Author: Kaleb

A blue backgrounded image of a book cover featuring a rich blue flag with a golden mythical creature on the flag, with the illustration of a sail slightly below it and the words "The Price of Redemption by Shawn Carpenter" along the bottom.

Book Review: The Price of Redemption by Shawn Carpenter

Posted on by Kaleb

If you liked Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series but wanted more magic, this is the book for you. That pretty much sums up the entire review, honestly, although this is very much a work of nautical fiction. While the details and jargon are not as complex as Patrick O’Brian’s work, there’s still to get lost in. Fortunately, there was a glossary at the end of the book, and the other characters are usually helpful enough to work out what’s happening, as the main protagonist, the Marquese Enid d’Tancrevilleis, is neither a sailor nor a captain. In this way, she is very much along the lines of Dr. Stephen Maturin in the Aubrey/Maturin books. It makes her the perfect complement for the secondary protagonist, Commander Rue Nath. They very much share that same dynamic, although Nath seems to be more straightforwardly heroic, and more self-aware, than Captain Jack Aubrey ever seemed to be in the first few books.

Enid d’Tancrevilleis is a magister- a sorceress or magician. The magic was quite interesting, as it felt very much like a combination of post-Renaissance alchemy and magic, which is a style I haven’t seen very often. Fortunately, other than the magic, most of the rest of the setting was instantly recognizable. As she is very out of place aboard a warship, being an aristocrat and intellectual, her perspective eases the reading into the world, and the naval aspects.

The protagonist is clearly a noblewoman fleeing this world’s version of the French Revolution, the nation of Albion is Britain, Gisbon is a combination of Lisbon and Gibraltar, and the naval functions (outside of ship’s magister) are identical to the British Royal Navy at the time. While I would have liked some more original worldbuilding, I think the overall familiarity of the setting serves as an easier bridge for readers who are less versed in the era’s history or nautical literature. This becomes particularly notable in the finale of the book, which is very clearly modeled directly after a real-life historical event (which I won’t spoil).

But I’d say the hallmark of the book is the dynamic between Enid and Nath. They have very different perspectives, while also both having very strong personalities. Enid is no Maturin, of course, not a spy, nor a romantic rebel, nor anything like that. She is, however, an aristocrat and a very powerful magister, while Nath is less well-born, but his captaincy gives him ultimate authority, and he’s a natural leader of others. That gives him a charisma and presence that Enid, with all of her magical power, does not have. She, however, knows nothing of the Navy and very little of Albion, which gives her a very unique perspective that Nath appreciates. There’s a bit of a will they/won’t they dynamic as there’s hints of burgeoning attraction between them, but it is very much a slow burn.

Overall, I’d certainly recommend it! I enjoyed every bit of it and appreciated the fantasy spin on a familiar genre. You can buy it here (affiliate link to Bookshop.org, as I try very hard to never support Amazon) or ask your local library if they can get one for you somehow.

A book cover with the words "Worship the Image" along the top center, while the author's name Woodrow Bell is in the center of the bottom. The image features a man's silhouette in a rain drenched, red and blue neon lit cityscape.

Worship the Image: Woodrow Bell’s New Cyberpunk Novel

Posted on by Kaleb

(I received an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for honest feedback)

I freely admit that I am not usually a cyberpunk fan. In the past, it all felt dated to me, as if the authors were so enamored with the ’80s and ’90s style that they never updated it. Worship the Image did not have this problem. I was hesitant to try to write a review for this cyberpunk novel. This one, instead, felt incredibly relevant, with technology that could appear within the next several decades.

Why this book? Why not the classics? As mentioned, I’m not usually a fan of the old cyberpunk. Or the old urban fantasy, if we’re being honest. They’re two sides of the same coin for me, which I can discuss later, trying so hard to be so contemporary that they become quaint. After writing the two posts on dieselpunk, I thought I should catch up on where we are now.

Browsing on Netgalley, I found this cover, and was instantly grabbed by it. The combination of trench coat and fedora, such an iconic noir look, contrasted with a neon-noir cityscape, was a hugely powerful image. The contrast between the two sucked me right in. So, well done to the cover designer.

It’s the perfect blend between a near-future sci-fi dystopia and the classic film noir mystery. Initially, it doesn’t seem like sci-fi, other than the implants and constant digital overlays. Things initially seem like a classic hard-boiled murder case— wealthy socialite dead in an apartment, a private investigator helping the cops off the record, organized crime, and addiction. But in this book, the world is created and overlaid by digital images. Augmented reality holograms, essentially, hide the decay of the world. One of the buildings is even described as having digital overlays that resemble the interior of a building from the 1920s old money communities, just to drive home the social parallels. As the story progresses, however, the old-timey facade is peeled away to reveal the technology and corruption that it props up.

Elijah Kincaide is an excellent character, both for a noir mystery and for a cyberpunk story. He used to be a cop, who was horrified by the things he’d seen and done, became an alcoholic, and barely made ends meet as a private investigator who helps the police when they need a scapegoat or can’t do something officially. The story is really defined by his relationships with Dominic, the ex-cop turned politician, and Marla, the resistance fighter whose fallen older sister was Elijah’s partner on the force. As Elijah’s life and case orbit tighter and tighter around these two, he finds himself torn between them and the visions they offer for the city’s future. One is stability, familiarity, and someone he trusts. The other is violence, anger, destruction, revenge, and someone who hates him.

In case you haven’t guessed yet, I really liked this book. The plot surprised me several times, and the characters were all believably complex. The characters acted in ways that made sense for who they were and what they understood about themselves and their world. Having seen a lot of discourse on the difference between acting out-of-character, making bad decisions, and making decisions that readers would not, that’s something many people don’t understand.

The characters are not only consistent and believable, but they also feel like real people. I particularly appreciated their emotional expression. Elijah was no stoic, emotionally frozen protagonist. The best part of the story is his emotional growth and realization. The narrative explores his emotional state and its impact on his decisions, showing how it changes in stages. There’s one scene where he expresses his feelings in what could be called “therapy speak,” but that was it. And in this case, it wasn’t as bad as many others, as it expressed his emotional eureka moment. Thea is also very emotional and emotionally expressive. While she initially comes across as a standard badass strong female character, it quickly becomes apparent that it’s a facade she puts on.

