- SteamPunkAs Labor Populism
- SteamPunk: A New "Guilded" Age?
- 5th Gen. Seattleite's Dismay: "Boneshaker"
- Absinthe (AKA "the Green Fairy")
- Remembering the "Steam" in Steampunk: the Virginia V.
- "Steam" in Steampunk, part II The S.S. Jeremiah O'Brien
- "Steam" in SP pt. II, the regal triple expansion steam engine.
5th Generation Seattleite's DisMay: A Review of "boneshaker"
I was looking forward to reading Boneshaker by Cherie Priest-- the book has received some good reviews. It's a SteamPunk novel set in Seattle. I am indeed a 5th generation native. I have a degree in botany and a minor in forestry (soil ecology) from the University of Washington. I do Northwest Indian art wood carving. My ancestors helped to supply the timber required to rebuild Seattle after the Great Fire of 1889. I was raised with a decided appreciation for the local environment, history, and culture. As it turns out, however, the book was a disappoinment. It seems hastily written, thrown together even. Worst of all is the author's apparent lack of any real knowledge about the Seattle area. And apparent disdain for readers such that doing a little research isn't worth the effort.
The first hint of trouble was in the author's note following the end of the novel. Where she explains to us simple-minded backwater natives that she realizes that the Smith Tower and King Street Station were built later than her chronology has it. She informs us that Steampunk is, after all, about alternative history. Well, duh. We know that. What we object to is that the altered timeline appears to have no other purpose than to serve as a tie-in to her next book. There is no compelling reason or anything relating to internal plot consistancy which would demand the changes. Goes to show that living in a city does not automatically confer depth of understanding.
There are repeated instances within the internal dialogue of characters where there is reference, on pp 45, 61, 70, and 74 of my edition, to the "ocean" or "the coast." How grating! None of us, past or present, who have lived here any length of time would say such a thing. Seattle is on Puget Sound, a fjord or series of estuaries that runs from where the Kitsap peninsula touches the Straits of Juan de Fuca south to Olympia, roughly 100 miles. The actual ocean and coastline are 140 miles to the west: across Puget Sound, past Hood's Canal, over the Olympic Mountains. Do people on the east coast of the US speak of the Chesapeake ocean or Long Island ocean?
Another sloppy bit on p. 395 is the 'old oak" in the yard of the lavender house. Oaks are not native to Seattle. It would have to have been planted. Since even in the alt. timeline Seattle is a young city, there would not have been enough growth for it to be old. Besides, the summer dry climate would be hard on it. Why not use the ubiquitous Douglas fir? Or better still, the beautiful western red cedar. This tree is also a mainstay of the First Peoples, the various Salish tribes around Puget Sound.
There is a remark make by the main character (Brier) on p. 80 that would perhaps be the opinion of someone from the flatlands, but not a native of the Pacific Northwest. "The woods had never been a comfortable place for Brier; she was a city child born and bred, and the wide-trunked walls of bark and brush made her feel small and anxious..." Even someone from present day Seattle or its many suburbs only has to go a few blocks to see large endemic trees. We're used to them... and we LIKE them. It's not like growing up in a city old enough to have urbanized its surroundings for centuries. To the point that trees of any decent size are only their tame versions in parks, while the very large wild trees are forests hundreds of miles away. To grow up in Seattle of the 1880s or 90s or for that matter, the alternate 1860s version, which differs only in the decade of its setting-- not in its flora-- would be to grow up within sight of old growth trees. They're also not "woods" like the eastern woodlands of the eastern US; they're conifer forests. Old growth also does not have "brush" in it; after the trees are a certain height, shade intolerant undergrowth is eliminated. When I was at the Univerity of Washington in the 1990s, a professor was promoting his theory that humans have an instinctive like of savanna lands with a few rounded angiosperm trees. I disagreed, then started asking people about their arboreal preferences. Natives of this area, northern Europeans, and Russians who grow up among the forest conifers feel safe among them. We feel unprotected and vulnerable in open grasslands. Just the opposite for people from the US midwest (or Texas, etc) or Russian steppes. For them, the conifers feel claustrophobic and too dark.
