Tag Archives: steampunk

Steampunk and Bonsart Bokel – a Q & A

By INFAMOUS 🦀

After having reviewed both The Wrench in the Machine and Journey to Elysium, we felt it necessary to have a little interview with the visionary behind this universe we are so much enjoying. All the way from the Netherlands, Mr Bonsart Bokel!

 

Q1: is what you are writing steampunk? Or what should we call it?

 

Bokel: Yes, although I use different descriptions for every book. The Wrench in the Machine takes my definition of the Steampunk genre, Cyberpunk in the Past, to ‘Eleven’.

Q2: Steampunk seems like a very niche subgenre; what the general audience sees seems to be very limited and restrictive for creativity to thrive. Do you agree?

Bokel: I think the problem is we haven’t had the conversation on what Steampunk should be. To many, Steampunk is just an aesthetic. They discard the idea of being a genre entirely. So it became “Steampunk is like porn. You know it when you see it.” 

Currently, there is a lot of Fantasy with a Steampunk skin. (This is not necessarily Gaslamp Fantasy either).

The other cliche is the overall approach to history. This being the ‘oppressor vs oppressed’ or ‘class struggle’ narrative. It might make for decent stories, but does not make good Alternate History.

Q3: The ‘historical’ element in fiction has been underrated or even misused. Do you feel your approach is different when applying history to your stories?

 

Bokel: My series has a high emphasis on Alternate History, so I’m taking the ‘Past’ part of the definition very seriously. There are more Steampunk authors like that. But you wouldn’t know them. They went to a different school and live  in Canada now.

Joking aside, some ignore the historical part just to give themselves the freedom to explore historical processes without seeming biased. The Guns Above series is a good example of this. 

Q4: My favorite character from Journey to Elysium was Subject-09…Any chance we might see her again or even have her own dedicated novel? I love her character and not because she is a woman or because she is disabled either!

Bokel: Subject-09 is kind of an accident. A silly idea that people really love for some reason. Even as a short story (Cough, check out my page on Ream, cough) S-09 quickly proved people’s favorite along with Subject-06. 

Currently, I am still exploring ideas for the future novels. Although I have ideas for her, S-09 place is in the bigger picture of the overall series. There is still so much I need to figure out for what I call Phase1 of the Association of Ishtar, I wouldn’t be surprised if I can’t get her to shine until the start of Phase 3. When will Phase 2 start? When I finally know what I want to do for the third novel. Until then, she’ll make some small appearances, like in Anwin and Journey to Elysium.

 

Q5: Tell us briefly about your latest project going live soon on KS. Is this a comic book or a novel?

 

Bokel: The Kickstarter will launch on March 17 if all goes well. The Casket Girls is a novelette about mecha pilots serving in the French Imperial Penal Legion that will be illustrated. It will also contain various miniatures for your 3D printing pleasure as we are working on an RPG.

Q6: Originality in modern fiction seems rare these days. I think you are carving out the blueprints of something new and original. What can we see from the Association of Ishtar next?

 

Bokel: I already mentioned the RPG we hope to present by the end of the year.

I’m working on various books. One is a second Anwin novelette, which is about an autonomous doll and her owner, Igraine. Another is the Knights of Avalon, which is kind of the male chivalrous counterpart to the Casket Girls. 

Of course we also hope to have the second issue of our comic Journey to Elysium done.

Overall, I hope to create a community creating new Subjects, Constructs and Planes to be explored. I’m already doing it on the illustration front with our Alternate History videos on Youtube. Finding a way to collaborate with co-writers would be great if only to explore other genres beside hard sci-fi without losing sight of the themes of Steampunk.

 

(Gee, and here I thought Alternate History stories were simply about taking famous characters from history and swapping race or gender LOL!)

🦀

Don’t forget to back Bonsart!

And also follow him on REAM!

