SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

I fail to see anything "steampunk" about this book. There's no steam, it is not really Victorianesque, there's not even any technology...it's all just magic. I see that this book is mentioned as one of the first steampunk books and that Powers was one of the first authors to be labeled as steampunk, but I was expecting something quite different.

Not that it matters too much. The book is seen by some as steampunk, so I have no complaints about it being the theme choice. I guess I was expecting something more like The Difference Engine.

It's definitely in the fantasy/time travel category. I'm on page 170 and there definitely isn't anything steampunk about "The Anubis Gates". That's okay though, I think it's a pretty good book so far.

Have you read "The Lies of Locke Lamora" by Scott Lynch? The beggars guilds in "The Anubis Gates" remind me of that book a lot. I like "The Anubis Gates" far better though.

It definitely isn't as steampunk as some of the other books in the genre that I've read. One of the themes of steampunk books is rebellion, and that works a little here, doesn't it?

Since the term was created to describe Powers' works, though, it's kind of hard to say he's NOT steampunk. The genre just later evolved to how we currently think of it.

Have you read "The Lies of Locke Lamora" by Scott Lynch? The beggars guilds in "The Anubis Gates" remind me of that book a lot. I like "The Anubis Gates" far better though.

I've not read it but I've heard it is really good. I'll be interested to hear your final verdict on Anubis Gates. I really enjoyed the first half of the book, but got a bit tired of the repetitive themes by the end. I also was put off by how he handled the time travel.

Since the term was created to describe Powers' works, though, it's kind of hard to say he's NOT steampunk. The genre just later evolved to how we currently think of it.

That's weird isn't it? I don't see why a new term was even needed. Couldn't you just call it historical fantasy?

Yeah ... I have a real problem with this being classified as steam-punk myself; both with the lack of fantastical steam technology AND the lack of any punk (as I understand it) really confused me as to how somebody else would see it as such. Of course, for me, you aren't steam-punk simply because you time travel back to around the time of the Victoria Age ... there has to be something more and The Anubis Gates just don't have it.

This is really a classic example of how I think theme selection can go wrong.

This clearly isn't Steampunk; no steam, no fancy engineering, no dirigibles, no sense of high fashion, no Victoria. Maybe Powers wrote something else that was?

He wrote a time-travel fantasy.

I remember when we were discussing the theme for the month that there was much talk about Perdido Street Station falling short of being pure steampunk. That discussion led me to vote for Anubis Gates because, as Brooke pointed out, steampunk is supposed to be Powers baby. I was really hungry for some steampunk; yet having reached page 200 in Anubis Gates, I gotta say that Perdido is far more steampunk than this.

I'm still glad we are reading Anubis Gates. I am enjoying it and probably never would have read it otherwise. I sure hope we can redo steampunk sometime soon, though -- with a real representative of the sub-sub-genre.

Sure ... I am enjoying the book so far as well; that is not really the point of a theme selection though. The themes are supposed to help give each selection a different _Feel_ from the main sequence type books that tend to dominate the general category; So far, 'The Anubis Gates' _Feels_ like a Time Travel story and not a Steam Punk story ... so what was the point in even trying to limit our choices to Steam Punk then?

Sure ... I am enjoying the book so far as well; that is not really the point of a theme selection though

I don't see where anyone said that was the point. I certainly agree that this doesn't seem "steampunkish" but it is labeled as such for some good reasons. I'm sure most of the people who voted for it had not read it and did not realize its non-steampunkish nature.

The point? To identify a book that the majority of the people voting wanted to read and discuss.

This isn't like a college essay, where the teacher is going to give us an F for having a nice discussion but not writing on topic.

I don't know that the themes were supposed to give us a different feel. I remember the discussion being that the master list contained too many classics that people had already read, and that they wanted a way to get some lesser-known books up for discussion, too.

The steampunk nomination discussion was rather lengthy, and we kicked around a lot of ideas. I think everyone nominated things with a good faith effort to list things from the genre, even using things like Wikipedia's list of steampunk novels (which The Anubis Gates is on) to help them. That the book the majority of the voters picked ended up not being on point is kind of a moot point if it's the one everyone wanted to read more than the others.

More than the other what? Steam Punk novels?

Identifying a book that the majority of people want to read and discuss pretty much boils down to an open nomination list (not themes). To make the selection process more managable, we have adopted various restriction to the selection process; these include a random number generator for the master list and a theme selection.

The theme selection is supposed to group books together by theme ... generally stories that share some topic or idea which frequently contributes to the feel or type of story. If you wish to discount this, why have themes at all? Why not put all books on an equal footing from the beginning?

And it is not a moot point ... the fact that the list was limited to books that were supposed to be a specific sub-genre or style would by its very nature exclude those members who don't want to read that sub-genre or theme, so voting does not represent the complete membership of the group. That's fine ... however, identifying books that should legitimately belong to a given theme is not necessary easy and is highly subjective. In this particular case, I found that disappointing.

Even though I am bummed that Anubis Gates is a full out steampunk novel, I'm still pleased we've read it, and I'd hate to see the theme concept tossed just because this one didn't pan out.

I'm really enjoying this book even if it's not what I would call "steampunk". I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic and time-travel fiction. I've been reading a lot of post-apocalyptic fiction lately, so it's really refreshing to be reading a really good time-travel novel.

I don't think anything should change. We can't tell how well a book fits the theme until we've read it.

Exactly.

As the nominator of this book, I feel I have to speak up.

I was definitely mislead by Wiki, which is where I found the book in the first place. Since Powers is generally known as steampunk I didn't think anything of it at the time. It sounded like an interesting book so I nominated it.

I agree that it did not really end up being a solid representation of the genre, however, I thoroughly enjoyed it and I'm glad it was picked. It seems many of you did as well, but I apologize to those of you who feel disappointed at the selection.

I don't see anyone disappointed, only a bit confused :)

http://voyagesextraordinaires.blogspo...

This blog author seems to consider the book steampunk, and cites at least one other source that does, too. They have an interesting definition for it, "- a term which can be used to describe any sf novel set in any version of the previous century from which entropy has been banned as a metaphorical governor of the alternate industrial revolution of choice -"

There is no alternate industrial revolution, put that blogger to death immediately.

I think the definition comes from a writer that the blogger is citing, to make it even more confusing. :)

It's interesting how one parses words/website names sometimes. I was trying to figure out exactly what sort of website "voyage sextraordinaires..." was, until I realized it was "voyages extraordinaries..."