I’d also like to highlight the writing style. It’s very descriptive and easy to read. It adds what I would call a vibrant, lucid style to the narrator’s voice. It ties into the plot and character arcs. Things are never what they appear in this novel, often quite literally, as things could easily be nothing but a hologram. The characters’ facades and elusive writing style contribute to this feeling that reality is slippery. The characters struggle to understand what is real and what’s illusory. At the end, it was very moving and made me cry. I finished it with a major book hangover, and that has not happened for a while.

If you like noir, mystery, or cyberpunk, this is a great book. For sci-fi fans, I’d also recommend it. Just in general, I recommend this for everyone.

Five stars out of five.

Worship the Image releases May 1st and can be purchased here. (Not an affiliate link)

Dieselpunk, part 2: Are ya feeling punky, punk?

Posted on by Kaleb

In the last post, I discussed what makes something a genre or not, relying on the fuzzy set theory of fantasy and applying it to the three main punk genres- cyberpunk, steampunk, and dieselpunk. Today, we’re looking at the two main thematic concepts I see across all of these genres- technology and society, and the relationship between them and the protagonist.

Cyberpunk

We can begin with cyberpunk, since that was the first of the three genres to be firmly identified. In this case, the technology is primarily cyber. It focuses on the technology of computers and the internet (or its equivalent) and has a somewhat more dystopian vision. Not necessarily of technology itself, but certainly about the impact of technology on society.

Society in Cyberpunk & Society in Real Life

Much of this derives from its original historical context- the 70s and 80s. Starting in the 70s, we see the end of the post-war economic boom, the start of personal computers, the end of the Vietnam War, the start of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, the Iranian revolution, broader awareness and pressure for feminism, civil rights, and decolonization. Meanwhile, the tiger economies in Asia disrupted the traditional concept of Western economic dominance.

As has become abundantly clear, technology and society are closely intertwined, and I’m not entirely sure they can be separated, or if they are, they are the twin strands in double-helix DNA. This became particularly notable in cyberpunk, where we have the glimmers of what will become cyberspace, the internet, hacking, advanced personal digital devices, and so much that we take for granted. Neuromancer is the archetype of course, featuring an ex-hacker-turned-contract-killer having to complete a heist in exchange for a cure to his injuries that keep him sidelined in the game between corporations, governments, and those in power. Technology and society have become the same, and both exist to extract value from the people beneath them.

Hence, cyber punks. We touched briefly on the etymology of punk in the last post, but we can revisit it here. Prior to the development of the punk music genre, a punk was a social undesirable— an outcast, misfit, criminal (especially juvenile or petty criminals), or men on the receiving end of homosexual acts (willing or not). Cyber, of course, refers to computers and the technology around them. The Shockwave Rider is a great example of the intersection between technology and society. The protagonist is a fugitive from an authoritarian dictatorship that uses his computer hacking skills to hack into public telephones (after all, this was published in 1975) and create a new identity, in a society run by technological oligarchs who use information control for their advantage, financial and political, after destroying the country through laissez-faire economics. Ahem.

Brief Case Studies

Blade Runner is the one cyberpunk example that most people think of, given its huge success. This one twists the archetypes somewhat, as Deckard begins as an enforcer of the status quo. He is the titular blade runner, a bounty hunter who tracks down synthetic, bioengineered replicants to ensure they remain on space colonies. Throughout the movie, we see numerous examples of corruption and double-dealing. Not only a cyberpunk cornerstone, but it also has significant influences from film noir.

Switching mediums, we have the classic tabletop roleplaying game Shadowrun (and its many, many d6s). This one takes fantasy tropes- like Elves, Orcs, Dwarves, Humans, etc— and transfers them into a future setting where technology and magic co-exist. Its setting is more complex, but take everything we’ve discussed in cyberpunk, add magic, shapeshifting dragon CEOs, and orc mercenaries. It keeps many of the same tropes and archetypes of the previous examples. Otherwise, the setup is much the same. Super-rich corporations rule the world, and they hire criminals to do their dirty deeds as a form of corporate espionage.

These all have some pretty strong thematic threads tying them together. The story focuses on criminals, renegades, social dissidents, and others who don’t fit into mainstream society or abide by its rules. Again, the essence of punk. Most of these rules are not created by constitutional or democratic methods, but through wealth. Corporations, when they aren’t openly ruling, make their own laws and use the government to enforce those laws to protect their profits. The true villain of cyberpunk is capitalism. And in this world, technology is a two-edged sword. It is used as a tool of oppression and corruption, enforcing the will of the rich on the rest of us.

Punk is fundamentally political. Cyberpunk is fundamentally political. Steampunk and dieselpunk are going to be fundamentally political because politics is about how people interact with and interpret the world. So yes, art and literature are inherently, fundamentally, and inescapably political. The *punk genres are no exception, despite the wishes of many of their adherents. (Check out this article from Never Was and then read the comments.) Unfortunately, when we deal with any part of retrofuturism, there will be those who romanticize the past, whether they’re teens thinking they were born in the wrong generation because they prefer older music or trad wives with multi-thousand-dollar stoves pretending to be a pioneer.

If you don’t believe me about steampunk, refer to one of the originals- Jules Verne. Its submersible captain/antihero, Captain Nemo, is the son of an Indian prince whose family was murdered by the British during one of the fights for independence in the 19th century. Nemo then takes that intellect, what remains of his fortune, and uses his burning desire for vengeance to forge them into the famed submarine Nemo to enact his revenge against a colonial and imperialist system. Tell me how that can be apolitical. Cyberpunk’s social commentary has been explored in the previous examples: anticapitalist, anticorporation, antimonopoly, anti-imperialist, and anti-fascist. What about steampunk and dieselpunk?

Steampunk

Steampunk is messy, as you may have guessed by Dr. Christopher’s article. Here’s another article from 2011, by Margaret Killjoy, talking about the radical political origin of steampunk, citing H.G. Wells, socialist and anarchist. Here’s another, including social media comments and commentary, including a comment that proves so many points. Here’s one, once again from Never Was, saying steampunk isn’t political at all, and we return to Nick Ottens with another one, more recent, and one on how he changed his perspective on “Victorientalism.” All that to say, it’s complicated, and the steampunk community has been arguing over this for more than two decades.

