A blog devoted to the Tommy Thunder and The Aether Age pulp fiction series. It's Dieselpunk fiction at its pulpiest with two-fisted brawls, biplane dogfights, mysterious safaris, Prohibition gin-running and swanky art-deco speakeasy hopping as far as the eye can see.
In terms of writing progress it wasn't a very good week and a half I'm afraid. Didn't get much writing done thanks to a whole lot of time spent training for future employment so, while productive in one way, it was completely unproductive in the other. And to make matters worse I'm in the middle of a huge edit where I have to restructure one of my stories to cut it in half, all thanks to a character who selfishly stole the spotlight and made the story all about her (you will meet her one day and see what I mean). This situation has taught me that writing is a bazillion times less satisfying when you're adding words, not just remaking words you thought you had already finished a long time ago. A bazillion times worser!
But that's not the worstest part. The worstest part is that on Friday my favourite cafe for writing shut down!!!
Now, I have to admit, the 'my favourite writing cafe' and 'shutting down' are probably connected. One of the best parts about my favourite cafe was the lack of customers. That and there was also an air-conditioner, comfy chairs, decent music that was either a) too quiet or b) not that annoying, and most importantly, there was plenty of sugar and caffeine on tap made by people who already knew what I wanted. Apparently it wasn't very good coffee but I'm coffee illiterate so as long as there was plenty of sugar and caffeine in said coffee-related beverage then it was fine by me. Which helps when you're looking for a quiet cafe with few customers.
But now it's gone. And I have lost my writer's nook.
: (
In other writing news the Dieselpunk Showcase is quickly approaching 4,000 downloads. We're getting about 80 downloads a week which is pretty awesome. Now I need to get my finger out and write something else as a follow up. Which is a good segue into...
Short stories. Last writer's update I said I'd mention the Tales of the Aether Age collection I'm putting together to release at the same time as the Tommy Thunder books I'm writing. It's going to be an eclectic mix of at least four stories that fleshes out the Aether Age world.
I'm still going to be a bit sketchy on the details but there will be some familiar espionagists, a mad scientist whose secret lair is under attack from one of those annoying cloaked vigilantes, an automobile-equipped gin runner with more than her fair share of moxie, and maybe even an origin story for a most stylish character that will become important later on. All stories laced with as much 'punk as I can possibly distill into my typewriting fingers, not to mention plenty of pulpy fun ('scientifiction' pulpy fun).
Now all I've got to do is finish writing the things...
However, it's not all about me. Often... it's about Superman. The following clip is important. If you haven't seen it yet then you should. Because it's important. And awesome. So very very awesome:
Hope you have an awesome pulpy week : )
Grant: the guy trying to edit old stuff so he can go back to writing new stuff.
Not sure what this poster is saying but if it's a message of impending triumph for the Japanese it can also be read as a sinister and looming threat of a possible future for the Chinese.If anyone can read it I would be interested to know what the poster says.
*E-Pulp Warning* All my e-reading is e-pulp so I review to that standard. Reader beware :) *E-Pulp Warning*
Overall: 4 stars (Recommend)
I stumbled across a recommendation for this series and I'm really glad I did. Spinward Fringe is a fantastic example of space opera fiction with an incredibly detailed world, fantastic technology and a great concept that allows us to explore them both. While it can suffer the usual pacing problems inherent in the genre it is a quality start to an e-pulp series that shows plenty of promise.
Pacing and Action: 3 stars.
Like all the best space opera the battles in Spinward Fringe are fantastic. Epic in scope yet still allowing for the brilliance of amazing fleet tacticians, anyone who's a fan of the genre will feel well at home with SF's grasp of epic confrontation. But the action isn't limited to space as the crew finds themselves in all sorts of sticky situations from bounty hunter chases to jail breaks. The author's use of sci-fi technology definitely helps here as the characters are set up well for the sort of Star Wars-esque running and gunning that makes for great action-adventure storytelling. It's all excellent, fun stuff and the first two stories rip along.
Unfortunately the third story does fall back into the bad habits of the genre. Anyone who loves this genre tends to get used to the tendency of stories to get bogged down in the technology as the author tries to illustrate just how much thought they've put into their sci-fi tech tree (I'm looking at YOU Honor HarringtonOn Basilisk Station). As space opera that's fine but as e-pulp it can turn into a grind about rail cannons and refit schedules that will bore you to tears. There's also some structural problems with the third story where there doesn't seem to be any stakes or narrative motivation until about half way through the story. Considering this is a first novel that one mistake is not bad but it did bring a rip-roaring sci-fi romp to a bit of a crawl which was disappointing.
