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Reviewed by Jean Roberta
(04/01/09)
This e-collection of steampunk stories from Circlet Press celebrates the mating of sex and science on several levels. While all the stories are set in the nineteenth century, when scientific discovery seemed to offer endless possibilities, the collection itself is one of the first e-books by Circlet Press, which specializes in erotic paranormal writing. This means that a new audience can discover the fiction for which Circlet is known without having to pay for print books.
In an introduction on the origins of "steampunk," J. Blackmore says:
"Like a Wisp of Steam is a collection of stories by people who can dream in sepia." The editor goes on to explain: "The nineteenth century, especially its latter half, was a time of contradictions and hypocrisy. In Britain, technology bounded ahead at an astonishing rate, and with it came all the other sciences. This was the time of Tesla and Edison, of Curie and Pasteur, when science and its pursuit was something of a religion unto itself." The clash of new scientific discoveries with rigid moral standards and deep class divisions created tension which was expressed in the literature of the time, especially the new genre of "science fiction."
J. Blackmore explains: "The people below the wealthy middle class could not even dream of escaping the lives they led, so some read the adventures of people who were doing what they never could. Steampunk is the descendent of those tales."
Several of the stories in Like a Wisp of Steam refer to actual books and personalities of the Victorian age. In the marvelously imaginative world of "The Innocent's Progress" by Peter Tupper, troupes of actors perform the archetypal roles of medieval drama onstage, and are available for hire as sex workers offstage. "The Innocent" is always performed as a delicate female victim who attracts rapists and abductors. When a sturdy lass performs as "the Innocent" in an audition, she is told she is better suited to other roles, such as "the Virago," a tough woman who can defend herself. The actress eventually leaves the troupe (and the male admirer) that first hires her because she is seeking an elusive sense of integrity (a kind of moral virginity) which she can only feel when performing one role. When her admirer sees her in a thinly-disguised version of a famous play about a formerly-conventional wife who discovers her own will, he finally understands the role which has been missing from his world.
In "An Extempore Romance" by Jason Rubis, Amelia is a successful author of fantasy literature for children who is photographed with real fairies by the shy, scholarly amateur photographer, Charles Dodgson. (Fans of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-glass will recognize the author's actual name.) Amelia's spirited maid seems to have a mind of her own, but in fact she is also a creation of science, like the beautiful young man who serves Amelia in a ladies' house of pleasure. The world of this story is clearly a mixture of historical reality and the fantasy art of the period. Does Amelia, the imagined lady novelist, help the real Charles Dodgson to overcome his shyness? Read the story and see for yourself.
"Hysterical Friction" by Thomas S. Roche, which first appeared in an anthology of historical erotica, features a young wife with that most Victorian of maladies, hysteria. She is very nervous and is often moved to tears, so her concerned husband takes her to the doctor she has had a crush on since childhood. The doctor understands what the husband doesn't, and he has the right "medical" implements: dildoes and vibrators, which were actually recommended for the cure of "nervous disorders" in women. As over-the-top as this story seems, it is historically more plausible than many modern readers might guess.
"In the Flask" by Vanessa Vaughn is also about medical science. Two dedicated chemists, a professor and his male student-assistant, are trying to create an elixir which would "cure" the "baser" (sexual) urges of their fellow-beings, thus allowing civilization to flourish. Like a sorcerer's apprentice, the young assistant makes a mistake. He pours the wrong fluid into the wrong flask while he is supposed to be tending the laboratory in the master's absence. The assistant is devastated, since he idolizes the professor and wants to prove himself worthy. What happens when the professor returns? Here is a hint: clearly, humanity at large wasn't "cured" of sexual feelings in the nineteenth century, and this anthology is a collection of erotic stories.
"Steam and Iron, Musk and Flesh" by Kaysee Renee Robichaud features Trista, a female engineering instructor who comes to grief when she takes the spoiled daughter of the school headmaster on a ride in a hot-air balloon, and lets young Cecilia distract her from tending to a dangerous loss of air pressure. The resulting crash ends Trista's academic career and sends her out to the wild West to find work. Trista joins a travelling show as the technician who will keep the mechanical man, a seven-foot hunk of iron, as functional as possible. Trista also meets the other woman in the show, a lonely sharpshooter who resembles Annie Oakley. Trista's concern for her lover inspires her to hatch an escape plan when she is taken hostage by bandits who want to use the mechanical man in a robbery.
Readers (such as this reviewer) who were raised on nineteenth-century fantasy literature will love the facsimile versions for grown-ups in this collection. All the writers seem familiar enough with the period to fake it convincingly while including more explicit sex than the authors of the time dared to describe. This e-book would be a good introduction to steampunk for readers who are unfamiliar with it. And Circlet Press is planning a sequel volume.