There is no acknowledgement or comprehension of the local Indian cultures. On p. 366, the main character of the book, Briar, refers to another character named Angeline, saying that she did not know what kind of Indian Angeline is. I do. So would any early resident. That's the name of Chief Seattle's daughter, who was a fixture along the city of Seattle's waterfront for decades. Her Suquamish name is Kik-is-ob-lu. Her father was Duwamish and Suquamish. One tribe along the river, the Duwamish, which flows into the city's Elliot Bay. The other directly across Puget Sound from Seattle, by the small town of Suquamish, which is named for them. Where Chief Seattle is buried. BTW, they are still there and their tribal museum is wonderful. In front of the museum is an Indian art triptych carving portraying the life of Angeline. There are other related Salish tribes throughout the area, but not close by. The book mentions a "totem pole" on p. 108. Totem poles per se are not a feature of Salish tradition. The nearest examples would be the Makah at the northwest tip of the state of Washington. Totem poles are products of the peoples much further north in British Columbia and Alaska. Yes, there is a totem in the Pioneer Square area of downtown Seattle near the pergola. It was actually stolen from the Tlingit villiage of Ft. Tongass, Alaska and brought to Seattle in late 1899. Briar also speaks of eating "salmon jerk." (p. 268) I presume this means Indian style smoked salmon, which is delicious. It is drier than lox, but not all that salty. We who are from the region say "smoked salmon."
Nor is there much of a feel for the influence of geology. Yes, Mt. Rainier is mentioned, but it's little more than a plot device, the supposed source of a heavier than air zombie-producing chemical. This beautiful mountain, 14,411 feet in elevation, dominates the skyline to the southwest, 56 miles away. It is a huge cone, rising almost from sea level, rather like Mt. Fuji in Japan. Hills, rivers, and lots of huge trees are in between the city of Seattle and the mountain. On p. 258, a character (Lucy) tells another (Brier) that the villian (Minnericht) said that "he says that Rainier's a volcano and vocanoes make poison gas, and if they don't spew it out, it stays underground..." The implication is that it was not commonly known that Mt. Rainier is a volcano nor that vocanos can release toxic gas. Humans have lived near volcanoes for tens of thousands of years. That volcanoes erupt has been known for millenia-- what wasn't known was why and how. Old surveys like those of Lewis and Clark and even earlier voyages of European explorers mention the volcanoes of the Cascade range. From information given by local Indians, a geologist in 1890 determined that Glacier Peak, about 70 miles north of Seattle, is also a volcano, although tucked into the Cascades. It is not a noticeable separate cone like Baker, St. Helens, or Adams, the other volcanoes of Washington State. BTW, flows from St. Helens or Rainier do not go in the direction of Seattle. If a volcano doesn't "spew it (gas, or whatever) out," then it is underground, all right. But then that's where it stays. There was a lethal gas eruption from a lake in the country of Camaroon, on the west coast of Africa, in 1986. It was CO2, which isn't poison, but displaces oxygen, suffocating people and animals. Its effects were localized, and the gas eventually dispersed.
A little research would have turned up some facts that would have made good story elements, not simply plot devices . First of all, Flowmole, a company that perfected drilling by means of fluid jets, started in 1984 in Kent, a suburb southeast of Seattle. It's now called UtilX and has subsidiaries around the world. Secondly, there was an intriguing and relevant by-product of the May 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens (96 miles from Seattle.) Scientists conducted research on lakes around the mountain in the first few years after the eruption to find out about biological processes of recovery. Several of them reported coming down with flu-like symptoms. Which turned out to be caused by species of Legionella, the "Legionnaires' disease" bacteria. A report of a study on that was done by two microbiologists at Oregon State University in 1983.