But if you like your action full of fleet battles and laser blasters, you'll get something out of this for sure.
Pulp Concept: 5 stars.
Brilliant. The world of Spinward Fringe is well thought out and we get a good sense of just what's happening out there in that big old universe. The technology opens all sorts of potential and the wider political machinations make you want to return to the universe to see what happens. Good stuff.
The ship and tech for the crew also helps. If you've ever dreamed of exploring the galaxy with the sort of hardware that allows you to break the Prime Directive with impunity then this is your sort of exploring. Gunboat exploration with the chance to nuke dirty corporate thugs? What could be better than that?
Perhaps the only drawback may be the stories tendency to fall into wish fulfillment - a lot of really convenient things do tend to happen for the crew to function the way they do - but that's kind of the point. If you're super-sam-serious about your sci-fi this may in fact be a turn off but if you're like me and you want to just shoot up corporate stooges with impunity then this is a story for you. And what could be more pulp than that?
Character development: 3.5 stars.
I'm not going to say the characters are brilliant, nor memorable, nor do they go through any sort of development that may merit a PhD thesis. But there definitely is character development there. Maybe it's the wish fulfillment aspect but the characters do tend to blend into the background, subsumed by the cool stuff. They do however exist and do have a story arc. But it's not why you'll be reading this.
Production: 4 stars.
Good editing make it a very readable book. I didn't notice anything that kicked me out of the story. The story was also free as the first in the series which is always big points for production.
The only real drawback would be the fairly unmemorable cover. It does clearly state which 'broadcast' in the series this is (unfortunately a nice surprise for a lot of e-pulp) but it's still fairly forgettable.
Series Potential: 4 stars.
This series is already selling like hotcakes so the concept is sound. It's also six or seven books strong already so if you enjoy this one you can keep reading safe in the knowledge that there's plenty more where that came from.
On its own merits though you can see why there's such a following. The world that has been imagined begs to be explored further and the impression that we've just started this journey is palpable. About the only thing preventing it from being 5 stars would be the characters. At no point was I desperate to see what happened to them even if I was interested in seeing what happened to their ship. But still, there's definitely gold in them thar hills and I look forward to returning to the Spinward Fringe universe.
Wrap Up.
Excellent sci-fi space opera pulp with fantastic potential for the future. If you're into space opera and into reading e-pulp then this is definitely a story for you. With plenty more where that came from...
Grant.
For more e-pulp be sure to check out my other Good-Reads reviews as well.
This is awesome! An artist named Jason Mark has done up a series of 1920s-style mugshots for several Batman villains post-Batman encounter. There's also an Australian connection as the original mugshots that inspired the series is from our glorious little convict country. So I have 1920s (my favoured part of the Diesel era), superheroes (as pulpy as you can get, thank you very much) and Australia (Aussie Aussie Aussie...), all in one awesome, Dieselpunky package. How do you get better than that?
Click the piccy above to see the artist's website or check out Design Taxis website for more info on the original inspiration pics. The rest follow.
Having only my childhood memories of this song, I honestly thought this was sung by one Mister Armstrong until I went searching for it. Turns out it's an Australian song from 1981. So there you go.
Be warned though: this song has been getting stuck in the heads of Australians for several decades now. You've been warned...
Thought I’d talk about one of the major inspirations for
Tommy Thunder this week on Pulp Manifesto. For those with a passing knowledge
of the source material you’ll have a much better understanding of the sort of
world the Aether Age is, while other people might be interested in my sordid
tale of fan fiction gone horribly wrong/right.
Our journey starts with a little miniatures table top
wargame called… CrimsonSkies.
For those not in the know, the Crimson Skies world is a setting
developed for a tabletop wargame, but is probably better known as a popular
computer game that launched with the first X-Box. The tabletop game revolved
around air combat set in an alternate universe 1930s setting where zeppelins
dominated the sky and whacky planes with strong Art Deco styling either
protected or raided said airships with swashbuckling audacity. The X-Box game
followed suit with caper-filled air adventures that took you from Hawaii to New
York as you followed the exploits of a daring squadron intent on… doing adventurous
things.
