Re: "Can Steampunk Look Toward the Future?"

Information about a new documentary about the steampunk "subculture" (or "not") and a New York Comic Con panel discussion at this Tor Publishing blog page.

My answer?  It will have to look toward the future, just like all the rest of genre fiction, and non-genre fiction, too, for that matter.  Relevance requires that the elements of all fiction, including genre fiction, speak to the current consumers of those works and their lives, needs and desires at the current time.  That doesn't change no matter whether you're talking about Tolkien-esque fiction, the latest Terminator movie, or The Brady Bunch (see my Knews Not News post on why that works).  You have to reach your customers with the things that matter to them or they won't buy what you're selling.  But is that really about the future?

Sure it is, especially for adherents of the steampunk movement.  These are folks who take great interest in modding current technology to a visual standard that doesn't exist in most current design elements of consumer goods.  See, if product designers tap into that DIY/make-it-yours-alone element and allow for ready modification of their products, that's the Holy Grail of design:  the personally designed and adapted tool that practically guarantees satisfaction.  You don't have to dig goggles and airships to want that, do you?

Relating this to a work of fiction involves the same design considerations.  A book has to end at some point in order to be printed (electronically or physically), so the content is fixed.  The design, however, really doesn't have to be.  Offering the consumer a choice of differing elements that they can mix and match (fonts? cover art? page colors?) to "create" something more pleasing is an interesting possibility.  But how does the author/designer know what their consumers want?

Sounds like a job for social networking.  Ask your market.  Offer samples.  Pick your favorite, and release it, but be sure give your customers what they want.  That always makes for an interesting future, don't you think?