Some Case Study Attempts

It’s difficult to identify common themes in the 70s/80s steampunk novels. Tim Powers’ The Anubis Gates, for example, starts with Egyptian magicians attempting to use time travel to bring the Egyptian gods into the present to destroy the British Empire, but that isn’t the main story. James Blaylock’s Homunculus is a bit more of a comedic science fiction in the Victorian era, playing with space aliens, necromantic science/magic, and some rather madcap shenanigans. Jeter’s own Infernal Devices maintains comic, or perhaps absurdist, elements, including a clockwork double, mistaken kidnapping, people who invented a machine to see the future and learn 20th-century slang, plus various secret societies within London.

If we look at the pre-Jeter, proto-steampunk work of Michael Moorcock, The Warlord of the Air, we see something else entirely. That is about a man sent forward through time (again by magic) into an alternate future where World War 1 never happens and never leads to the dissolution of the colonial empires/ As a result, the protagonist ends up supporting anarchists against his own country. Moorcock picks up this thread of alternate futures in The Land Leviathan, which features a devastated and barbaric Europe and North America receiving the same treatment they gave Africa and Asia in our world. In The Steel Tsar, the story continues in a third alternate future where the Confederate States of America won the Civil War and Russian history worked out differently. In this case, it leads to an atom bomb being dropped on this universe’s version of Stalin, destroying his theocratic army.

Then, more recently, there’s the 2012 Mammoth Book of Steampunk, edited by Sean Wallace, which, according to the Amazon description, “is steampunk with a modern, post-colonial sensibility.” Several reviews referenced in a few other places described the book as being very “politically correct.” I haven’t read this one, as I was not overly impressed with the Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk (couldn’t finish it, sadly). The invention of the term silkpunk and Afropunk suggests there is a significant movement within steampunk to expand beyond its British imperial obsession.

I suspect part of the complexity is the nature of steampunk’s connection to the Victorian era. American society (and Anglophonic society in general) is still heavily influenced by the Victorians. And, while I can’t say this definitively, I think much of modern steampunk, at least mainstream steampunk, is very emblematic of the neoliberalism and imperialism of post-9/11 America. It tapped into the zeitgeist at the time that celebrated the possibilities of technology. That technology was the internet and the developing world of social media, which were going to revolutionize the world and bring about a new golden age of democracy, prosperity, and international goodwill.

Yeah, I can’t read that without hearing the irony either. I suspect that’s why steampunk began to fade toward the beginning of the 2010s. The optimistic and idealized view of technology no longer seemed to mesh with our lived experience, in which social media became a tool for government surveillance and the internet turned a shocking amount of people into far right fanatics who consider themselves sane and normal centrists and “classical liberals” (how’s that for an Overton window shift?).

Maybe, in time, steampunk will rediscover its identity and have a resurgence. I could see that being the case with what Radio Retrofuture is doing with their videos, tabletop RPG, and fiction. I think the perspective of their definition, that steampunk is cyberpunk in the Victorian era, will help them out, as it can tap into a different set of themes and tropes that feel more applicable.

Dieselpunk

This is where things get even more ambiguous. Dieselpunk has no fuzzy set or identifiable genre-defining works. I can’t go back and look at proto-dieselpunk or the pre-term examples and see what trends connected them. In this case, we’re even more heavily influenced by the interwar (and immediate post-war) era and generation than we are by the Victorians. Many people from this era are alive and remember it as part of their childhoods. Add in the disagreement over what makes something dieselpunk— is it Mad Max or The Man in the High Castle?

Based on the other two genres, we can start looking at the two elements discussed so far: technology and society. I suspect that the diesel– part will be significantly more difficult to untangle in the future, but the popularity of Iron Harvest and Scythe may be starting to settle that debate.

Technology in Dieselpunk

Let’s start again with technology. Now, I’m operating under the definition that dieselpunk is based on the technology or aesthetics of the Interwar years. I expand it roughly to 1906, with the commissioning of the HMS Dreadnought, but that’s because I’m a maritime geek, and yes, I know she used steam-powered turbines. I end the dieselpunk era at roughly 1947 with the invention of the transistor, laying the groundwork for what becomes the proto-computer age.

Media at the time was broad and very diverse, although much of the science fiction and fantasy stories were published in pulp magazines. That explains Indiana Jones being called dieselpunk, as he was a direct homage to the pulps of the past. That is also true for the Rocketeer and Sky-Captain. Ghosts of Manhattan has a much stronger noir influence, but there is still some pulp influence.

Pulp science fiction led directly into the more “sophisticated” science fiction of the 50s, which, in turn, led to the rebellious sci-fi of cyberpunk. That means there’s not as much of a divergent break between reality and science fiction as in steampunk. Retrofuturism is probably the best term to describe that divergence. Steampunk imagines a future technological system based on how people in the past imagined the future would be. Looking at pulp and other early sci-fi, we see a strong line of continuity between what they imagined and how the world ended up.

What we see is the end of the technological optimism of the Victorians. The First World War traumatized the world, and the Spanish Flu added to that by showing that humanity was not the master of the natural world. There’s more ambivalence toward technology, except perhaps the new technology of heavier-than-air flight. That still held a great deal of romance and optimism, which turns up quite a bit in dieselpunk (Crimson Skies, Sky-Captain and the World of Tomorrow, The Rocketeer). Flight was a means of escape, of a new future in the clouds, of a life far from the trenches of the mundane.

Having read many of the original pulps, technology is both a weapon of oppression and a means of defense. The reliance on technology and gadgets (as in the original Tom Swift books) is less important in pulp than the hero’s human capabilities. Doc Savage uses super-science, but many of his mysteries are solved through his intellect, strength, and willpower. The Shadow uses no technology except a red ruby ring and a .45 Auto.

There are, of course, a great many supervillains with doomsday devices. That suggests a significantly greater awareness of the danger of technology, especially industrial technology. Weapons of war and mass destruction are the most commonly thought of vehicles across all dieselpunk media. The elegant zeppelins of steampunk end up replaced by skyfaring, ironclad battleships.

Dieselpunk & Society

If anything, the weightiest thematic element of dieselpunk is war. The ghosts of the world wars haunt the shadows in dieselpunk, lingering in the background, hinting at more catastrophes on the horizon. Which, again, is very appropriately derived from its era of inspiration.

