, and I think there was some good stuff. (Hell, writing anything is damn respectable.) I'm gonna go give it 2 stars. One should be reserved for "want my money back" & I don't...

I have made it to page 158, and I must say that I'm disappointed so far. Boneshaker reads like an overdone action-movie script. But at least movie scripts would not have bad lines like this: "The panic she felt was amazing." (See p. 149.)

I will do my best to push through this book, yet without the incentive of engaging in lively discussion within this group, I probably would have given up before page 50.

Steampunk music!
Much of this comes from the ancient moody blues album War of the Worlds, which has to be smack in the center of the genre.

Just started reading last night - so far, it's not bad...quick reading, adventure-y, creative. yeah, the writing isn't great, but well not everything I read has to be Literature. It's also nice to have a female protagonist for once.

The writing isn't great is an understatement. The opening section really gave me hope, but just 40 pages in and already I've found several really poor word uses and simple mistakes that a good editor should've corrected. Besides that, I agree so far.

About 1/2 way through now:

--Yes, I agree that some good editing would have been hugely helpful. Is this the author's first book?

--I haven't read a whole lot of sci-fi books and the two that I've read most recently are: Siren of Titan and Snow Crash. I feel like SoT has a fair bit in common with this book - light reading, adventure-y, father/son (mother/daughter), us against them, etc. SoT had more to say philosophically as did Snow Crash I guess. For me, though, Snow Crash felt like it was written by a 13 year old boy, which Boneshaker has a bit of a feel of that too...

--The kid kind of annoys me. I like the mom though.

About the author: Cherie Priest

It's not her first novel. Her first novel published was Four and Twenty Blackbirds in the Eden Moore series, which appear to be gothic horror. Prior to that, she appeared in a collection of zombie short stories. All of this info was extrapolated from the page linked above.

I'm about 200 pages from the end and it's been a bit of work to get there. I agree with Mark in that the book isn't horrible but as I discussed a bit with him already, it shakes my faith somewhat in the credibility of Hugo Award nominees. Unlike a Peter F. Hamilton novel (Sci-Fi) or Robert Jordan or Brandon Sanderson (Fantasy) I just am not compelled to sit down and read it until I pass out. Still, there are some interesting things worth a discussion and I'll look forward to spending some time on them during the next meeting. But yeah, as for the editing... she really seems to screw up further/farther and other things that should have been mastered by middle school. At least I haven't seen the whole then vs. than mess that plagues younger people these days.

So. I really don't like this book. :-/ I read several chapters last night and was really put off by the writing and the characters.. it feels very gimmicky. I guess that's the point ("Steampunk"/"Zombies") but maybe I don't sufficiently care about the gimmick to actually read it?

Emilie wrote: "So. I really don't like this book. :-/ I read several chapters last night and was really put off by the writing and the characters.. it feels very gimmicky. I guess that's the point ("Steampunk"/"Z..."

I'm so glad that I'm not the only one who felt this way. I don't think that I have any motivation to finish this book. I am deeply disappointed. (And I love science fiction . . . at least, the classic stuff. It astonishes me that this was nominated for a Hugo, but my reading list is mostly pre-1980's.) This book is the work of a complete amateur. As I have said before, it will make a bad (but possibly financially successful) movie. I'm beginning to think that the Internet and video games have allowed people to lower their standards for what counts as good literature. Or is there another plausible explanation for the popularity of this book?

The cover, duh!
That hair you want to brush out of her heavy brass goggles, those lips, quivering bravely, the black mascara sweat-smeared, the glazed, insectile upward stare fixated on my swollen...

Oh wait, the competition's a different thread, isn't it? Oops, my bad.

Firstly, fads happen. Boneshaker just happened to be first on the scene with good marketing.

Secondly, not everyone wants great literature. Some people want something simple to devour and this certainly falls into that category.

Thirdly, it was a nominee, not a winner, and with good reason. I'm sure the Hugo and Nebula need to fill out their nominations with the best the field has to offer, but knowing science fiction, there's such a wealth of bad and mediocre titles every year and so few good and especially great ones.

Lastly, given the popularity of fan fiction (some of which, despite my ever-present predisposition against it, is actually good), I can only assume that there are people who value things other than good writing in their book. I have to give Cherie Priest credit for creating an interesting world that could be enjoyable to explore.

Ok, so here is MY predicted ending for Boneshaker! I'm only up to page 100 or so, so this can't be a spoiler, 'cause I don't KNOW what's going to happen, but here's my guess.

First, they get reunited. Duh.
Second, they find the mothballed boneshaker, and she still runs!
Third, old captain slackwhacker (schlongsmacker? donghammer? I can't remember) transports above mentioned land dreadnought to the civil war, where...
Fourth, under the capable command of 15 yr Zeke & mom, they end the war in one irresistible, Hiroshima-esque bloodletting, after which...
Oh yeah, and the Panama canal, too. That's another job for Old Boner. (That's the spunky nickname it earns after the unfortunate amorous incident with the rhino.)
Prez. Abe lets Seattle into the US of A and clears out all the nasty yellow gas.
The End.
--------------------------
Now, I have finished. I won't spoil it, but will say my guesses didn't get it right, above, UNLESS what I thought up is actually the rest of the whole series!

Ben: First on the scene?! How about The Difference Engine? Isn't that book generally credited with creating the genre? You run a risk of offering a badge for originality & I'm not sure...

If it's Zeppelins, you want try Mainspring or indeed Burroughs' Pellucidar. Drilling engines? Lemme think have I ever heard of an idea where they come up with a digging machine in a SciFi book? Shoot you could drill to the center of the earth or something! Now that'd be cool. Or if you prefer a coming of age story where "mom rides to the rescue with a little help from her handsome but rough around the edges new boyfriend" there's always Aristocats!