In terms of pure Dieselpunk style the game is one of the
best examples of a self contained Dieselpunk world. And, while the games are no
longer being made, what material was produced still serves as many an innocent’s
gateway drug to the world of Dieselpunk. More than a few people who received this
dose of distilled Dieslpunky goodness have been left hankering for more.
I was one of these un/fortunates. I can’t remember all the
details but at some stage during my sordid wargaming past I stumbled across
some images of this crazy new world and its completely different take on
fantasy or sci-fi or whatever it was. I didn’t know what genre it was and I
never actually got a good look at the game itself (tabletop or X-Box) but I saw
two things that immediately had me hooked and fantasising about my own
adventures in this crazy new world.
The first thing I saw was the retrotech planes. Have you
seen them? Here are some examples:
I LOVED the whackiness of these designs. My first exposure to
the world was the miniatures and although I was never able to buy any myself I
immediately fell in love with the idea of retroteching past eras. And can you
smell the adventure? Nothing says adventurous swashbuckling like a push prop,
Art deco-styled, pre-jet fighter plane. Nothing! These things dug deep down
into my psyche to where that ‘Indiana Jones’ button was and started banging
away saying ‘Here! Here! We’ve found something else that’s exactly like this! But with planes!’
The second thing I found – the thing that had me hooked for
life – was this image:
That there is a beautiful thing. It’s a map. Of a balkanised
America. A map that provokes adventure and imagination and possibility. And not
a single dwarf or elf to be seen anywhere. The minute I saw that thing my
imagination was never able to let go of that obscure little world I had glimpsed
but never directly experienced myself.
So I imaginated. A lot. As I am want to do. I daydreamed
about a world in which I could suit up my whacky fighter plane, deck out a
zeppelin and take to the skies in a deadly dance to the death with other
similar fighter pilots. A world full of jazz and that cool 1930s styling (I had
no idea what Art Deco was, but I liked it). A world of Indiana Jones style
hijinks but with the added awesomeness of planes. A world of distinct characters
and groups clashing in a world of fun instead of the usual gritty, serious and repetitive
worlds that I kept encountering elsewhere in my wargaming and reading
wanderings.
Fast forward several years and my Crimson Skies imaginating
had joined the catalogue of other alternate worlds sequestered away in the back
of my brain archives – there but lying dormant. Every now and then I would take
the world out and play around with it, maybe scratch out some ideas or
pipedream about being allowed to write a novel or something set in that world,
but that’s all it was – pipedreaming. I even went so far as to start writing a
comic. It was more an experiment in how to convey air combat in panels (the
bane of all air comics – it’s really hard to do) with a Crimson Skies
background but it worked really well, giving me more heartbreaking confirmation
that I was on to something, but something that breached someone elses copyright.
SoI put it back in the imagination
archives and got on with my first novel, a novel set in a fantasy world with no
magic (yep, I’m one of those people who can never do things the ‘normal’ way).
Then two things happened. First, I ran into some problems
with my novel. I hit a wall and discovered that I’m a super detailed planner
when it comes to writing. I couldn’t pants a plot to save myself. And I was
pantsing my way to a standstill. My solution was to break the story down into
smaller sections, a technique I’d been looking at with my newfound interest in
old-school pulp writing and movie serials. But then I realised that,
structurally speaking, I would be changing the novel and that if I was going to
continue doing so I’d need to get more practise. Probably on other stories that
were pulped from the beginning. So I sat down and scribbled out ideas for three
different pulpy series that I could experiment with. My Crimson Skies idea was
one of these ideas and the pulpiest of the lot.
The second thing I did was have a look around for Crimson
Skies stuff now that I had this thing called the internet. It had been so long
since I first discovered the idea that I wondered if there had been anything
else written or wether a new game was coming out etc etc. What I found was a
website where they recorded people playing the game so you could watch how each
of the levels played out…
You know that thing where your memories of something are
cruelly and brutally shanked when you actually go back and see it again as an
adult?
Yeah. That.
The Crimson Skies I imagined wasn’t the Crimson Skies that
actually existed out there in the real world. It wasn’t bad (it was still a lot
of fun) and, objectively speaking, on the surface it was everything I
remembered. But the overall effect I had created in my mind was… completely
different.
It turns out the Crimson Skies game doesn’t take itself
seriously. In many ways it’s actually a parody of the era. Is that a bad thing?
No. The way in which it gently parodies itself is charming in its own way. But
how are you supposed to take a story seriously if the characters are just caricatures?
More importantly, how are you supposed to get your ‘punk on?