 

Journey to Elysium 1: the Remains of Babylon – a Review

Bonsart Bokel is building an ambitious steampunk narrative via various mediums including prose novels, comic books, and video mockumentaries. The alternate history world-building and extensive esoteric research that must have gone into this effort seems exhaustive.

This is the first comic book entry. I prepared for this review by reading the expository entries on Ream. In the comic itself, there are some vintage newspaper stories and technical documents that are also helpful to the reader (unlike the “Black Freighter” inserts in Watchmen).

In 1791 a gigantic bell-shaped object appeared in space, in a parallel orbit with our moon.

 

Napoleon Bonaparte’s reign in France followed the historical narrative we are familiar with. However, underneath the broad-brush historical developments, the technology of his Empire advanced to levels that (in some fields of science) rival those of the Second and Third Reich’s in the next century. For instance, just as the Germans launched V-1 and V-2s at Great Britain after Hitler’s war machine ground to a halt at the English Channel, Bonaparte’s Rocket Corps also terrorized the Brits with his own retro-Blitz.

In the 1820s, in an attempt to send cosmonauts to the Elysium Object (the massive bell-shaped object that appeared in the previous century), one rocket designed by Ghulam Ali (Bonaparte’s chief rocket scientist) explodes on the launch platform, and another mysteriously disappears after launch.

We come into the story some five decades later. Corporal Maurice Havelaar, late of the Dutch-Indian Army, is assigned a mysterious mission. I say mysterious because even the general thrust of the mission is withheld until the last panel. Never mind specifics.

 

I’m about to mention something that might be considered a spoiler by the author, though he certainly provided enough clues for the reader to figure it out on their own: even though Napoleon died on St. Helena generations ago, he is back, in an influential role. He has been reincarnated (?) as a girl with a spinal condition which has rendered one arm and one leg useless.

Is this the author’s way of incorporating the obligatory gender confusion into the story, or just coincidental with the current year’s obsession with cramming LGBTWTF down the audience’s throat? Not enough evidence yet to determine either way. Perhaps future installments will reveal if this is the typical ticket-taking bounce onto the Troon Bandwagon or not.

This character (the 7th Chairman) is escorted by a zeppelinful of “Elite Airborne Dragoons” to a converted oil rig platform in the Atlantic, where the elderly Ghulam Ali now lives, with an unlaunched third Elysium Rocket.

 

With or without Ali’s help, the 7th Chairman is taking over his abandoned Elysium Program, before a rival space program run by competitor Utter Krapp can launch its own mission.

Then Havelaar arrives at the oceanic platform weeks later, and the implication is that he will be included on the Elysium Rocket Ride.

We’ll have to read Part Two to see where this goes from here.

Part One, honestly, is a teaser. Obviously, it’s not much of a plot. But it does promise a significant and ambitious plot to follow, hopefully with some action and lots of adventure. This setup for the story, mostly establishing the exposition so you won’t be lost on the adventure, succeeds at intriguing the reader enough to keep turning pages.

The artwork has a lot to do with that. The style of the illustration leans to the simplistic side, but it’s drawn with attractive linework and coloring, and striking composition that enhances what storytelling is being done.

There are several NGOs and paramilitary organizations to keep track of in this universe. I’m unwilling, at this point, to put in the homework necessary to keep them all straight. Over time, that might become easier and worthwhile.

The writing is competent, and possibly will prove to be exceptional…it’s hard to say, so far. There were numerous typos. Some of them perhaps intentional, as in the faux newspaper stories and technical documents. The name of the rival company (Utter Krapp) is the only humor I could discern, and as such felt out of place. It reminds me of some of Howard Chaykin’s wink-wink-nudge-nudge verbal humor in a lot of his faux-trademarks in American Flagg–except Chaykin had it spread consistently enough through his comics that the contrast between that and the sober character behavior was also consistent, and seemed intentional.

The bottom line, I suppose, is: do I want to read more of Journey to Elysium? At this point, yes, I do.

