Steampunk note: This story can be read as proto-steampunk. That is, a work written before the emergence of steampunk as a distinct style, often from the Victorian period itself, that employs elements that are now associated with steampunk. These texts often act as precursors to steampunk, or are simply read retroactively as relating to steampunk. For this story, the robotic salesperson in the nineteenth century setting is of particular interest:
The upper part of the man had a waxy face, dull, fishy eyes, and dark hair; he lounged on the sofa like a corpse at ease, while his legs and feet stood by, leaning stiffly against the wall (Three Elephant Power, p.22)
Also notable is the way in which anachronistic technology is used to solve contemporary social issues (in this case, the flesh-and-blood canvassers being waylaid and mistreated).
'With a combination of fantastical and anachronistic technologies and neo-Victorian settings, steampunk emerged from a niche genre to a widespread phenomenon. But this, in turn, raised urgent questions about the "punk"-ness of steampunk and the extent to which it can critique, avoid, and repurpose the Victorian trappings that it adopts. This article examines one such query: whether steampunk can interrogate its ableist underpinnings and, particularly, whether Australian steampunk writers do so in a way that is distinctly Australian. Beginning with a brief overview of Australian steampunk and the genre's conflicted approach to disability aesthetics and roleplaying, the author examines three case studies: the invisibility of disability in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century proto-steampunk stories, prosthetics as a vehicle for imperial trauma, and the recurrent motif of the clockwork heart. As Australian steampunk exists outside the genre's mainstream, so too is it able to speak to the marginal elements, such as underlying ableism, that the mainstream too often ignores.' (Publication abstract)
'With a combination of fantastical and anachronistic technologies and neo-Victorian settings, steampunk emerged from a niche genre to a widespread phenomenon. But this, in turn, raised urgent questions about the "punk"-ness of steampunk and the extent to which it can critique, avoid, and repurpose the Victorian trappings that it adopts. This article examines one such query: whether steampunk can interrogate its ableist underpinnings and, particularly, whether Australian steampunk writers do so in a way that is distinctly Australian. Beginning with a brief overview of Australian steampunk and the genre's conflicted approach to disability aesthetics and roleplaying, the author examines three case studies: the invisibility of disability in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century proto-steampunk stories, prosthetics as a vehicle for imperial trauma, and the recurrent motif of the clockwork heart. As Australian steampunk exists outside the genre's mainstream, so too is it able to speak to the marginal elements, such as underlying ableism, that the mainstream too often ignores.' (Publication abstract)