And it turns out that the plane designs weren’t original
either. They were all based on real World War 2 X-plane designs, experimental
planes that were never put into production because they never made the grade. For
some reason seeing real world photographs of these machines hoovered away a lot
of the romantic awe I had built up in my mind for the world’s originality.
Turns out it wasn’t as original as I thought. Turns out it was based on a whole
lot of other stuf that, to be honest, I wasn’t that into.
The Henschel Hs P75.
The Curtis Wright XP-55 Ascender.
The Sacks AS-6.
It also meant that the technology of the game included all
sorts of post-World War 2 tech like guided missiles, jet engines on every plane
and planes loaded down with an absurd number of machine guns. I knew that this
was all for the game and simplifying it for more fun but it made me brutally
aware that I wanted to scale the tech backwards, not forwards into the Cold-War
era. But that’s exactly where Crimson Skies technology was headed – forwards.
And, weirdest of all, I just couldn’t accept the idea that
the zeppelins – the very basis of this alternate world – were able to exist the
way they did. Here they were laden down with armour and machine guns and planes,
all without nary an explanation as to how they achieved the extra lift
required. I was watching a world in which jet-enabled push prop aircraft were
launching into battle with wings full of guided rockets but I couldn’t accept
the fact that they were launched from a standard sized zeppelin with a
Tardis-esque cargo bay full of armoured fighters.
I know I’m weird. But it’s the sort of weird I need to
harness in order to write. And my weird was just not gelling with this
particular scientific leap.
This then led me on a witch hunt through the alternate
history aspects of the Crimson Skies universe at which point I started finding
more things I didn’t like. I was now mercilessly tearing holes in the thing
that I thought I loved. I was spurned, I was hurt and I was in shock. That
thing that I based my fan fiction daydreaming on was not what I thought it was
at all. What I was writing was almost in another universe completely…
It was at that time that I started to wonder if I was
infringing copyright after all. Maybe I was actually writing my own thing
altogether.
Some soul searching and I started going over all the things
that I was doing differently to Crimson Skies. I wanted biplanes and
trideckers, not guided rockets and jetplanes. That meant a 1920s setting
instead of 1930s. I also didn’t know enough about American history to see how
that many different groups could spread across the map in a realistic manner
and rejected the map as unfeasible. In fact, while I was at it, history would
suggest a different fracturing and for completely different reasons. So that was
different in my version. And that problem with the zeppelins… that would take a
little bit of sci-fi to fix with the addition of another lifting gas, what I
would call ‘aether’. And if there was one sci-fi aspect then that would mean I
could go super pulpy and start adding <…spoiler redaction…>!
In the end, while the heritage is clear to those who know
where to look, the tone and focus of the Aether Age world has ended up very different
to that of Crimson Skies. Most similar is the balkanisation of a post World War
1 America with obvious things like the various power centres of the dissolved
United States being similar in their broad sweeps even if they’ve been
simplified and changed to some degree (After all, it doesn’t matter what
alternate universe youcreate, Texas will
always be Texas. It’s a rule of the multiverse). But the earlier setting, the
presence of aether and other unique sci fi additions, the different alternate
history background and the stronger focus on non-aerial material gives The
Aether Age a very different destination to all this 1920s American
balkanisation.
Thus, thanks to Crimson Skies, Tommy Thunder has been born. And
with him a world of aeronautical swashbuckling and pulpy madness, set in a
balkanised America where anything pulpy is possible. It started with a Crimson
Skies obsession built upon insufficient information. It has become a series of
books I hope I can write for many decades to come. And I hope you can all come
along for the ride with me.
In the future I’ll reveal some more of the inspirations
behind Tommy Thunder and the world of The Aether Age but in the meantime, if
you were one of those un/fortunates to
get hooked on Dieselpunk or pulp via Crimson Skies I’d love to hear from you. Don’t
be afraid to leave a comment below :)
Gravedigger is another addition to Barry Reese’s growing stable of old-school nostalgia pulp creations and, as usual, doesn’t disappoint. The Gravedigger leans more to the horror side of the nostalgia-driven dark avenger theme with a bit more gore and darkness than before, while bringing the Sovereign City world closer together with several crossovers and some more historical background to the city. All while providing a read that won’t trouble first time readers to the Sovereign City world. It’s good quality epulp that’s a definite read for those who like their vigilantes up to their neck in the supernatural and don’t mind some gibbs and gore along the way.