THE WRENCH IN THE MACHINE by Bonsart Bokel – a Review

By INFAMOUS 🦀

Though The Wrench In The Machine is officially Book 1 of the ‘Association of Ishtar’ novel series by visionary Bonsart Bokel, this represents just one small cog (pun intended!) in his enormous worldbuilding machine. To call the author just ‘a writer’ wouldn’t do him any justice. The man has a vision and writing is but one single layer of his vision. We will have Mr Bokel in a Q&A interview soon, where we will be able to take a deeper dive into this vision.

 

When Inspector David Ol’Barrow answers the call to a railway triple murder, he finds himself involved in affairs way above his pay grade, involving secret societies, associations, and individuals of questionable backgrounds. With the unusual company of a strange young girl, Igraine, and three-legged mut, Old Boy, Ol’Barrow must rely on his instincts and intuition to stay ahead of the game…And that’s only the beginning!

So you may ask, is this a Sherlock Holmes-ish type of trope? The answer would be: No. It does have a mystery murder element to it but it’s not that. This is something new, fresh, and innovative that is based on three major components: historical, technological, and supernatural. The author is able to combine those components in ways that we haven’t read before, and the result is a brand new sub-genre with infinite possibilities.

Of course many might label this as ‘steampunk’ since the author is and has been a student and expert of the genre for years. But to call this steampunk would too be inaccurate, though it lays some of its roots in the genre, albeit detaching itself from the clique associated to it.

To me, the Association of Ishtar is where new fiction goes ‘next level’. In a fantasy literature market oversaturated with the same old tired out tropes and cliques, it is rare to find some originality comparable to this.

If there is one single personal irk I had with the novel itself that would be the father/daughter relationship that develops between Ol’Barrow and Igraine. I liked the execution and how this relationship grows organically from beginning to end of the story. You can see how Ol’Barrow goes from annoyed with the girl, to curious, to slightly caring for her, to risking his life for her. But in the end, she really comes off kind of cold, not even reciprocating the love he displays throughout their ordeal. I was expecting her to at least be a little more grateful, but honestly she seemed more excited to have her little doll Arwin back than anything…

To finish on a positive note, I’m glad to say that Wrench In The Machine puts Bonsart Bokel in my list of ‘legendary’ guest authors of the likes of R. V. Mills, M. Lane, and E. Laurence Jr.

Looking forward to reading book 2!

🦀

Steampunk: An Inside Look

by INFAMOUS 🦀

 

Steampunk. What is it exactly? How do we define it as a genre?

If you ask 10 different people you’ll most likely get 10 slightly different answers. I admit, I’m no authority on the subject, but ever since its conception in the 70s/80s I always felt that this genre never reached the recognition or full creative potential in fiction literature I felt it could reach. These days we see a lot of ‘sword and sorcery’ content being written, followed to a lesser extent by science fiction and some cyberpunk. For the most part Steampunk has been a fringe, relegated to the awkward cosplay characters at cons and some mediocrely written comic books and novellas. 

There hasn’t been an author to really put Steampunk on the map. And that’s too bad, for the genre itself offers some most peculiar and exciting elements. 

The main element (for me at least) is certainly the ‘historical period’ element: Steampunk is based on a dystopian Victorian era that sees the introduction of technological advances that have influenced everything from communications, to architecture, to fashion, and beyond. 

This world is posh, austere, elegant, and intriguing. It’s in this retro style that we should find the source of great and unexplored storytelling. But do we?

Just putting goggles and top hats on some blimp-flying characters won’t make for great stories, but it seems that most of the steampunk content we have is just that: unoriginal, mediocre stories dressed up in Steampunk attire.

Virtual Pulp was able to connect with a ‘certain individual’ I firmly believe to be an authority on the topic. 

This gentleman will help me and you better understand Steampunk in relation to the current fiction literature trends, and dispel any and all misconceptions. He is also a proficient writer and thus we will also feature his first novel and first comic book, complete with a thorough review.