Allow me to introduce a wonderful author and friend Alison DeLuca. Alison writes YA Steampunk novels. Admittedly I knew very little about the genre, until I was told where it originated. But I won't bore you with my poor description. Instead, I'll let the professional tell you about it.
Of Airships and Automatons
Steampunk is a mutt, a hybrid. It is sci
fi mixed with ersatz historical fiction: a strange monster indeed. Purebred
genres have their good points, of course, but sometimes readers are looking for
a place to escape to in a world tired of vampires.
Is it new? No. It’s been here, after
all, since the days of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne. It was resurrected in the
late 80’s by the likes of William Gibson and James Blaylock. Perhaps those
writers were tired of the slick, aseptic world of 2001 and wanted something
grittier that was at once urban and urbane.
Over the past few years, however,
steampunk has really taken off. It has been given new life in the publishing
world as well as on programming like Fringe. It even appears in a Lady Gaga
video.
There are amazing books that have
recently come out in the genre; there are collections like Corsets and
Clockwork, series like the Behemoth books, and stand-alone works like The
Windup Girl. They are edgy; they are filled with cogs and wheels and drawing
room manners; they are sexy, like The Girl in the Steel Corset.
Hang on – how about those corsets,
though? I write Steampunk, but I write books for a YA audience. I have
deliberately decided to keep my work G-rated. There are no corsets there,
except for those well hidden under riding habits and tea gowns.
I’m an editor as well as a writer, so
“Will it sell?” is a question I’m learning to ask. What is steampunk without
the steam? Will a younger audience be interested in an antique world?
There are YA collections out there for
kids and teens, the Nickie Nick vampire hunter novels by O. M. Grey, the
Blackfeather Chronicles, and the Girl Genius series by the Foglios. There are
stand-alone books like Beltbuckle and Flash Gold. How popular they will be, and
whether they will remain on Barnes & Noble bookshelves remains to be seen.
It makes sense that some books about
cogs, wheels, and automatons should cater to kids. After all, children and
adolescents were Verne’s and Wells’s and Doyle’s main audiences. I do believe
that there must be quality in the story, however.
Steampunk, in order to save it from
becoming steampulp, needs to have the Victorian or Edwardian technology serve a
purpose. The airships should be there for a reason, not just floating around in
order to give the author an excuse to slap a steampunk genre sticker on her
book.
The airships and automatons must be an
integral part of the plot, adding to the action and even, if I dare, the
character development. I believe that kids appreciate character as much as any
group of readers; they are just as turned off by poorly written protagonists.
The characters in the books must be real, with flaws to overcome and problems
to solves, as well as human feelings and hopes and desires. They cannot, in
other words, be corset-wearing automatons.
I firmly believe that we will
continue to see amazing books in the genre for YA. As the interest grows (there
are already Steampunk festivals and exhibits all over the world, after all,)
more authors will discover the fascinating fantasy that comes from opening the
door to the old factory and discovering the possibilities of the alien
machinery that waits inside.
Alison DeLuca grew up on an organic farm in Chester County,
Pennsylvania. Her parents were British,
so in the summers she went to stay with her grandparents near Dublin.
There was no stereo or TV there, so Alison, her sister, and her
cousins spent the summer inventing stories and plays for each other. “This gave me the ability to entertain myself
with my own imagination in any situation,” she says. “We used to be taken to
tea with great-aunts, and we were expected to sit on an uncomfortable couch and
not move or say a word. It was possible
to endure it because I was watching my own little stories play out in my mind.”
After graduating from West Chester University, Alison became
a teacher of English and Spanish, teaching students from kindergarten up to
college level. She loved teaching, and it was with reluctance that she left the
classroom to be a fulltime mom when her daughter was born.
While she was teaching and raising her daughter, Alison took
every free minute she had to write. The Crown
Phoenix Series was the result.
She is currently working on the final book in the series, as
well as several other projects.