Pacing and Action: 4 stars.
The pacing is good with three short stories that introduce us to this new character and plunge us into the supernatural shenanigans that plague Sovereign City. There’s plenty of action, crazy situations and cross-city conspiracy that ensures the book earns its pulpy status. Not to mention a good helping of supernatural bad guys that need to be dispatched by our new hero. It’s all well detailed and fast.
About the only problem with the pacing – and I’m using the word ‘problem’ loosely – is that the book does tend to timeline jump a bit in order to fill in the historical backstory. By any other standard the pace is fine but on a pulpy scale it does tend to haul things up and complicate the read more than usual. It won’t spoil the read but it is less than pulp-ideal.
Pulp Concept: 5 stars.
Very pulpy. If you’ve ever read an old-school dark avenger vigilante story then this is familiar territory but with a few very unique twists. It creates a character with an interesting quandary and plenty of momentum for further adventures, all steeped in the supernatural and dark. The only shortcoming might be for people who like their reading gore free as the book does have a touch of the exploitation film about it – not in a big way but it’s there – and if so you may want to knock a star off the final score, but for everyone else this is as pulpy as you like.
Character Development: 4 stars.
The protagonists’ dilemma and motivation is written well and there’s plenty of supporting characters with their own personalities and motivations. There’s an interesting group dynamic with some really interesting cross-overs with already established characters for readers familiar with them. As pulp goes these are very well rounded characters with a proper internal life that should draw the reader in and get them invested in the story if you’re in it for the action and nothing but.
However, the supporting cast can fade into two-dimensional characters that are more ideas than full blown people. Their behaviour can seem a little inconsequential at times, the risks they take having no ramifications or consequences to the point that they’re untouchable and above what happens to them. It can also cheapen the Gravedigger’s abilities when supporting characters every now and then manifest their own amazing abilities (I’m talking about a certain briefcase throwing incident) and are relatively unfazed by anything around them (they’re awfully chipper and loyal considering some of the things they see). But, considering this is the first story it may be all about establishing a status quo than delving into their own faults and insecurities.
Production: 5 stars.
A gorgeous cover and good price make this 5 stars even though there were a few editorial misses in the third book. Unfortunately the cover hasn’t been posted here on GoodReads (I read the ebook version as well, but that’s not up in time for this review either) but in colour it really is amazing, perfectly capturing the mood and pulpy ‘tude the book has. Very nice.
Series Potential: 5 stars.
Definitive. There’s plenty more action to be had following The Gravedigger and all the pieces are in place for further adventures. Sovereign City is also becoming a more textured and detailed location for all things pulpy so it would be a crying shame if there weren’t more stories in the pipeline.
Wrap Up.
Another quality piece of writing from a trustworthy name in nostalgia pulp. Even though it has its faults I’m still giving this 5 stars as it is as good as anything else out there in epulp land, nostalgia or otherwise, with plenty more story to check out if you want to read more. For those who like their pulp reading gore free you may want to knock a star off but for those who like their vigilantes embroiled in the supernatural this is a must read. I definitely recommend.
Okay, so I've been avoiding this. Avoiding the need to post a writer's update for a while now. It's not that I have something against writer's updates - far from it, they're the staple of most writer blogs and the reason people show up at writer blogsites - it's just that once I do one update on where I'm up to with my writing then I'm gonna have to keep doing them. For the rest of my writing career.
So the pressure is on.
Actually, I was hoping to delay giving writer updates for a while because I didn't plan on blogging until I had most of my writing ducks in a row ie when I actually had something to write about ie when I had things like book covers etc to show. But then the Dieselpunk Showcase opportunity came along and that wrecked everything. I had to dash out there and set up a blog, and apply for one of those GoodReads author accounts, and sign up to Amazon... A whole lot of work. But it did get me out there in internet writer land and for that I'm grateful. And I have a GoodReads author page now. Which is pretty cool :)
And now there are people googling my name. Which means... the pressure is back on. <disconcerted smiley>
Speaking of the Dieselpunk Showcase: we recently passed 3,500 downloads. Which is pretty good for an indie. It's a free book so a percentage of those downloads will be people who wont get round to reading it (they're called hoarders because they like to download stuff for the sake of downloading stuff - apparently it's a thing) but if even half of those copies are read then the project has been a success for our intrepid little band of authors. And with a steady trickle of downloads still coming via Amazon and more reviews and ratings showing up on GoodReads all the time, etc it can only get more successful.