Global war followed by global pandemic followed by global economic collapse, with people trying to survive and then trying to live with what they did. The rich lived gilded lives above the dirt and misery of the working poor (The Great Gatsby), while radicals on both sides of the aisle grew more and more extreme. An entire generation had been hardened to violence and taught to kill in an industrialized, organized manner. We get the Prohibition level of organized crime as a result. Both Communism and Fascism reached their peak, often in direct response to the other, with the Spanish Civil War being the first hint of what was to come. Decolonization began to take root and cracked the rotted foundations of the old world order, and no amount of technology could fix them.

It makes me wonder if that’s because dieselpunk tech is more industrial and institutional compared to the quirky steampunk tinkerer or the cyberpunk outlaw hacker. In the Interwar period, science was a tool of economic and military power. There were optimistic and beneficial developments in science, especially in medicine. It wasn’t all gloom and doom, although there were horrifying outcomes (lobotomies and eugenics).

That lends credence to the idea that war, and ideological war, drives dieselpunk. And that takes us to the Nazi problem. The Man in the High Castle, Wolfenstein, any video game villain that wears an officer cap and a black leather trench coat– Nazis are very prevalent in dieselpunk. And unfortunately, there is a broader fascination with their aesthetic (and horrifyingly widespread acceptance of their ideas). A brief google search for images reveals a long line of war machines in gray and black as the image results. Swap to Decopunk and the results are Art Deco cityscapes instead. Gas masks and black trench coats are everywhere in dieselpunk media. There’s a perverse fascination with the aesthetic of fascism.

The Future of Dieselpunk

Where does that leave us? Can dieselpunk ever become a genre? What would a dieselpunk genre look like? Using my definition (science-fiction inspired by or extrapolated from the aesthetics and technology in use between 1906 and 1947), we may establish ourselves as a genre. It’ll be difficult and will take a great deal of luck to have a widespread break into the mainstream.

For that, I think we need to evolve dieselpunk beyond its current confines. Time to leave the Nazis in the past and look elsewhere. I wouldn’t even lean toward adapting RadioRetrofuture’s definition of steampunk as cyberpunk in a different era. The social context has evolved from the 70s. The media landscape has evolved since then as well. Rehashing the same tropes from the past will condemn us to irrelevance.

To accomplish that, we need to look beyond Nazis, war mechs, and gas masks. I see the dieselpunk timeframe as spanning 40 years. The Nazis and World War II made up less than half of that time. Let’s look elsewhere for inspiration and ideas. Let’s look at new types of stories. What are new connections and combinations that we can experiment with? I’ll talk more about my dieselpunk project in a couple of weeks, so I’ll dive more into that then. We also should lean into the punk elements. The punk elements made the early cyberpunk works stand out from the crowd. Right now, dieselpunk leans more toward “the 30s with fancy technology” and neglects the punk elements. Where is the rebelliousness? The anti-fascism? The anger at a corrupt society? What would a world where the technology went a different direction look like? So much of dieselpunk is focused on big cities- what happens outside those cities? What happens in the rest of the world or worlds? What would subcreation, to use Tolkien’s term, look like in a dieselpunk secondary world? Or dieselpunk mythopoesis?

We had the short-lived swing revival, but that’s hardly punk. Paul Shapera is a great example of what I’m talking about. He’s told an overarching story that goes from steampunk to dieselpunk to atompunk through very innovative opera. It’s so good and so unique and so punk. That’s a direction I think dieselpunk needs to move toward– innovation, unique styles, and innovative new forms.

That’s something that will take many of us working as part of a community, perhaps like the Dieselpunk Creators of the World. Collaboration and community discussion, like the Inklings, will be critical if we want to establish ourselves as a genre. Do you have ideas on how to do that? Toss your ideas in the comments!

A black and white photo of a biplane with a woman jumping from it, with white text beneath it reading "Dieselpunk, Part 1: What's in a genre, anyway?"

Dieselpunk, Part 1: What’s in a genre, anyway?

Posted on by Kaleb

This post has been stewing in my mind for quite some time, especially after seeing a few different Tumblr posts and some YouTube videos that try to tackle the distinction between the ever-growing array of genres labelled as somethingpunk— most frequently, steampunk and dieselpunk. I, of course, write dieselpunk, so that is a conversation that I always try and pay attention to, especially after solarpunk swept the creative areas of the internet over the last few years before fading out. I’ve written this post three times and have had radically different outcomes, so don’t consider this my final word.

Now, the posts in question that inspired are these tumblr posts (especially the third) and this video, which while I mostly agree with some of the things he says, I disagree vehemently with the main point. While there’s some good ideas here, I think we do both the genres and ourselves a disservice by letting aesthetic be the determiner of what’s a genre or not. I’ll go into more detail on why I disagree in a later post.

As a result, this is the first of what I predict will be a three-part post discussing the *punk genres. This one focuses on the meaning of genre to try and establish a foundation for the rest of what we’ll be discussing. The problem is that genre is an everchanging, fluid concept with an entire field of academic study (aptly called genre studies). Formally, what we often learn in high school is that genre is a form of literature—poetry, prose, and drama. Drama is material written to be performed (Shakespeare, screenplays, etc), poetry is written in metrical language (using poetic meter and other poetic techniques), while prose is everything not written in metrical language. However, I don’t think I have ever seen this concept of genre being used outside of high school classes and MFA applications. Sometimes genre is broken down into fiction, nonfiction, drama, and poetry. That’s a little more practical for the modern world than the traditional, but that still isn’t useful in this context.

Attebery’s Fuzzy Set

Ultimately, there’s really no solid definition that include all possibilities. Fortunately, scholar and professor Brian Attebery has already addressed that for us in his fuzzy set theory described in his 1992 book Strategies of Fantasy.

He borrows this concept of a fuzzy set from the field of mathematics. At its most basic, a fuzzy set is a set in which set members have varying degrees of membership. This contrasts with the traditional idea of a set where members are either in the set or not. Think of it as the difference between a professional basketball team, where team members have contractual stipulations and the roster is closely known, and the neighborhood pick-up league, where people drift in and out.

