Dieselpunk + Steampunk Culture
Kim Newman
I don't know how many of you also read/post at The Gatehose Gazette's "Smoking Lounge". There I made up athread for author Kim Newman.
Newman has written some very great novels from which some def. fit under the term "Dieselpunk". I hope you have no problem with me "double-posting" on both forums.
So, here we go with Newman's "The Bloody Red Baron". It's a sequel to "Anno Dracula" but you don't neccessarily have to read the first one. With "Anno Dracula" being some kind of alternate victorian history, "The Blood Red Baron" takes place during WW1 and is a great blend of horror/fantasy with dieselpunkish elements.
Here's a brief summary:
It is 1918. Graf von Dracula, expelled from Britain, is commander-in-chief of the armies of Germany and Austria-Hungary, while Lord Ruthven, his former disciple and now enemy, is Prime Minister of Britain. Over the Western Front, Allied aces fall to the feared flying monster, Baron von Richthofen. But the War of the Great Powers in Europe is also a war between the living and the dead, ancient magic and modern science, oppression and freedom.
Embroiled in the greater and lesser conflicts are Edwin Winthrop, a young intelligence officer eager for fame and glory; Charles Beauregard, Edwin's mentor and an old enemy of Dracula; Kate Reed, a radical vampire journalist; and the resurrected Edgar Allan Poe, commissioned by German High Command to write a fabulous biography of Manfred von Richthofen, the Bloody Red Baron. As the Baron ups his famous death score, the workings of nations and the struggles of individuals intersect, climaxing with a battle that takes place in the air and in the very hearts of men. The vision of the vampire-squadron taking off from a high tower, with strains of Wagner echoing from Dracula's Zeppelin-flagship, makes for a riveting read.
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"The Night Mayor" is another brilliant one by Newman. Though it is set in the future and often labelled as Cyberpunk, the story takes place in a virtual reality world from the 40s/50s and at least to me is a very fine example of Dieselpunk literature.
The setting to some point could be described as a mixture of The Matrix and Sin City (and both clearly must have been influenced by this book... I wonder if Newman was granted credits).
The story is basically a virtual reality story based on classic b/w noir and PI movies and books. As usual with Newman tons of well known pepole (both real and fictional) appear, with Cagney, Bogart und Lee Marvin being the prominent...
It is set in the future, when movies and TV have gone, to be replaced with an electronic dream package that enables users to dream themselves into the shoes of their favourite movie stars.
An archcriminal, Truro Dane , has kind of mentally escaped from prison by dreaming himself a private universe created from the elements of classic American film noir and crime movies. In the City, it's always two-thirty in the morning and raining. Here he rules everything at made himself "The Night Mayor"
Truro "escaped" by using a dreamset smuggled into prison, he has leeched onto Yggdrasil, the world computer, and borrows elements from the movies to Dream his own universe--in the meantime absorbing critical file space in the computer.
Susan Bishopric ,the heroine, is sent to enter his dream world and bring him back and in the process recue a crime writer ,Tom Tunney,who has become trapped in Dane's world.
The book is packed with references to classic movies -mainstream and obscurities both,with appearances by stars of the era-and the use of metaphors is clearly an act of homage to writers of the pulp era such as Hammett and Chandler.
Try this one for size:
"Truro Dane had a cultivated accent.The kind you cultivated on agar jelly in a petri dish".
Newman has written some very great novels from which some def. fit under the term "Dieselpunk". I hope you have no problem with me "double-posting" on both forums.
So, here we go with Newman's "The Bloody Red Baron". It's a sequel to "Anno Dracula" but you don't neccessarily have to read the first one. With "Anno Dracula" being some kind of alternate victorian history, "The Blood Red Baron" takes place during WW1 and is a great blend of horror/fantasy with dieselpunkish elements.
Here's a brief summary:
It is 1918. Graf von Dracula, expelled from Britain, is commander-in-chief of the armies of Germany and Austria-Hungary, while Lord Ruthven, his former disciple and now enemy, is Prime Minister of Britain. Over the Western Front, Allied aces fall to the feared flying monster, Baron von Richthofen. But the War of the Great Powers in Europe is also a war between the living and the dead, ancient magic and modern science, oppression and freedom.
Embroiled in the greater and lesser conflicts are Edwin Winthrop, a young intelligence officer eager for fame and glory; Charles Beauregard, Edwin's mentor and an old enemy of Dracula; Kate Reed, a radical vampire journalist; and the resurrected Edgar Allan Poe, commissioned by German High Command to write a fabulous biography of Manfred von Richthofen, the Bloody Red Baron. As the Baron ups his famous death score, the workings of nations and the struggles of individuals intersect, climaxing with a battle that takes place in the air and in the very hearts of men. The vision of the vampire-squadron taking off from a high tower, with strains of Wagner echoing from Dracula's Zeppelin-flagship, makes for a riveting read.