As evidence regarding the lack of research, consider the following. Something easily checked on-line. No need for a detailed search through the boring details of archival records. No need to speak to nit-picky locals in Seattle who just don't understand poetic ( or literary) license. Regarding the Smith Tower, an incredibly tall building for its time and the dialogue involved on p. 167: "...You ever hear of Smith Corona?" "...yeah, the guns." "No, that's Smith and Wesson. This tower was built with typewriter money." A touch of irony-- the L. C. Smith company started as a manufacturer of excellent (Baker) shotguns, still prized today. In 1888, the company ceased to make the shotguns, and the typewriter company was founded. However, Smith Corona did not exist until the merger of 1926. Corona was a model of typewriter made by Standard Typewriter; it was so popular that the company was renamed in 1914 after its own Corona.
Now I'll deal with the writing itself. How about some glaring anachronisms in the vocabularies of the characters? Zeke, on p. 162, is thinking that "...was a a good enough excuse to get proactive." The word was brought into popular usage as part of the new BizSpeak boom of the late 1980s-early 1990s, which some of us who are old enough remember. You'd be hard-pressed to find the word in dictionaires before that time. The Oxford Unabridged dates it to 1933; it is also used in Viktor Frankl's well-known book Man's Search for Meaning, which was published in 1946. The term was a description of the psychology of people who, no matter the circumstances, took responsibility for their lives.
Then there's p. 202..."you men and your toys." A variation on the difference between men and boys is the size of their toys. I found the likely earlier version: the difference between men and boys is the size of their shoes and the cost of their toys. Set the Freudian implications aside and consider the issue of class. Less than 14% of the population in the 19th-early 20th century were middle class, and that was tenuous. The machinations of the economic elite caused several recessions, known then as Panics. Few men could afford "toys." Nor was it unusual for children to work, a common practice until about 1920. The work week was longer and so was the work day. Little money for extras like toys, and no time to enjoy them. The phrase would not have made sense. Again, it was not in common usage until the 1980s.
And there's my least favorite neologism, lifestyle. In the book, it's used on p. 335 "...a much finer lifestyle than she can provide..." This term was promoted in 1929 by Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmond Freud. Bernays is considered to be the father of modern advertising. He also was an expert on propaganda, particularly its application to motivate the population of a country to support an unpopular war. For Freudians, humans are simply bundles of unconscious desires. What had been Jefferson's yeoman farmers and Adams' small town active citizens, the backbone of democracy, were now merely consumers. Degraded to the level of dangerous, irrational mobs to be manipulated for the benefit of the economic system. Since mass production ruled, why not utilize mass ideas to create demand? Identities as a by-product of gratification through consumption. Another irony-- capitalist economic theory assumes both perfect information and equal access so that supply and demand are objective market forces. Not so if advertising skews the field. "Lifestyle" is therefore the antithesis of SteamPunk, with its aesthetic of DIY. Technology conceived of as artistic, creative, humane, and individualistic.
TBC....
The first hint of trouble was in the author's note following the end of the novel. Where she explains to us simple-minded backwater natives that she realizes that the Smith Tower and King Street Station were built later than her chronology has it. She informs us that Steampunk is, after all, about alternative history. Well, duh. We know that. What we object to is that the altered timeline appears to have no other purpose than to serve as a tie-in to her next book. There is no compelling reason or anything relating to internal plot consistancy which would demand the changes. Goes to show that living in a city does not automatically confer depth of understanding.
There are repeated instances within the internal dialogue of characters where there is reference, on pp 45, 61, 70, and 74 of my edition, to the "ocean" or "the coast." How grating! None of us, past or present, who have lived here any length of time would say such a thing. Seattle is on Puget Sound, a fjord or series of estuaries that runs from where the Kitsap peninsula touches the Straits of Juan de Fuca south to Olympia, roughly 100 miles. The actual ocean and coastline are 140 miles to the west: across Puget Sound, past Hood's Canal, over the Olympic Mountains. Do people on the east coast of the US speak of the Chesapeake ocean or Long Island ocean?
Another sloppy bit on p. 395 is the 'old oak" in the yard of the lavender house. Oaks are not native to Seattle. It would have to have been planted. Since even in the alt. timeline Seattle is a young city, there would not have been enough growth for it to be old. Besides, the summer dry climate would be hard on it. Why not use the ubiquitous Douglas fir? Or better still, the beautiful western red cedar. This tree is also a mainstay of the First Peoples, the various Salish tribes around Puget Sound.
