Everybody wants to talk about the technology of steampunk but never what fuel is needed to run it. It's coal btw. Might as well call that shit coal-fantasy.
many people are replying to this post and stepping into the rake. You are missing the point if you are only focusing on how the technology works. I think you should think about how the facets of coal extraction and pollution are not explored in this branch of sci-fi and ask why. It doesn't matter if the coal-analogue is something else. If it's fuel, then how is it collected and delivered? Who is involved in that process? How is it organized?
I want to write a story about corsaits and blimps and adventurers in top hats that doesn't concern itself with colonialism at all, you're fucking mental if you think I'll spare a thought for logistics
not logistics per se, more the impacts of massive coal-burning steam engine, the pollution it causes, and the history of how it killed the miners. You want to write a fun blimp adventure then hey, fly at'er. But my critique stands as how steampunk as a narrative body and aesthetic isn't engaging with all of it's source material by imagining a clean industrial revolution.
Sorry but this is deranged. Like it's fine if you want to write something like you're describing. I think it would be interesting. But to insist that the entire genre should be like that is just... that's not what steampunk is about. That's not why people are writing it, and it's not why people are reading it.
You wanna deconstruct steampunk then do it. But to argue that all examples of steampunk should be a deconstruction of steampunk makes no sense.
I don't think my chosts constitute a call to action that could actually result in established authors actually changing how they engage with the genre, but nowhere am I saying that all steampunk should shift into a critique or deconstruction of steampunk. At best what I am arguing is that there should be some more deconstruction. What I am trying to say is that I'm surprised that steampunk as a genre seems so averse to exploring this part of it!
I acknowledge that steampunk isn't about this and that people working in the genre aren't interested in it. That's why I wrote a chost that acknowledged that there was a gap. That point is fundamental to my first post.
