Sunday, July 1, 2012

Notable New Steampunk

Looking for a new entré into steampunk? Enough new artifacts have come to our attention in the past month or so that I list them here for newbies looking for a first read, or died-in-the-wool steampunkers looking to broaden their horizons.

1. Rush's new album Clockwork Angels. I admit I haven't followed Rush's career that closely, but this one brings them solidly back into my attention. It's an incredible prog album. To illustrate it's significance for steampunk theology, I offer the lyrics to the second track, BU2B:

I was brought up to believe
The universe has a plan
We are only human
It's not ours to understand

The universe has a plan
All is for the best
Some will be rewarded
And the devil take the rest

All is for the best
Believe in what we're told
Blind men in the market
Buying what we're sold
Believe in what we're told
Until our final breath
While our loving Watchmaker
Loves us all to death

In a world of cut and thrust
I was always taught to trust
In a world where all must fail
Heaven's justice will prevail

The joy and pain that we receive
Each comes with its own cost
The price of what we're winning
Is the same as what we've lost

Until our final breath
The joy and pain that we receive
Must be what we deserve
I was brought up to believe

The entire album is framed with an "epic" narrative--this is the voice of one character within the larger narrative. Depending on availability of time and level of nerd-iness on a given evening, I may offer further reflections on the content.

2. Scott Westerfield's YA Leviathan trilogy. I'm intrigued by how much of great new steampunk is for the YA crowd. Scott's isn't the only new steampunk trilogy out there. Browse that section of the bookstore and you'll come across quite a lot. The Alpinist turned me on to this trilogy, however, so I'm giving it a read. Rather than proceed historically straight from the Victorian period, however, this one launches from the start of WWI.

3. Christopher Moore's Sacre Bleu: A Comedy D'Art. Perhaps some people will take issue with my claim that a novel about Vincent van Gogh and the Impressionist period in France is "steampunk," but if so, then I point you to...

4. Beyond Victoriana: A Multicultural Perspective on Steampunk. It's a web site and blog, not a book. It does illustrate how heavy the punk side of steampunk really can be, and illustrates to a great degree why I think the steampunk movement is fruitful for theological discourse. 

5. A Contemporary In Dissent: Johann Georg Hamann as a Radical Enlightener, by Oswald Bayer. What if there was an alternative to the direction things went in German philosophy and theology, influenced as it has been by Hegel, Kant, and others? The answer may be Hamann, and it is intriguing to imagine a world that proceeds from Hamann forward.

That should be enough to keep everyone busy for a while. And please offer your suggestions back at us. 

2 comments:

  1. Humbly submitted for the viewing/listening pleasure of Steampunk Theology Troika, an appropriately Steampunk video from the trio the Ecclesiast features here (item #1):

    http://youtu.be/ZcFGrWjOX0E

    With compliments,

    -p

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you, P! Great video. Who is "-p"?

    ReplyDelete