In Attebery’s theory, there is a center to this fuzzy set and everything is either more similar or less similar to that center, which helps identify how clearly something is or is not fantast. For him, the center of the fuzzy set is The Lord of the Rings. The more closely that any work resembles that work, the more strongly it can be described as fantasy. Of course, one of the main weaknesses here is that Tolkien’s work is not going to be the fuzzy set center for everyone at all time across the world. So it might be better to consider fantasy as a superset of fuzzy sets, with various centers that overlap with each other. One metaphor that might be helpful is the idea of a solar system. There are objects with greater and lesser gravitational pulls. Lord of the Rings might be the sun in this case, but as we get further away from there, other gravitational centers become more prevalent.

I’m thinking of The Dresden Files and urban fantasy in particular. While there are wizards, wands, and magic in these works, they don’t exactly seem very similar to Lord of the Rings, yet they are absolutely fantasy. In this case, I would argue that The Dresden Files are a more influential fuzzy set center for urban fantasy than Lord of the Rings, meaning that urban fantasy is sort of its own subset, with its own center, and own vague borders.

Rather like Faerie, the fuzzy set idea of genre has ambiguous and amorphous borders. This becomes increasingly clear when we shift our attention to the various –punk genres, especially dieselpunk. To start with, we have to look at cyberpunk, both the term and the content, as they did not develop simultaneously. Broadly speaking, cyberpunk began to develop in the 70s as various works of science-fiction were published. The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner is considered by many to be the first cyberpunk novel, although it was published in 1975 and the word cyberpunk wouldn’t be coined until 1983, while the movie Blade Runner, the image of cyberpunk in the mainstream public consciousness, was released in 1982. The word “cyberpunk” was coined in 1983 by Bruce Bethke as the title for one of his short stories. Then, most importantly, Neuromancer was published in 1984, won numerous prizes, and established itself as one of the most influential works of the century, in much the same way that Lord of the Rings had done three decades earlier for fantasy.

Likewise, Neuromancer became the center of cyberpunk’s fuzzy set. Other works were inspired and influenced by it, older works became associated with it, and the cyberpunk genre spun off from there like how a proto-solar system spits out asteroid chunks in planet formation. Critically, cyberpunk was heavily influenced by its cultural milieu, namely the 1980s. I’ll touch more on that later, but I want to specifically point that out as we begin looking at two other *punk genres— steampunk and dieselpunk. Steampunk, is well-established enough to be considered a genre, but as Radio Retrofuture and Alpaca-Clouds claim, dieselpunk likely does not.

And that, I’d argue, is because it lacks a fuzzy set center.

Examining Fuzzy Set Centers

Steampunk does, albeit one less recognizably mainstream than cyberpunk, or perhaps one less tightly defined. Interestingly, steampunk comes from several influences, and its early works were published simultaneously with, or even before, the main works of cyberpunk. Partially, this is because there was precedent for the types of stories that steampunk would come to tell in the scientific romances of the Victorian period and before. H.G. Wells, Mary Shelley, and Jules Verne were some prime examples. Then, over the preceding decades, writers continued to imagine alternate histories or technological advancements that might have arisen during the 19th century and writing science fiction based on that. Like cyberpunk, we can be relatively confident as the origin of the term “steampunk”, although it was originally “steam-punks,” as suggested somewhat humorously by author K.W. Jeter regarding his novel Morlock Night in a 1979 letter, although he described what he and his colleagues were writing as Victorian fantasies. Over time, as the aesthetic and themes coalesced, the fuzzy set essentially became the authors K.W. Jeter (Morlock Night and especially Infernal Devices), Tim Powers (The Anubis Gates), and James P. Blaylock (Lord Kelvin’s Machine). These established the tropes and themes of the Victorian setting, imaginary technology using steam engines, and the close relationship between steampunk and the British Empire. Then, in the 1990s, Paul Di Filippo published his Steampunk Trilogy, which appears to the be the first time the term appeared as part of a title, meaning there was a nearly two decade gap between the invention of the term and its identifiable use as a genre label.

As far as our fuzzy steampunk set (as opposed to fuzzy steampunk slippers) goes, ask a random person off the street and they will likely have a slight familiarity with the term. While the high point of steampunk seems to have ended, it was trendy enough for a while to get widespread and mainstream attention. The question, of course, is how do we differentiate between science-fiction from that historical era, the “Victorian fantasies” that Jeter wrote about, and Steampunk? There are a variety of ways we can catalog them- era, style, media, etc. But for this, we’re focusing on the *punk of steampunk.

What is Punk?

For that, we must turn our attention to idea of punk itself. The word goes back centuries (with Wiktionary having seen it attested all the way back to 1678), but really takes on new meaning to refer to people that society dislikes in the 20th century, primarily related to petty criminals, gay men, or weak who are sexually used by other men, especially in prison (again, see the Wiktionary entries). Then, in the 70s, we start to get punk rock and the punk subculture, itself derived and influenced by older ideas and artists (including Charles Dickens, appropriately enough for steampunk). Punk is itself very difficult to define (remember the famous anecdote of Billie Joe Armstrong being asked ‘what is punk’ and he answered by kicking over a trash can, followed by the interviewer kicking a trash can over themselves, only to be told that wasn’t punk, that was trendy?). Speaking very broadly again, punk generally tends to be about individualism, anti-fascism, personal expression, rejection of social norms, rejection of capitalism, an embrace of DIY ethos, aggressiveness, and in general, being different.

So when it comes to cyberpunk, steampunk, and dieselpunk, we can take that lens. For cyberpunk, it’s pretty easy to spot, as many of the protagonists are hackers or other social outcasts fighting against a corrupt, capitalistic system. Blade Runner, Shadowrun, even Cyberpunk 2077 all feature protagonists who are outcasts or fight a corrupt system in some way or another. Pretty easy to see how Charles Dickens can be an influence on punk and steampunk in that case, especially in his portrayal of street urchins and other members of the urban poor. His works are underscored by a strong argument for social reform and social improvements, which makes him a punk, albeit a gentlemanly one. Captain Nemo is an excellent example, although he is more of anti-hero/antagonist in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. He is the son of an Indian prince whose family was killed and lands stolen by the British during one of the fights for independence, making Nemo the original steampunk.