No, there's no invention here; the genius is in the juxtaposition.

Adding zombies though, that's a master stroke, unprecedented. DFW only wishes he'd thought of that for Infinite Jest.

OK, I've been mean. To be serious, the genius IS in the compilation of the different elements, and the writing that somehow exudes a miasma of coal dust. I think she earns that, and matches it with a steampunk outfit. Cherie is "all in." If other snooty authors want they can concern themselves with word choice, character development, hard(er) science, or theme. The purpose of THIS book might be to address a younger more naive audience. It's all plot & scenery & that might suit middle school kids.

Whew, I can't shut up: one MORE thing, is that there is great literature for kids too, so we needn't stoop like this. Silverwing, City of Ember, Tarzan... well we've all got our own lists. Ok, so the world didn't need BS, but maybe it'll get juvenile goths to read.

If you feel this is too long, read only the bolded sections to skip to the point.

The other night at the Delicatessen movie night, several of us argued the origin of steampunk (as well as the difference between dirigibles, zeppelins and blimps). When we finally looked up steampunk on Wikipedia, a few notes came to light, but they didn't change my opinion.

Steampunk themes have been around since the Victorian era, established in works like Jules Verne's Paris in the Twentieth Century: Jules Verne, The Lost Novel and The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. The term itself, however, was an off-shoot of William Gibson's cyberpunk, and therefore lacks any real connection to punk without playing a game of six degrees of terminological separation. It was supposedly coined in 1987 by K.W. Jeter to describe both his and other works of the time, and the exact same inspiratorial works you mention such as Verne (especially the 1954 Disney film version) and Edgar Rice Burroughs. That being said, Wikipedia does cite The Difference Engine by Gibson and Bruce Sterling as the first self-consciously steampunk novel.

The reason why none of this holds any sway to me is similar to why cyberpunk style novels that predate Gibson and the seminal Neuromancer can't possibly be cyberpunk. Firstly, the genre has to consciously exist. While steampunk has existed in some sense since the late 80s and early 90s, it wasn't until it gained popularity in the last few years that steampunk really began to define itself (caveat: this is in my eyes; Matt disagreed with that statement and with my definition of steampunk when we were explaining it to my friends Tres and Cassie). Even moreso, the rise of Firefly and similar works exploring a combination of space, westerns, and the steampunk aesthetic have changed the movement significantly from its origins. Unlike cyberpunk, which ceded its niche genre to the broader technological thriller and general rise of technology in mainstream fiction, steampunk seems to have narrowed its scope from Victorian speculative fiction to a very specific aesthetic that trumps theme, background, and origin.

While steampunk in fiction certainly has existed in that broader sense, I feel that Boneshaker exemplifies the aesthetic movement as it's going on today, much in the same way that Shaun of the Dead, while paying homage to the classic zombie films of George Romeo, really typified the new popular zombie movement and helped demarcate it as its own postmodern iteration, at once inextricably tied to and yet independent of its predecessors.

I guess ultimately, what I'm arguing, is that genres can be reinvented in such a way that they have to be considered separate from that same genre prior. Boneshaker, while an unfortunate example of derivative work, also typifies the strange disconnected new steampunk in a way that so-called "classic" steampunk can't possibly.

There will always be literary hipsters who were reading that genre before it was big, but the arrival of a genre in the public eye is a line of demarcation that must be acknowledged and analyzed. Public consumption will, perhaps more than the observer effect argues for science, change the production, understanding and definition of a cultural product. Steampunk, to me, has crossed this precipice, and Boneshaker may be the first sad flag planting in an already visited moon.

Yikes! I'm with Matt. I say (and I mean this in the most friendly way possible) F you Ben! You don't get to define "genre" and if Boneshaker defines steampunk because some tart on the jacket cover wore a bowler and a vest, then Johnny Mnemonic gets to define cyberpunk since he was the first actor to lose the gift of speech 'cause he put a chip in his head. Oh wait, almost forgot that's 'cause he Actually can't talk. You've seriously got to give it to Neuromancer, don't you? Anyway nevermind the point is that she went out of her way to target the genere, to hit the bullseye. Arguably that's all she did. It had to Be There for her to aim at it! Supremacy by reason of popularity? That's ass; you can't allow this redefinition to exclude legit precursors unless you're gonna define Mexican food by the chalupa, and exclude albondigas! No, I say instead you need a new genre: Steamjunk!

Clearly, it is time for the meeting; discussion is fomenting like my lamentable Last Ditch Lager (RIP).

And last, Whoa, Ben called me a hipster! :)

-mark
p.s. I was trying to write the way Ben talks, there. (Ben your careful erudite arguments fool no one. I know you're at home pounding a red bull and foaming at the mouth as you typed that.) ...and I love it. No offense meant, k?

Mark wrote: "Yikes! I'm with Matt. I say (and I mean this in the most friendly way possible) F you Ben! You don't get to define "genre" and if Boneshaker defines steampunk because some tart on the jacket cover..."
Boneshaker's got to be the "Casa Bonita" of steampunk! For those of you who have been there (and I know Mark has), you will know what I mean!

Ultima Ratio Regum.
Thermonuclear.
So's your face!

Some arguments brook no further escalation, and for mexican food, most assuredly, it is La Casa Bonita.

graphic depiction of my regal volley

Wait, Ben, did you say that steampunk henceforth must include zombies?

...'cause I'm working on my paragraph for book club & I don't want to be off topic!

Umm, no. I don't mandate stupid ideas.