So familiar...

[dave bartram]

Part of the fascination with Victoriana, I think, is that it looks so familiar at the same time as being so different. We can identify with the people we see at the same time as recognising that they lived in a very different world from the one we live in.  Take a look at the photographs in this link and you'll see what I'm on about:

http://www.flickr.com//photos/59060456@N05/sets/72157627408162510/s...

And isn't this part of the attraction of Steampunk? We know these people, they have mostly the same concerns and worries that we have - and we are only removed from them by the nature of our circumstances. I'm writing this because there is a discussion here somewhere that gets into what is more important - characters or setting - as the setting is what defines a work as Steampunk.

But it's more than that isn't it? Isn't it the interaction between characters that could almost be us and settings that are almost but not quite familiar that engages? The dynamic tension of the familiar and the strange within the narrative structure.

Just wondering out loud...

[May Water]

I grew up in Boston & surrounded with antiques, old homes,ancestral  memories...very different form California where I now live. I find the architecture,  woodworking, and f ashion  of that era very comforting.  But it's the people that have always fascinated me. I remember sitting in my grandmother's parlor & devouring the old photo albums.  I used to always wonder what they were thinking when their photo was taken. Where did they go afterwards? What did they talk about?  Which is why all of my tales are character driven. My upcoming 3 novels are Victorian era (Steamblast from The Past-Sept 2011) is the first. I think I could easily get stuck in that era!