Infernal Devices (Angry Robot)

212 Pages·2011·1.19 MB·English

by  K.W. Jeter

K W JETER

Infernal Devices
INTRODUCTION
On Steampunk and "Steampunk"

I wish I could say that the whole steampunk thing took me by surprise.
Opportunities to display a becoming modesty arrive so much less often than
those calling for a well-deserved modesty, as in this case.
Of course, the creation and promotion of literary genres and subgenres, even
for one the label for which has embedded itself so deeply into the hip world's
current operating dictionary, is nearly always a matter of selfpromotion. Writers
are essentially telling readers, "Hey, look at me; I'm doing something New &
Different, not like those schlubs over there at the other end of the bookstore
shelf, who are just doing the Same Old Thing." For academics, of course, it's
more of a tenure pitch, a ritual dance in front of their department committee,
demonstrating that they are indeed keyed in to what is being texted about by the
youth of today, whose parents pay the tuition bills.
Observing these endeavours, one is inevitably reminded (if one is old and
recherché enough) of Seventies comedian Flip Wilson, whose television
personae included the Reverend Leroy, excitedly exhorting the congregation at
the Church of What's Happening Now. That's an ecclesiastical establishment
where the pews are perhaps even more tightly packed these days than they were
back then, since hardly anybody now wants to be called a Luddite and risk not
being invited to the better party that's always down the street somewhere.
(Though of course, Luddism proper is something that neither anti-Luddites or
neo-Luddites, bravely contrary in their hempen shirts, get quite right as they
push their own agendaheavy carts down that same street. But that's another
discussion, for another day.) If the mid-Eighties' starry-eyed, gobsmacked
fascination with the siliconized future now seems more of a piece with the
Kennedy-era Disneyland's Carousel of Progress exhibit than with the life we're
living now, then who says mankind doesn't progress? As soon as your kids can
download a smartphone app for hacking the Pentagon, we'll know the revolution
is over.
So it's a tribute to tortuous human ingenuity and the blithely cheerful
doublethink of pop culture (indexed under "Orwell, George; gameshow host"),
that there developed a taste for brass and copper and the ticking, hissing mesh-
&-grind of Victorian technology. God knows that I didn't send that particular
juggernaut careening down the highway; the most I can be credited with is the
vaguely modernistic nameplate under the hood ornament, as though the chrome
moniker of a Chrysler Airflow had been bolted to Amédée-Ernest Bollée's 1875
L'Obeissante and sent cruising for dates at Mel's Drive-In. But as Orwell did in
fact point out in his "The Principles of Newspeak" appendix to 1984, it can be
pretty difficult to think about stuff for which we don't have names. My coining
back in 1987 of the word steampunk originally might have been more of a
humorous jab at a tendency going around those days, of labeling any two genre
writers with more in common than bipedal locomotion as the "[insert word
here]punk" movement, but if it assumed some sort of life after that, or at least
clawed itself up from whatever grave in which old jokes are laid to rest… well, it
could've been worse, lexicographically.
And as much as the nametag is the tail to the much larger shaggy dog of the
various novels and stories that have since been labeled steampunk (many of
which are excellent and substantial, and would be just as enjoyable with or
without the category to be stuffed into), the steampunk literature is a relatively
small part of a larger enthusiasm. The concept has metastasized to the point
where its cultural penetration is driven less by authors than by film studio art
directors, costumers and special effects departments. (In that sense, not much
different from any of the shrinking number of other concepts we have
nowadays.) If saying that one is into steampunk allows young women to attend
science fiction conventions while laced into visibly complicated underwear,
while their weedy boyfriends are bulked up by the heavy armor of period tweeds
and vests, the inspiration is likely from the movies rather than any words on
paper.
While I might not have anticipated the slipping into common parlance of the
word I coined, the larger steampunk enthusiasm wasn't similarly unanticipated.
Yes, most of this is just a matter of people having good, clean, if somewhat
gimmicky fun, but there's a genuinely worthy element to it that makes me one of
those happy few who, even if we can't say we love our species, we can at least
tolerate it on its better days. A fascination with Victorian tech is at its heart a
salutary acceptance of the machine-ness of machines – and correspondingly an
acceptance of the humanity of human beings. There's something nauseatingly
predigested about the look of late 20th and early 21st century industrial design,
all those Steve Jobs-approved rounded edges like cough lozenges sucked on for
a minute or so before being spat out into your hand. Whereas Victorian
machines, with their precision-cut gears and spurred mantis armatures, are
unabashedly themselves rather than trying to smoothly cozen their way into your
life. Thus we similarly perceive flesh-&blood Victorians – even the fictional
ones – as being more genuine than ourselves. They had lives; we have
marketing. Even unto our souls; drama and ruin were possible to those who
guarded their secrets and shame, as pre-digital clocks held their tightly coiled
mainsprings inside themselves.
That's what makes this last fully human epoch so interesting for writers and
readers alike. And why I was gratified rather than surprised that the thing to
which I so offhandedly gave a name now clanks forward at its own pace. The
faint tick and whir we hear across the sadly therapeutic centuries is that of our
own foolishly abandoned hearts, which we'd love to wind up and set running
again. Steampunk enthusiasts are engaged, however unknowingly, in nobler fun
than mere mental cosplay. May God bless and increase their tribe; human beings
might yearn for lost things, but never for unreal things.