So, when looking at a work, thematically, we can use a few different lenses, as Alpaca-Clouds did— punk themes and punk aesthetics. The steampunk community was huge back in the day and still exists, although not nearly as widespread, and they were famous for their DIY and improvisational approach to their costuming, with the brass goggles and clockwork gear becoming the instant identifier. I’ll touch more on the ideas of aesthetics, themes, and tropes at a later date, and focus on the idea of a fuzzy set center.

Is dieselpunk a genre?

Now, to the heart of this series- is dieselpunk a genre? Based on what we’ve discussed here, I’m leaning toward that it is not a genre. Not yet, at least, and I suspect it will always struggle. This is primarily because unlike cyberpunk and steampunk, the name has come before the content. Essentially, we have a fuzzy set with a label, some outlying members, but nothing at the center. No gravitational mass for smaller bodies to orbit, essentially, just scattered asteroids and comets.

We have the idea of dieselpunk, just like we do with solarpunk, atompunk, biopunk, stonepunk, mythpunk, etc. There’s even a decent number of works that are called dieselpunk, and quite a few with the other genres as well. However, there is nothing in any of these that has gained enough public awareness to define the fuzzy set. And since these started with names and then led to people attempting to fill them out, I suspect they won’t for a very long time.

Allegedly, the term ‘dieselpunk’ was coined in the early 2000s to describe a tabletop roleplaying game called Children of the Sun, ostensibly as a specific type of steampunk. I can’t vouch for this being accurate, as I have been unable to track down anything before this, but this story is something I have only seen second or third hand. Since the game is long out of print, I can’t get a copy to examine, but I found a review online from shortly after it was originally released. The review was quite brutal for many reasons, but the review’s author expressed confusion and uncertainty about what the term ‘dieselpunk’ was supposed to mean. The term may have predated the game, but was not widespread enough to have been recognized. Additionally, the author pointed out there was nothing in the game to tie the setting to whatever dieselpunk was supposed to be. Hardly a strong start for establishing a new genre.

Later on, as time went on, the ideas about dieselpunk began to pick up, ahem, steam. Communities began to develop and connect with each other over the internet and two different ideas about dieselpunk developed- Ottensian and Piecraftian. This was also when Mad Max was considered dieselpunk, which I don’t anyone does anymore. I’m not really a fan of the Ottensian/Piecraftian dichotomy, so I won’t use it moving forward, and I don’t think it holds up very well at this point (almost two decades later). At the time, however, there was a huge divide between the various “types” of dieselpunk and just as many names for them- decopunk, dieselpunk, Ottensian/Piecraftian, (some) atompunk, and raypunk. You can see how it would be impossible to find a fuzzy set center when nobody can agree on what the term means or what should be included.

Now, in 2025, dieselpunk essentially means “steampunk but between the world wars.” Radio Retrofuture considers it an aesthetic, not a genre, while he considers steampunk to be “cyberpunk in the Victorian era.” Extending that, dieselpunk would be “cyberpunk in the Interwar years.” I find both of these definitions to be lacking in depth and, more importantly, fail to engage with the cultural contexts they developed in and the historic themes that the genres engage with (or try to ignore). That will be the subject of a later post as well. But for now, let’s define dieselpunk as “a subgenre of science-fiction that deals with imagined developments in technology and society drawn from the technology, society, or appearance of the first half of the 20th century.”

Frequently cited examples include Iron Sky, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Railsea, Leviathan, BioShock, and most famously, The Man in the High Castle. Lesser known examples include Pirate Utopia, Ack-Ack Macaque, A Fistful of Nothing, Radiance, Storming, Ghosts of Manhattan, and Empire State. These draw primarily from the streams of pulp fiction, film noir, surrealism, post-apocalyptic, and alternate history. Other than being set in, or looking like they’re set in, a certain time frame, there’s not that much that ties them together.

Hence, Radio Retrofuture’s assertion that dieselpunk is not a genre, but an aesthetic. They all share a similar look, but lack the thematic and narrative concepts that tie a genre together, even within a fuzzy set.

So, what next for dieselpunk?

I do think dieselpunk can establish itself as a genre, especially given its thematic relevance to the present situation, which I’ll touch on next time. The hard part is going to be filling the center of the fuzzy set and then creating enough buzz to break into the mainstream awareness. That is easier said than done, naturally. Cyberpunk and steampunk were organic developments that had breakout hits at a time when the broader culture was receptive to them for external reasons. Additionally, there was distance between them- cyberpunk was relatively far in the future and steampunk was relatively far in the past, at least beyond living memory. Dieselpunk is not. There remains a relatively decent number of people who remember the Interwar period or World War II. For many more, there’s still a very close familiarity with it, as their close relatives remember it and talked about it. We don’t have that distance that the other two have and while many view the first half of the 20th century nostalgically, it’s not usually for good reasons. Certainly not for punk reasons. This likely makes it more difficult for dieselpunk to get the public groundswell it needs to firmly establish its own identity. So, beyond that, I can’t really say if it will ever establish its own identity as a genre in the way steampunk has.

The best that I think we can do is continue to create and to collaborate. Not just on projects, but on building a collective audience. Not just a passive audience, but an active and engaged audience that goes on to create their own art- whatever form it might be. Cosplay, video games, fanart, fanfic, critical commentary, the whole nine yards. How we do that is a different question, and sadly one I’m not convinced that I have an answer for. I put together a Discord server, which could be a foundation, but we’ll have to see what happens.

Anyway, next time, I’m going to focus on the themes of the three genres and how those can help strengthen the stories told in them, drawing from their historical and social contexts and what I think might be a key thematic dichotomy.

A rustic looking background featuring calligraphic text that reads "Faerspell", with a hiker in silhouette surrounded by a sketched out, line-shaped sun.

Welcome, travelers, to Færspell!

Posted on by Kaleb

Why Færspell?

For those of you who have known me elsewhere on the internet, you probably know that for a while I always used Faerwalder Press as my online branding. I started using that, or at least, Faerwalder in various forms sometime during high school. I don’t remember specifically when, but it was from a writing project that I was convinced would be my magnum opus (I no longer think I’ll ever return to that project, at least not in any recognizable way). When I ran across the name, it was touted as an Old English name meaning some form of ‘far traveler.’ My project at the time, a science-fantasy epic set across multiple realities, seemed to fit well with that concept.