If you have arrived here after reading the Showcase then, yeah, I'm the bloke who wrote the first story in the anthology, That Sort of World. Hope you enjoyed it. I've only got one more story on the web at the moment, a story posted over at Alternatehistoryweeklyupdate.blogspot.com called The More Things Change. It's another free short story set in the Aether Age universe, this time in a little gambling town called Las Vegas. It was a complicated little story for such a small word limit but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.
Which brings me to the important stuff. Tommy Thunder and the Aether Age stuff.
If anyone's interested there is plenty of Tommy Thunder and Aether Age writing in the pipeline, all of which should be released some time this year. At the moment I am working on four separate books that I hope to release all at once some time in the next three months. (The schedule is up in the air until I finally do get around to organising covers and braving the gauntlet of paperwork that is the American IRS application form).
Yeah, that's right. Four different books to be released at once. With several more to follow.
Why four? The plan is to release enough story to get people interested in hanging around for the next issues and I figure if people like the first book then they'll want to read the next book but if it isn't released they may wander off and forget about me :( So I'm going to release four books and people who like my writing will be able to buy as many of them as they like and get properly immersed in the series etc.
Of the four books, three will be Tommy Thunder, Scourge of the Skypirate books (#1-#3) and the other will be Tales of the Aether Age volume #1 which is a book full of short stories similar to That Sort of World set in the Aether Age universe but not directly linked to Tommy's Carribean adventures.
And the names of these books (at this minute, which may change before publication)?
Tommy Thunder in: The Black Vixen of Deadman's Island & The Mystery of the Silent Zephyr. Tommy Thunder in: The Race for the White Fedora. Tommy Thunder in: The Big Fight at The Crater.
and...
And I'll keep the names of the Aether Age short stories for another post. I'll also have another post soon about how far I am along the path with each individual book etc etc.
So, if you've just wandered in - welcome to my quirky corner of the interwebs. If you've visited a few times then feel free to ask any questions you have or give any feedback on the website or my writing and I hope you stick around to enjoy the bizarre mix of Dieselpunk, pulp, alt history and other vaguely associated things this blog is turning into.
This post is the fifth and final post in my (long) blog essay
arguing Bond’s place as one of the first Dieselpunks.
Starting with post 1 I explained how the Art Deco period
marked a change in cultural authority. Cultural authority started with the
upper classes at the turn of the Century then gradually shifted to the middle
classes as technology and consumer discretionary income rose. However, during
the Depression of the 1930s an image of the ‘high life’ was conveyed to
audiences, a high life that involved fancy suits, glamorous women, dancing,
exotic locations and a host of other qualities sourced from the upper class
culture of the Art Deco movement. The post War period saw the end of Art Deco
and the rise of youth culture, but also the ‘problem’ of the Soviet Union. Both
‘problems’ found a cultural solution in the form of the spy – a jetsetting,
dapper gent who rejected contemporary fashion trends for a classy suit, had
more than his fair share of charm, travelled to exotic locations and took down
enemies of the Free World. Bond was both the reason for the glut of spy
storytelling during the 1960s as well as its leading light.
Bond would go on to become the most successful film series
of all time, a title that wont change as new films are made into the indefinite
future. And while other properties from the era get the occasional reboot, such
as the Mission: Impossible and The Saint movies, Bond hasn’t rebooted for new
audiences so much as updated and changed to suit current tastes. Over and over
and over again, to the point that the longest stretch the world has gone
without a new Bond has been the five year gap between License to Kill (1989) and Goldeneye
(1995).
You could say this was the closest Bond got to being cancelled...
So why has the Bond series become the genre titan that it is
today? Especially when the rest of the genre had ‘gone out of style’ by the mid
1970s. What is it about Mister Bond, James Bond that has made him one of the
most successful stories of all time, reaching more human beings than nearly any
other story being told today? And how does this tie into his Dieselpunk
tendencies?
I think that Bond embodies a unique set of ideas, a set of
ideas that sets him apart from the rest of his action hero peers and makes him
more culturally valuable. This was a process that started in the 60s when Bond
first appeared on our cinema screens, embodying a hero that looked back to the
past in the way he dressed, acting as an argument against current trends in
society. In doing so he saved the day from current threats. He embodied the
argument for the value of the old way of doing things – the Diesel way of doing
things – taking on new threats with old style. And it’s an argument that has
been readdressed and remade every time the Bond franchise has added to its
roster.
