Spiritual Warfare

[mindwatcher]

Hey Friendly Phantoms or Devilish Demons, etc.
I'm not sure how i found my way in here. I'm from a really far out place called Regency England and Victorian England. I'm sticking my toes, yes I have toes not fins, in the water at the end of the map. Weird stuff there.

Anyway, I have a question. Has anyone here read anything set in time periods mentioned above that could be considered Speculative Fiction for the Christian Market?

I've just started reading His Majesty's Dragon (Temeraire, Book 1). I like this world and I want to make my own so what if....
Your new friend,
Mindwatcher

[seraphim]

Have you tried Coach's Midnight Diner over at Relief Journal. They have a subsection set aside for Jesus vs Chulu stories.

[Christian Soldier]

Hmm... I can't say that I have; though, I'm sure it's out there somewhere. I'd certainly be interested in reading such.

Ah, and Welcome to the Anomaly! I should warn you, the water tends to suck you in. That's okay though, you get used to it quick!

[torainfor]

Um, Christian-speculative-Victorian? Please say steampunk--pleeeese? Just a little? Never read it, but I will just as soon as you're finished!

[Jeff Gerke]

Hi, Mindwatcher. Welcome to The Anomaly! We're glad you've found your way in.

Now just try getting out. Mwhahahaha.

I don't know of any published Christian steampunk or speculative Victorian, but we've got a few folks here who write that kind of thing.

Jeff

[mindwatcher]

Do not laugh. What is steampunk? I told you not to laugh. Remember that some of us come from a different place in time and don't get the language. And if some of you out there do right spec. fiction during the Regency and Victorian era's please come out and talk to me. Don't be shy. I promise not to do any brain adjustments. maybe just a little tweaking.

[seraphim]

Steampunk is like Cyberpunk...except more Art Nouveau and technologically challenged. That is to say using extrapolations of the technology available in the 19th and early 20th century to serve as the foundations of a science fiction story but keeping some postmodern punk attitude aesthetic. Examples would be books like Gibson's "The Difference Engine" (an extrapolation of Babbage's early mechanical computer) or the movie "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen".

You might also think Society for Creative Anachronism as Sci Fi conventioneers...all Mongoish and Buck Rodgersy. And that is to say a number of the trappings of very early SF are drawn upon as well. Think Verne, Wells, Bourroughs, etc.

The etymology says it all. the Cyber in Cyberpunk refers to the near future interplay and preimminence of computer and other information technologies as the technological background of that subgenre. Steampunk then replaces the "Cyber" foundations with near-past, more primative industrial technologies as typified by steam power.

So, as you can see Victorian/Regency SF is very closely allied if not identical to Steampunk as a subgenre. The only difference I could see is that perhaps Victorian/Regency SF prefers it stories to also be limited by the scientific perspectives of that era as well. Thus modern scientific knowledge...say about Mars or Venus would be off the table. A story about a British expedition to the jungles of Venus would still be at least remotely plausible by those conventions. But a story about a British expedition to Venus with extrapolations of steam era technology that discovered a Venus as we know it now would not be permitted. Yet such a story would be permitted within steampunk by its stricter practitioners. A significant bit of modern steampunk I suspect skirts a bit between these two poles....mostly retro in technology and feel but will either retain or disregard the known science of then or now to create their stories.

To give a personal example of such skirting...I've a story that I'm working on set on a Mars as it might have been imagined at the turn of the 20th century or a little earlier....canals, little green men and the rest....but I have blue sunsets, a fact that was only known after we sent rover probes to Mars that took pictures. It is also a fact that depends upon the particulars of the real martian atmosphere....an atmosphere not very friendly to life as we know it...and thus much less likely on a truly inhabited Mars...but I liked it, so I kept it in spite of the facts. So the story I'm working on conceptualy fits better in most respects with what you call Victorian/Regency SF, but that perspective is violated a little by modern knowldege.

The only place I once knew which trafficed exclusively in Victoriean/Regency retro SF was an ezine called Would That It Were. But it is now defunct. The best current fit of which I am aware is Raygun Revival which is dedicated to old timey Space Opera, a subgenre which has a significant overlap with both Victorian/Regency SF and Steampunk. Basically just lumping it all under "Retro SF" of some stripe or another.

[mindwatcher]

Hi,
Thanks to Seraphim for the explanation about Steampunk, wow am I out of my element. What fun!
I'm exploring all the fun stuff here and doing a lot of forum jumping. See ya later.

[Teskas]

Wow, Seraphim! That's the best run down on steampunk ever. Thanks.

[cgilliam]

I agree on the last two emails. I'm a little out of element when it comes to Steampunk, but it sounds like you gave a great explanation. I did recognize League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which brought some of what you were saying home for me. Great movie (i.e. special effects and action). By the way, if anyone is interested in speculative Christian Fiction, please check out my Latter Rain Chronicle series (i.e. Where Truth Lies and Angel's End are the first two books on Amazon.com). My website is latterrain.tatepublishing.net. You can email me at [e-mail].