K W Jeter
San Francisco
November 2010
All comfort in life is based upon a regular occurrence of external
phenomena.
GOETHE
PART ONE
In Search of Saint Monkfish
1
Mr Dower Receives a Commission

On just such a morning as this, when the threat of rain hangs over London in the
manner of a sentence neither stayed nor pardoned, but rather perpetually
executed, Creff, my factotum, interrupted the breakfast he had brought me only a
few minutes earlier and announced that a crazed Ethiope was at the door,
presumably to buy a watch.
Reader, if the name George Dower, late of the London borough of Clerkenwell,
is unfamiliar to you, I beg you to read no further. Perhaps a merciful fate –
merciful to the genteel reader's sensibilities, even more so to the author's
reputation – has spared a few souls acquaintance with the sordid history that has
become attached to my name. Small chance of that, I know, as the infamy has
been given the widest circulation possible. The engines of ink-stained paper and
press spew forth unceasingly, while the even more pervasive swell of human
voice whispers in drawing room and tenement the details that cannot be
transcribed.
Still, should the reader be such a one, blessedly ignorant of recent scandal, then
lay this book down unread. Perhaps the dim confines of the sick-room, or the
wider horizons of tour abroad, far from English weather and the even darker and
more permeating chill of English gossip, have sheltered your ear. There can be
only small profit in hearing the popular rumours of that dubious scientific
brotherhood known as the Royal Anti-Society, and the part I am assumed to have
played in its resurrection from that shrouded past where it had lain as
mythological shadow to Newton's Fiat live.
Such happy ignorance is possible. Only the sketchiest outline has been made
public of Lord Bendray's investigations into the so-called Cataclysm Harmonics
by which he meant to split the earth to its core. Even now, the riveted iron sphere
of his Hermetic Carriage lies in the ruins of Bendray Hall, its signal flags and
lights tattered and broken, a mere object of speculation to the attendants who
listen patiently to the tottering grey-haired figure's inquiries about his new life on
another planet.
The discretion that sterling can purchase has saved the heirs of the Bendray
estate further embarrassment. Not for the purposes of spite, but to remedy the
damage done to my own and my father's name, will I render a complete account
of Lord Bendray's fateful musical soiree in these pages.
The rain begins, spattering on the panes of my study window. Before the
heaped coal-grate, the dog sleeping on the rug whines and scratches the floor. An
apprehensive tremor blots the ink from the pen in my hand, and in my waistcoat
pocket a coin of no value, save as a dread keepsake, grows cold through layers
of cloth against my flesh. No matter; I press onward.
Many who read this, I know, will be in search of further salacious details
concerning the more disgusting accusations brought against me. I have been
painted as a demon of lust. Reports of my careering through ill-lit dockside
alleys in a coach-and-four, hot in pursuit of unnatural pleasures such as the
"green girls" whose connection to instances of madness and physical decay
among the younger peerage is so often whispered of, have been given credence
far beyond that which is called for by the small bit of truth in those stories. It
was through no fault of my own that the Ladies Union for the Suppression of
Carnal Vice staged a torchlight march on my former shop and residence. Indeed,
if the public were aware of the hidden nature of Mrs Trabble, the captain of that
well-thought-of regiment, much excited talk would shift away from me.
As to the greater scandal surrounding the dual career attributed to me, that is, as
a violin virtuoso equal to the great Paganini and a debaucher of women
exceeding the lecherous Casanova, I maintain that neither of these
accomplishments was mine. No Stradivarius or well-born lady ever responded to
my bow in such a way. Though my brain was used in the production of those
melodies, so enticing on the concert stage and even more so behind it, my hands
are spotless. I can scarcely hope that my revelations will be credited. For my
own comfort I place them here.
On other matters official judgment was rendered in the courts. My conviction
on the charge of desecrating a place of worship, specifically by substituting
copies of Izaak Walton's The Compleat Angler for the hymnals of Saint Mary
Alderhythe, Bankside, and decorating the church altar with fishing tackle – that
too can be explained. Folly I may be guilty of, but not sacrilege.
Even though my name has been connected – with some cause, I admit – to
reports from the Scottish Highlands of the Book of Revelation's Seven-Headed
Beast flapping about and dropping flaming sheep carcasses upon the heads of Sir
Charles Wroth's grouse-beaters while the Whore of Babylon laughed and
shouted disrespectful comments from her perch aboard the creature, yet I still
believe that an open mind will absolve me of blame. Indeed, the fact that the
guns of Sir Charles' grouse-hunt were trained upon me should cause a charitable