They never stood a chance...
This argument for Bond’s constantly updating retro focus has
become more obvious the longer the series has continued, several new breeds of action
hero coming and going during Bond’s illustrious reign. From the Western and cop
heroes of the 70s, to the Hard Body heroes of the 80s, the martial arts heroes
of the 90s and the superheroes of the Noughties Bond has held his own and
outlived them all. But I think the unique qualities of Bond – the things that
make him a unique idea that outlasts all those other heroes – can best be
illustrated by revisiting one of the more famous sequences of the series, the
opening scenes from what many consider the greatest Bond film of all time, Goldfinger (1964).
The opening sequence of Goldfinger
has everything that sets Bond apart as a hero. The opening shot of Bond is of a
seagull swimming towards a dock, a seagull that lifts out of the water to
reveal that the bird is actually fake, tied to Bond’s head as camouflage while
he scuba dives up to the dock. It’s an absurd opening shot for a hero but
clearly illustrates that he doesn’t take himself too seriously. It’s a knowing
sense of humour – a wink at the audience if you like – that is repeated later
in the sequence when he is asked why he always carries a gun and he replies “Oh,
it’s because I have an inferiority complex.”
This ‘knowing’ humour illustrates how Bond is completely
self aware concerning his more bombastic and cheeky aspects... and he doesn’t
care. In fact he revels in them and invites the audience to do so as well. When
combined with his ability to shrug in the face of over-the-top insanity we get
a character that wanders into a giant secret underground villain lair, shrugs
his shoulders at the absurdity and continues onwards, just to see where it all
leads. Bond’s knowing-ness allows his villains to be as absurd as they are (or
for the situation to get as absurd as it does) without destroying the audience’s
suspension of disbelief because, like us, he wants it to continue.
The second aspect that sets Bond apart is revealed after he
has emerged from the water, infiltrated the secret drug lab and rigged it to
blow in twenty minutes. He then leaves the facility and removes his full body
wetsuit... to reveal that he is wearing a white dinner jacket and bow tie. It
is yet another absurd gag played for laughs but it also sums up Bond’s attitude
to fashion – he adores wearing suits and will go out of his way to make it
happen. The fact that he then walks into an establishment where half the people
aren’t even dressed up is irrelevant. Bond is the most over dressed man in the
place and he’s quite okay with that. He chooses to dress in a classy way, superseding
all other suit wearers around him, he chooses to make a big deal about his
cocktails, his watches and his cars (which don’t exactly blend in during his
espionage missions) and he chooses to behave in a way that is different to
those around him. He’s making a stand, a stand that harkens back to an earlier
age of well-tailored suits, fast cars and cocktails and it’s a stand that has
become synonymous with the hero ever since. A DIESELPUNK stand.
Overdressed or just making a decent effort?
The scene ends in typical Bond style. He takes a completely unnecessary
detour – both in terms of plot and mission – in order to visit his lady friend,
the dancer at the bar. While there she waits until he is disarmed then has him
ambushed by a random goon. Bond evades the initial attack before knocking the
goon into a bathtub full of water, then throws a fan in to electrocute his ambusher.
The finishing quip by Bond? “Shocking. Positively shocking.” It’s a joke that
is humorous both because it releases the tension at the end of the action scene
but also because what happened really wasn’t surprising at all. In the face of
a warning not to, Bond went on an unnecessary aside to his mission and found
trouble. Exactly where he knew it could be.
But that’s Bond. He jetsets off to
locations full of danger and then extricates himself, all with a style that
harkens back to the Diesel era which was the high point for his choice of
fashion. All with a wry humour that audiences across the world adore. He doesn’t
do it dressed in camo and lugging military hardware around, he’s not a cop out
to rescue his family, a martial artist out to avenge his slain master, or a
superpowered hero with rage issues or a deep psychological need to scare bad
guys into obeying the law. Bond saves the world by dressing in the classiest
way possible, jetting off to an exotic location to meet up with a classy dame where
he enjoys taking down a bad guy with humour in the face of absurdity. A classy method
of heroism that can be thin on the ground these days.
So that's the end of my VERY long blog series/essay on the Dieselpunkitude of Bond, James Bond. I didn't intend to make it so long but there you go... it's finally finished. If you have any thoughts on the topic feel free to leave your opinion, whether for or against. I'd be happy to chat to anyone who'd like to talk about Bond or Dieselpunk :)