______________________________________________________________________
"The Night Mayor" is another brilliant one by Newman. Though it is set in the future and often labelled as Cyberpunk, the story takes place in a virtual reality world from the 40s/50s and at least to me is a very fine example of Dieselpunk literature.
The setting to some point could be described as a mixture of The Matrix and Sin City (and both clearly must have been influenced by this book... I wonder if Newman was granted credits).
The story is basically a virtual reality story based on classic b/w noir and PI movies and books. As usual with Newman tons of well known pepole (both real and fictional) appear, with Cagney, Bogart und Lee Marvin being the prominent...
It is set in the future, when movies and TV have gone, to be replaced with an electronic dream package that enables users to dream themselves into the shoes of their favourite movie stars.
An archcriminal, Truro Dane , has kind of mentally escaped from prison by dreaming himself a private universe created from the elements of classic American film noir and crime movies. In the City, it's always two-thirty in the morning and raining. Here he rules everything at made himself "The Night Mayor"
Truro "escaped" by using a dreamset smuggled into prison, he has leeched onto Yggdrasil, the world computer, and borrows elements from the movies to Dream his own universe--in the meantime absorbing critical file space in the computer.
Susan Bishopric ,the heroine, is sent to enter his dream world and bring him back and in the process recue a crime writer ,Tom Tunney,who has become trapped in Dane's world.
The book is packed with references to classic movies -mainstream and obscurities both,with appearances by stars of the era-and the use of metaphors is clearly an act of homage to writers of the pulp era such as Hammett and Chandler.
Try this one for size:
"Truro Dane had a cultivated accent.The kind you cultivated on agar jelly in a petri dish".
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Beauregard on -
Another brilliant series (again - brilliant in my opinion…) is the DEMON DOWNLOAD series written in the 80s under his alter ego Jack Yeovil and taking place in the DARK FUTURE setting of Games Workshop.
This is crazy post-apocalyptic stuff at it's best!
And as it was written in the 80s and takes place in the "then-future" the 90s, it's more or less also "a past that wasn't" with scratches the piecraftian Dieselpunk stuff when one includes Mad Max & Co.
"The world of Dark Future, detailed by Yeovil/Newman, played with multiple sci-fi, horror, and dystopia clichés while mixing in alternate history and homages & cameos to other fiction (Instead of becoming US president actor Ronald Reagan starred in the TV series Get Smart, famous film murderers like Jason Voorhees are asylum inmates in Krokodil Tears, Leonard Nimoy is named as a 60s astronaut in Comeback Tour).
The world has undergone severe social, environmental, and moral decline, combined with a dramatic rise in technology; in 1995, violence is the main killer.
…Thanks to the increased pollution, drastic climate change and damage to mid-western water supplies would cause most of America to become desert ("the Des") from the 70s onwards. Violent dystopian gangcults - the Maniax, the Psychopomps, and the Confederate Air Force being central to the books - would rise to prominence. (wikipedia)"
The books have lately (ok, it was in 2006) been re-issued, so get them
KROKODIL TEARS:
Krokodil is an ex-juvenile delinquent turned-cyborg killer, who's also the host of an extra-dimensional entity. Many people want her dead, so they're sending three assassins: a Californian Op, a psychopathic killer, and Jibbenainosay, a creature from the Outer Darkness. What's a gal to do...
ROUTE 666:
The meteoric rise of evangelist Elder Nguyen Seth may seem like a ray of hope in the darkness. To US Cavalry trooper Leona Tyree, shepherding Seth and his Josephite followers to the 'promised land', the truth is a lot darker. Part apocalyptic road movie, part dark satire, part occult horror, "Route 666" is book two for the "Demon Download" cycle, and delivers action, intrigue and shocks from cult author Jack Yeovil.
DEMON DOWNLOAD:
There's a demonic computer virus attempting to overrun the information networks of the world. Trooper Nathan Stack is a little out of his league, but Chantal Juillerat, computer hacker, martial arts expert, and nun, is there to even up the odds.
COMEBACK TOUR:
The King isn't dead! Elvis Presley might not be a Colonel in the US Army anymore, but he's got a reputation as being one of the toughest independent Sanctioned Ops in the South. Yet, can he prevent the world being destroyed (further) while fighting off the KKK, swamp mutants and voodoo priests?
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