Fast forward many years later, and I started working on learning Old English and being able to use Old English dictionaries (namely the Bosworth-Toller dictionary). I realized that Faerwald was not exactly the name I had thought. Additionally, it was long and, while evocative, had become more of a hindrance than anything else. So, for this site, I began searching for something new while I explored my writer’s branding through the Storytelling Collective’s Marketing 101 for TTRPG Creators. In the past, it had been K.C. Kramer or Faerwalder Press— stories from beyond the horizon.

What does the prefix Fæ- mean, linguistically?

I liked the idea of keeping the aspect of journeying, as that works well for what I write— namely fantasy and science fiction of various flavors. These were also alluded to with the tagline “tales from beyond the horizon”. You can never really go beyond the horizon, of course, so that created the impression of the stories having some essence of liminality (take a sip of tea every time I mention liminality like a proper academic). They were from a place that did not exist and could not be reached, but it was possible for stories to reach us. As a writer of imaginative fiction, I found that image very powerful. Plus, as a writer of science fiction (especially space opera), going beyond the horizon in a straight line takes you into space, adding an element to the word’s meaning.

I decided to keep the prefix, more accurately rendered as Fær, as it does mean journeying, expedition, or travel. When one considers the word ‘fare’ as in wayfarer, that makes etymological sense. Bosworth-Toller defines fær as “a going, journey, way, journeying, expedition.” Those words were all excellent aspects of what I hope to capture when people consider my work. I want it to take people on journeys, both within the story and within themselves, as a form of experience on the path to wisdom. We have only one life to live and learn from, but stories give us chances to step into the lives of others and learn from those experiences.

What about -spell?

Spell, after all of that, seems oddly modern. However, the word spell is an Old English word, meaning story, narrative, or tale told in prose. Gospel, as in the New Testament, is a derivative of this, with the prefix derived from gōd –spell. That originally meant ‘good story’ but later evolved into being God-Spell, literally meaning God’s Story.

We associate the word spell with magic and wizards, and especially their primary school institutions, especially with the term ‘magic spell.’ Translated, that would be a magic story. I quite like that meaning in how it touches on the power of narrative to shape reality. Magic, as a word, is not Old English and supplanted the Old English equivalent terms, gealdor and dwimmer. But in this case, we can settle for the Latin term instead. This second aspect of the name has double meanings- both spell as in magic and spell as in story. Since I also write fantasy, that fits.

Between the two, we create this word that loosely means ‘travel story’ or ‘journey story.’ Say, perhaps, something like recounting the time you went beyond the horizon (or into Faerie, depending on your genre of choice). Of course, we can also go deeper than that. Life as a journey is a common, but rich, metaphor that people have used for centuries (Pilgrim’s Progress and “Life is a Highway”). The name riffs off that motif, as the stories we tell about ourselves are often journey stories. Maybe not about physical travel, but a journey between who we used to be and who we are while telling the story, a journey of growth, not unlike the growth the protagonist of a story undergoes.

What’s the goal?

What am I doing here though? I’m trying to centralize and professionalize my internet presence as a writer. This will be my primary internet home to keep track of writing projects, new publications, TTRPG design projects, and a hybrid creative/academic approach to genre fiction. The blogging gurus I’ve been reading would say this brand identity is too broad, but I’m quite eclectic and fare poorly when it comes to fitting into boxes, even self-imposed ones. The plan, for now, is two posts per month as I get up and going. If I get more, I’ll schedule them ahead of time to ensure that there is always a post ready to go.

More than that, my goal is to begin building a community. I’m not the only one who takes imaginative fiction seriously as an art form, as both a scholar and a writer. Nor am I the only person with eclectic interests and a relentless curiosity. The world wide web is a wild place, so I would like to form a refuge, where these interests are encouraged, educated, and celebrated. Communities, of course, are interactive and supportive, so that sounds like an excellent way to begin.

Where to start?

Well, this is a great place to start! After which, check out my About page and my portfolio. If you want to check out worldbuilding, visit my World Anvil profile. After that, toss in a comment and introduce yourself! What interests you? What are you curious about? I’d love to know!

A book cover with a space ship, a planet, and stars, with some filters to add a vintage, dreamy look, and the title Iron Horizons- A Dieselpunk Space Opera

Genesys Roleplaying System: Setting Creation Reflections

Posted on by Kaleb

(This post was originally published on my previous blog and includes an affiliate link to DriveThruRPG where you can buy the Genesys Core Rulebook)

Some of you know that I not only write fiction, but also material for tabletop role-playing games (including a 5e one-shot you can buy here). I only have the one-shot at the moment, but it’s settings and campaigns that fascinate me.

I have two of those in the work- one for 5e/5.5 and one for the Genesys system. I haven’t talked much about Genesys, but it’s essentially the generic, updated mechanics that Fantasy Flight Games developed for their Star Wars games- Edge of the Empire, Age of Rebellion, Force & Destiny. The main mechanic is a dice pool based on attributes for base die, skills for die upgrades, and then additional d6s for boosts and setbacks.

More importantly, it’s a generic system (Generic System, in fact) designed to be modular and easily adapted. It makes a little more prep for the game master, but they have some really good resources and systems to help make that easy. I’ve played a decent bit of the Star Wars ones and run Edge of the Empire quite a lot, so I have a decent sense of the basic mechanics. Fortunately, one of the official setting guides is Embers of the Imperium– a space opera based on the Twilight Imperium board game.

That is helpful because it gives a significant foundation that I can spring off for Iron Horizons. I initially tried to create Iron Horizons as a 5e-compatible setting, but it was overwhelming to try and make such a drastic change. Fundamentally, I’m not a huge fan of 5e mechanics, but it is the most popular. Genesys fixes the issues I had with it.

So, I’ve talked about Iron Horizons a little bit in the past (last November, to be precise). I’ve done a bunch with it since then. I’ve outlined and started a novella, which I might aim to finish during NaNoWriMo this year or otherwise after the scuba diving season wraps up.

Worldbuilding has been part of it- especially the region of space that I’m trying to focus on. It’s a neighboring sector to the Aldottorai Republic and Vanaeran Corporate Space, so close enough to the setting that the novellas and game setting should be complementary. Granted, I’ll need to make sure the timelines work right.

