Steampunk (original) (raw)

Steampunk is a subgenre of cyberpunk science fiction with dystopian, noir themes usually in an anachronistic Victorian or quasi-Victorian alternate history setting.

Origins of Steampunk

These stories harken back to the early science fiction of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. This is not to say that all Victorian writing is steampunk in any way. Compared to the computer, robotic, and nanotech focus of cyberpunk fiction, steampunk fiction focuses more intently on thermo mechanics, especially steam engine technology; hence the name.

Also fitting into this category is the less common setting of a science fictionalized American Western, as seen in the television shows The Wild Wild West and The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.

As a continuing play on the cyber/steam-punk naming convention, there have been a handful of novels published, self described as "sandal-punk" which posit a world in which ancient civilization never collapsed into the Dark Ages and instead saw rapid technological advancement after a few key discoveries are made.

See also Alternate history, Clockpunk.

Bibliography

Steampunk

• The Steampunk Trilogy by Paul Di Filippo
• Steampunk (comic book series) by Joe Kelly and Chris Bachalo
• The Difference Engine by William Gibson & Bruce Sterling -- the designs of Charles Babbage lead to the wide usage of mechanical computers in Victorian England. (See difference engine)
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 1898 by Alan Moore
• The Light Ages by Ian R. MacLeod
• The Grand Ellipse by Paula Volsky
• Pasquale's Angel By Paul McAuley
• Jack Faust by Michael Swanwick
• Perdido Street Station by China Mi�ville
• Age of Unreason Trilogy by Gregory Keyes
• Castle Falkenstein : high adventure in the steam age by Mike Pondsmith
• A Nomad of the Time Streams by Michael Moorcock
• Infernal Devices - K. W. Jeter
• The Sundowners Series by James Swallow
• Homunculus by James Blaylock
• L'�quilibre des paradoxes by Michel Pagel
• Lord Kelvin's Machine by James Blaylock
• Anti-Ice by Stephen Baxter

Quasi-Victorian Science Fiction

• A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah by Harry Harrison -- an alternate history novel written and set in the 1970s in a world where the American Revolution failed and the British Empire is still going strong. It has a nice mix of technologies advanced or behind ours, with high powered lasers used for drilling, while Babbage engines are used to do calculations for sub-orbital flights.
• Queen Victoria's Bomb by Ronald Clark -- in the mid 19th century; a physicist gets the idea of isotopic separation after seeing pebbles graded by size on a pebble beach, and makes an atomic bomb. He intends to use it to end the Crimean War, but it never gets used, and no difference is made to history.
• The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson -- A cyberpunk adventure in a nanotechnological future, with much of the action in a neo-Victorian society
• The Peshawar Lancers by S.M. Stirling -- Meteors devastate Europe and America in the 19th century, causing much of the British upper class to flee to India. The story is set in 2025 in a thoroughly Indianized Angrezi Raj (British Empire), with its capital in Delhi.

Influential Victorian Science Fiction

• From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne
• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
• The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
• The Ablest Man in the World by Edward Page Mitchell

Steampunk role-playing game material

• Castle Falkenstein by Mike Pondsmith
• GURPS Steampunk by William H. Stoddard
• Iron Kingdoms by Privateer Press
• Sorcery & Steam by Fantasy Flight Games
• "Space:1889"
• "Forgotten Futures"

Filmography

Movies

• The Adventures of Mark Twain (1982 claymation)
• The Asphyx (1972)
• Atlantis: The Lost Empire
• Back to the Future Part III
• Bram Stoker's Dracula
• First Men in the Moon
• Greystoke, the Legend of Tarzan (1983)
• The Invisible Man
• Journey to the Centre of the Earth
• ''The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)
• The Time Machine
• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)
• Wild Wild West (1998)

Television

• The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr, FOX series
• Gormenghast BBC series
• Jack of All Trades, syndicated series
• Legend, series
• Read or Die, short anime series
• The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne, Sci Fi Channel series
• Wild Wild West, ABC series
• Doctor Who: "Pyramids of Mars", "The Talons of Weng-Chiang", "Ghost Light"