[UA] Re: Pants Meme

[Bryant Durrell]

On Wed, Jul 18, 2001 at 02:23:46PM -0700, Royal Minister of Stuff wrote:
> Perhaps steampunk has been overused or abused.  I
> really ran into very little of it over the past 10
> years.  It seems like I was the main perpetrator of
> it, anyway.  You have to keep in mind that I don't get
> involved with MU-whatevers all that often and that I
> actually enjoy wading into Wilkie Collins or Jules
> Verne every now and then.
> 
> I suspect that God-awful shows like "The New
> Adventures of Jules Verne" have contributed to a fear
> of steampunk.  I know Greg Stolze hates it, or, at
> least, a particular interpretation of it.
> 
> Actually, I would be curious as to what, exactly,
> people dislike about steampunk BESIDES it being silly.
>  I've had the same people who like Star Wars tell me
> steampunk is goofy and I don't really think that's fair.

Hm.  I think steampunk is an easy genre to do goofily; people get all
overcome by mad scientists and forget the grimy bits.  As you say:
things like The New Adventures of Jules Verne.

Also there was a certain over the top enthusiasm in the works of Blaylock
and Powers which was very easy to emulate... poorly.

So yes, abused is a good word.  Take three chapters of Perdidio Street
Station and call me in the morning.

-- 
  Bryant Durrell [] durrell at innocence.com [] http://www.innocence.com/~durrell
 [----------------------------------------------------------------------------]
              "Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
              About the center of the silent Word."  -- T.S. Eliot

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