During my explorations of Second Life, I am finding myself drawn ever more frequently to the Independent State of Caledon, which is a growing group of sims that have a broadly Victorian/steampunk theme – the image above shows a view of Caledon SteamSkyCity from a nearby airship mooring pylon, with me in the foreground, dressed appropriately. I recently had Citizenship of Caledon conferred upon me by ‘The Guvnah’, which I am very pleased about, especially as I am not (yet) a Caledon resident; and my name is on the list to qualify for a parcel in one of the new sims.
I’ve mentioned steampunk before – see this Wikipedia entry which describes it as ‘a subgenre of fantasy and speculative fiction which came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used—usually the 19th century, and often set in Victorian era England—but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy, such as fictional technological inventions like those found in the works of H. G. Wells, or real technological developments like the computer occurring at an earlier date. Other examples of steampunk contain alternate history-style presentations of “the path not taken” of such technology as dirigibles or analog computers…’ Mmmm, lovely.
I’ve enjoyed books in this genre for years, notably Keith Roberts’ amazing Pavane and its related Chalk Giants, and others. More recently I devoured Philip Pullman’s remarkable trilogy, His Dark Materials, which was quite marvellous and unputdownable. Pullman is another one of these writers who, like Alan Garner (The Owl Service, Red Shift, Thursbitch etc) is officially supposed to be a children’s writer, but whose work has something for people of all ages.
His Dark Materials is definitely in the genre: much of the action takes place in an alternate world with plenty of steampunk features, and especially in and around a slightly altered version of Oxford.
The books have been turned into a movie, The Golden Compass, due for release in early December. And from the trailer it looks as if it has been done extremely well (see the screen grab from the trailer above).
One of the things about people in heroine Lyra’s world is that their souls are external entities that take the form of a creature of the opposite sex to their human counterpart, referred to as a Dæmon, and on the movie website you can answer a questionnaire and see what your Dæmon is. You can then put a bit of code in your blog entry to allow your friends to check it out and see if they think it’s appropriate for you or not – and just as a child’s Dæmon can change its form but settles on a fixed form in adulthood, so you and your friends have 12 days to decide whether or not the Daemon suits you. Mine is a female tiger by the name of Marchestra.