There is a remark make by the main character (Brier) on p. 80 that would perhaps be the opinion of someone from the flatlands, but not a native of the Pacific Northwest. "The woods had never been a comfortable place for Brier; she was a city child born and bred, and the wide-trunked walls of bark and brush made her feel small and anxious..." Even someone from present day Seattle or its many suburbs only has to go a few blocks to see large endemic trees. We're used to them... and we LIKE them. It's not like growing up in a city old enough to have urbanized its surroundings for centuries. To the point that trees of any decent size are only their tame versions in parks, while the very large wild trees are forests hundreds of miles away. To grow up in Seattle of the 1880s or 90s or for that matter, the alternate 1860s version, which differs only in the decade of its setting-- not in its flora-- would be to grow up within sight of old growth trees. They're also not "woods" like the eastern woodlands of the eastern US; they're conifer forests. Old growth also does not have "brush" in it; after the trees are a certain height, shade intolerant undergrowth is eliminated. When I was at the Univerity of Washington in the 1990s, a professor was promoting his theory that humans have an instinctive like of savanna lands with a few rounded angiosperm trees. I disagreed, then started asking people about their arboreal preferences. Natives of this area, northern Europeans, and Russians who grow up among the forest conifers feel safe among them. We feel unprotected and vulnerable in open grasslands. Just the opposite for people from the US midwest (or Texas, etc) or Russian steppes. For them, the conifers feel claustrophobic and too dark.
There is no acknowledgement or comprehension of the local Indian cultures. On p. 366, the main character of the book, Briar, refers to another character named Angeline, saying that she did not know what kind of Indian Angeline is. I do. So would any early resident. That's the name of Chief Seattle's daughter, who was a fixture along the city of Seattle's waterfront for decades. Her Suquamish name is Kik-is-ob-lu. Her father was Duwamish and Suquamish. One tribe along the river, the Duwamish, which flows into the city's Elliot Bay. The other directly across Puget Sound from Seattle, by the small town of Suquamish, which is named for them. Where Chief Seattle is buried. BTW, they are still there and their tribal museum is wonderful. In front of the museum is an Indian art triptych carving portraying the life of Angeline. There are other related Salish tribes throughout the area, but not close by. The book mentions a "totem pole" on p. 108. Totem poles per se are not a feature of Salish tradition. The nearest examples would be the Makah at the northwest tip of the state of Washington. Totem poles are products of the peoples much further north in British Columbia and Alaska. Yes, there is a totem in the Pioneer Square area of downtown Seattle near the pergola. It was actually stolen from the Tlingit villiage of Ft. Tongass, Alaska and brought to Seattle in late 1899. Briar also speaks of eating "salmon jerk." (p. 268) I presume this means Indian style smoked salmon, which is delicious. It is drier than lox, but not all that salty. We who are from the region say "smoked salmon."
Nor is there much of a feel for the influence of geology. Yes, Mt. Rainier is mentioned, but it's little more than a plot device, the supposed source of a heavier than air zombie-producing chemical. This beautiful mountain, 14,411 feet in elevation, dominates the skyline to the southwest, 56 miles away. It is a huge cone, rising almost from sea level, rather like Mt. Fuji in Japan. Hills, rivers, and lots of huge trees are in between the city of Seattle and the mountain. On p. 258, a character (Lucy) tells another (Brier) that the villian (Minnericht) said that "he says that Rainier's a volcano and vocanoes make poison gas, and if they don't spew it out, it stays underground..." The implication is that it was not commonly known that Mt. Rainier is a volcano nor that vocanos can release toxic gas. Humans have lived near volcanoes for tens of thousands of years. That volcanoes erupt has been known for millenia-- what wasn't known was why and how. Old surveys like those of Lewis and Clark and even earlier voyages of European explorers mention the volcanoes of the Cascade range. From information given by local Indians, a geologist in 1890 determined that Glacier Peak, about 70 miles north of Seattle, is also a volcano, although tucked into the Cascades. It is not a noticeable separate cone like Baker, St. Helens, or Adams, the other volcanoes of Washington State. BTW, flows from St. Helens or Rainier do not go in the direction of Seattle. If a volcano doesn't "spew it (gas, or whatever) out," then it is underground, all right. But then that's where it stays. There was a lethal gas eruption from a lake in the country of Camaroon, on the west coast of Africa, in 1986. It was CO2, which isn't poison, but displaces oxygen, suffocating people and animals. Its effects were localized, and the gas eventually dispersed.
