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pizzakarin
Posted 2015-02-02 1:50 PM (#9471 - in reply to #8465)
Subject: Re: Sub-Genre Focus Challenge		Quote Reply



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Location: Austin, Tx		I chose the "steampunk" genre and thought I'd share a great blog post I read which describes the "steampunk" aesthetic.

First, I'll admit, I'm sometimes a subgenre snob and steampunk was one of those genres I turned my nose up at. I like mad science (but prefer when it is used optimistically instead of pessimistically) and airships almost universally fail to capture my imagination. But, I like using challenges to expand my reading boundaries and to force myself into carefully considered opinions rather than knee-jerk ones.

So I picked a bunch of books that were in the steampunk section and, only two books into the challenge have had to confront my feelings about the genre as a whole. I still dislike airships (maybe some upcoming book with change my mind), but I fell in love with the author of the blog's definition of the steampunk aesthetic and have had to think really hard on whether "The Digging Leviathan" by James P Blaylock, which I had pegged as definitely misclassified as steampunk might actually be steampunk despite being completely devoid of steam. My mind's jury is still out on the subject, but I am enjoying the brain stretch.

Anyone else out there finding their definition of a genre to be expanding? or finding books that are definitely (and sometimes infuriatingly) popularly misclassified?

Edited by pizzakarin 2015-02-02 1:51 PM

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