The interesting difference between the novella and RPG worldbuilding is the differences they tend to emphasize. The RPG worldbuilding has been much more about the nitty-gritty details: equipment, currency, specific locations, NPCs, and stuff that can help create an immersive experience. The stuff for the novellas has been more on what’s critical to the narrative. The stuff for the RPG has given me a lot of stuff to work with in the novella, and I’m hoping it will work both ways.

At this point, the biggest challenge is determining the scope. It’s so easy to get lost in the worldbuilding. I came up with more twenty different factions of various sorts- ranging from multi-system governments to labor unions to rebels to pirates to organized crime and political activists. In reality, I could be looking at dozens of inhabited planets in this one sector. That’s a black hole (no pun intended) that will be too easy to get lost in.

The other challenge is I want to add in some rule systems that aren’t in Genesys or its Expanded Player’s Guide. One is focused on interstellar trade to emphasize the sort of maritime-mercantile style that’s a huge influence on the setting. To build on that, I also want to work on developing something for privateering/piracy. Some of the advanced rules have a mechanic they call Heat, designed for running heist games, that I think I might be able to adapt pretty efficiently.

For now, the plan is to have the setting guide finished and published by the end of next summer. If I figure out my project management process, I might be able to coordinate the first novella and the setting guide. Which, thinking about, perhaps I should make the setting guide and novellas overlap more directly. That way they can really build off each other. I don’t know! What do you all think?

Reflections on The Art of Insubordination

Posted on by Kaleb

So. Protests, civil disobedience, and acts of “disorder” are once again on the public’s mind.

And that brings me to this book which I first saw randomly on my library shelves and was very curious- both by the title and in the incongruous cover art. So, after simmering for a while, I eventually borrowed the digital audiobook from my library and gave it a listen.

(Image includes an affiliate link at Bookshop.org)

Much of it was familiar since I began my undergraduate degree as a psychology major who took both sociology and social psychology. What Dr. Kashdan is doing in this book is what I had hoped to find in the psychology field, but didn’t.

He’s taking psychological theories and understandings of how the human mind works, both alone and in groups, and making it practical to apply it to positive social change via principled rebels.

These rebels are those who see the status quo is wrong, harmful, or unjust and move to make it better (Rather like a certain rebel alliance… it is May 4th after all, which is an unsettling parallel to have Star Wars Day and the Kent State shootings on the same day). Not rebels who seek to overthrow the status quo to put themselves in charge, or simply wish to cause pain, or want power (like a certain Chancellor who also ran a Separatist movement).

Each chapter addresses a specific topic or issue that either helps or hinders achieving the goals of insubordination and he breaks these down into what he calls recipe steps. These are actionable steps to apply the information from the chapter. Some of them are actions to do, some of them are actions not to do, and some are reflective and introspective questions.

Not only are they useful, but they reframe much of the rhetoric we hear about insubordinates, rebels, and, my personal favorite, renegades. It’s very easy for people who find themselves comfortable in their majority position to look down on people who disrupt the status quo (see Martin Luther King, Jr.’s response to white moderates) as pushing too hard, being too radical, or doing it for clout. Here are some points Kashdan pointed out: humans like the comfort of conformity. We are social creatures, and we dislike being outside the group. So for people to go against that grain is a huge step in itself, especially when the consequences can be permanent and lifelong. Activists are pushing against both social instinct and the social cost- meaning their convictions are so strong that they are overcoming human nature to make their point stand.

That takes the air out of a lot of the talk meant to deligitimize social movements, doesn’t it?

But I suggest everyone read it, especially if you’re in any sort of progressive or activist circle, or even if you’ve realized your workplace is toxic. It will reshape how you consider things, what you want to do, and how you can hope to achieve them.

(This post was originally published on my previous blog)

Book Review: Gogmagog by Jeff Noon & Steve Beard

Posted on by Kaleb

(Image includes an affiliate link to Bookshop.org)

I received an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for honest feedback. And in the name of honesty, I’ll start with a warning- this is a very, very weird book.

If you don’t like Weird fiction, this is probably not the book for you. The same is true if you aren’t comfortable with strong language and coarse humor. However, if you like Mervyn Peake or Jeff Vandermeer, **you’ll probably like this one.

That said, it is an excellent book that I thoroughly enjoyed. The basic premise is that the protagonist (Cady Meade) must get some passengers up the river to the capital in time for a coming-of-age ceremony.

The catch is that the river is inhabited by a dragon’s ghost and the ghost has fallen ill, causing the usual strange abnormalities of the ghost to grow worse and even more unpredictable. Nothing is quite as it seems and mystery and mystery are unveiled but never fully solved, nor are the mysteries ever understood. They flit at the edge of the awareness of both the reader and the characters resulting in a sense of surreal uncertainty as reality itself never seems particularly stable.

The characters are rich and complex, each with the secret traumas that they carry with them up the river, which brings all of them to the fore in intense, often frightening ways that push the characters to the limits of what they consider themselves capable of, and then beyond.

In many ways, this book is a post-covid, 2020s American pilgrimage. Haunted by past wars, everpresent disease, uncertainty, and the dark shadows of their heroes, they muddle through the world uncertain of what they are doing or why in a way that feels deeply relatable.

Book Review: Perfect Shot by Steve Urszenyi

Posted on by Kaleb

(Image includes an affiliate link to Bookshop.org)

A strong and promising debut introduces Special Agent Alex Martel- FBI special agent, former sniper, and Army combat medic– as as a routine raid and an unexpected email set her on the path of a deeply complex plot involving a stolen nuclear weapon, a murdered intelligence officer, and a conspiracy spanning continents. The technical details were good, and I was quite impressed reading them; there was a plot twist I did not see coming that added an entirely new angle to the game; and Alex herself was a strong and compelling character.

That said, it does feel like a debut novel. The prose sometimes felt unpolished, side characters weren’t as deeply developed as I would have preferred, and the end of the novel was somewhat underwhelming. Despite being an investigator and having an espionage-mystery element, solving the mystery mostly happened through a combination of off-screen computer assistance and a series of hunches and guesses that I think could have been more satisfying.

However, I did really enjoy the novel, especially the tactical portions and the great game of spies that was being played in the process. I definitely recommend it to fans of NCIS, Don Mann, and Clive Cussler. I received a free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

(This post was originally published on my previous blog)