Check out this webcomic.
Ohh nifty. I loves me some steampunk!
The Steampunk Workshop (he mods a keyboard and monitor, among other things, to look steampunk.)
I am TOTALLY doing that brass etch technique.
Woohoo! Dwarves with guns!
The ultimate steampunk novel is, of course, Sterling and Gibson’s The Difference Engine.
I saw a hydraulic riding spider at Burning Man last year. It was really cool.
It was awesome, the drivetrain on it was pretty intense and it made some really cool mech noises.
I wish to god someone would come up with a less annoying name for the style than “steampunk.” It’s like referring to the entire body of medieval-themed fantasy works exclusively as “chainmail hippie” or something. There’s absolutely nothing “punk” about the overwhelming majority of “steampunk.” Even if punks had existed in the Victorian era, they would have been referred to as “ruffians” or “hooligans,” and would have occupied all their time with petty crime and absinthe-fueled football riots in Cheapside, not going around building pneumatically-powered robots and such.
The term – like the genre – derives from cyberpunk.
Well, but “cyberpunk” generally documents the goings-on of punks. They’re just future punks. But there were no punks during the Age of Steam, any more than beatniks. There’s nothing particularly “punkish” about Victorian-era science fiction gadgets like steam-driven automata or Babbage engines.
There were no steam-powered computers, either, IRL. But if technology had progressed faster, there would have been punks, and hustlers, and bohemians of various sorts. Such countercultural effusions are a luxury only a high-tech society can make possible. In The Difference Engine there is a telling scene where the heroes encounter a lawless roller-skating youth gang – apparently of middle-class origin – in the streets of London.
Yes, but my objection is that the style is called “Steampunk” even though punks, ruffians, and bohemians need not be involved in any way. Perhaps they were integral to The Difference Engine, but it seems to me that most such pseudo-Victoriana doesn’t exhibit any such quality. Most of it isn’t about grotty societal rebels hacking into telegraph lines or being pursued by agents of the Crown to retrieve the stolen celluloid data cards; they’re all about grand, fantastic period concepts like zeppelins and etheric projectors and fighting off the Martian threat or whatever.
Consider Tuckerfan’s earlier links, for example-- what about those robots, watches or other gadgets says “punk?” Nothing, really. It’s science fiction styled in the manner of the Victorian-era-- or “Steam-era,” if you will. To label it as “Steampunk” is not only anachronistic but also inaccurate, because there’s no punk component whatsoever. You might just as well call any work that recalls the era of Asimov, Bradbury and Heinlein “Golden Age-punk.”
And yet it sounds cool and evocative. Works for me.
The term “punk,” used to describe a person of low class, dates from the 16th century, although it originally referred specifically to prostitutes. First recorded usage of the term to refer to any sort of underclass, criminal-oriented youth was 1905, so odds are that usage had entered the vernacular some time prior to that. Using the term to refer to stories set in an alternate Victorian era is, at worst, a very minor anachronism, particularly when compared to the other elements native to the steampunk genre.
Steampunk Star Trek.
“The boilers canna take it captain!”
Well, the Foglios, creators of Girl Genius, prefer the term "Gas Lamp Fantasy" for their creations. You could always use that.So steampunk erotica would be “fanny by gaslight”?
…Okay, I got nothing.
Incredibly it seems to work for just about everyone else too, me included 