A little research would have turned up some facts that would have made good story elements, not simply plot devices . First of all, Flowmole, a company that perfected drilling by means of fluid jets, started in 1984 in Kent, a suburb southeast of Seattle. It's now called UtilX and has subsidiaries around the world. Secondly, there was an intriguing and relevant by-product of the May 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens (96 miles from Seattle.) Scientists conducted research on lakes around the mountain in the first few years after the eruption to find out about biological processes of recovery. Several of them reported coming down with flu-like symptoms. Which turned out to be caused by species of Legionella, the "Legionnaires' disease" bacteria. A report of a study on that was done by two microbiologists at Oregon State University in 1983.
As evidence regarding the lack of research, consider the following. Something easily checked on-line. No need for a detailed search through the boring details of archival records. No need to speak to nit-picky locals in Seattle who just don't understand poetic ( or literary) license. Regarding the Smith Tower, an incredibly tall building for its time and the dialogue involved on p. 167: "...You ever hear of Smith Corona?" "...yeah, the guns." "No, that's Smith and Wesson. This tower was built with typewriter money." A touch of irony-- the L. C. Smith company started as a manufacturer of excellent (Baker) shotguns, still prized today. In 1888, the company ceased to make the shotguns, and the typewriter company was founded. However, Smith Corona did not exist until the merger of 1926. Corona was a model of typewriter made by Standard Typewriter; it was so popular that the company was renamed in 1914 after its own Corona.
Now I'll deal with the writing itself. How about some glaring anachronisms in the vocabularies of the characters? Zeke, on p. 162, is thinking that "...was a a good enough excuse to get proactive." The word was brought into popular usage as part of the new BizSpeak boom of the late 1980s-early 1990s, which some of us who are old enough remember. You'd be hard-pressed to find the word in dictionaires before that time. The Oxford Unabridged dates it to 1933; it is also used in Viktor Frankl's well-known book Man's Search for Meaning, which was published in 1946. The term was a description of the psychology of people who, no matter the circumstances, took responsibility for their lives.
Then there's p. 202..."you men and your toys." A variation on the difference between men and boys is the size of their toys. I found the likely earlier version: the difference between men and boys is the size of their shoes and the cost of their toys. Set the Freudian implications aside and consider the issue of class. Less than 14% of the population in the 19th-early 20th century were middle class, and that was tenuous. The machinations of the economic elite caused several recessions, known then as Panics. Few men could afford "toys." Nor was it unusual for children to work, a common practice until about 1920. The work week was longer and so was the work day. Little money for extras like toys, and no time to enjoy them. The phrase would not have made sense. Again, it was not in common usage until the 1980s.
And there's my least favorite neologism, lifestyle. In the book, it's used on p. 335 "...a much finer lifestyle than she can provide..." This term was promoted in 1929 by Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmond Freud. Bernays is considered to be the father of modern advertising. He also was an expert on propaganda, particularly its application to motivate the population of a country to support an unpopular war. For Freudians, humans are simply bundles of unconscious desires. What had been Jefferson's yeoman farmers and Adams' small town active citizens, the backbone of democracy, were now merely consumers. Degraded to the level of dangerous, irrational mobs to be manipulated for the benefit of the economic system. Since mass production ruled, why not utilize mass ideas to create demand? Identities as a by-product of gratification through consumption. Another irony-- capitalist economic theory assumes both perfect information and equal access so that supply and demand are objective market forces. Not so if advertising skews the field. "Lifestyle" is therefore the antithesis of SteamPunk, with its aesthetic of DIY. Technology conceived of as artistic, creative, humane, and individualistic.
TBC....