What does Steampunk mean to you?

[kinzel]

OK gang --

in the spirit of learning and sharing, let me ask you a few questions, with some caveats --

first, do not run to wikipedia to find out the answer.
second, this is based on your own knowledge, your own opinion, and your own recollection
three, please don't read other answers first. If you want to discuss points with people, do so after you've answered for you.

1: What is Steampunk?

2: When did Steampunk start?


Thanks for playing!

Comments

[barsukthom.livejournal.com]

1) It's an SF/Fantasy genre, based on and inspired by the heroic Victorian/Edwardian Adventure Tales told by authors such as Verne and Wells. Story themes vary between glorying in the wide-open potential for mechanical invention, to revelling in the period's decadence.
2)Modern Steampunk started with "The Difference Engine" by Sterling and Gibson, although the themes had been appearing before then.

Steampunk

[fergusonar.livejournal.com]

My impression is that Steampunk is set in Victorian times, fashions, technology. Using what would have been available then, fantastical contraptions are created with appearance being an important part of the finished item. I've seen more of the costumes at cons, not read the literature, but I would assume it is an extension of the same, largely centering around good looking machines that never actually existed that do improbable things . Oh, and everything is very dark--lots of black and steel. I believe the story lines also tend to be dark.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

1) Steampunk is a style (possible sub-genre) of alternate-history SF where 'modern' technology developed earlier, typically in Victorian times. It includes things like the Babbage engines getting built, Victorians developing heavier-than-air flight and radio. It is sometimes used for much earlierperiods as well, such as the Romans or Greeks. It is also used for fannish role-playing and costuming about that sub-genre, including making devices with modern ideas but Victorian technology, and making thing which look Victorian but contain modern technology.

2) I don't know when the term was first used, but the concept has been around at least since the 1960s (Harry Harrison's "A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!" and Ronald Clark's "Queen Victoria's Bomb", for instance).

[autopope.livejournal.com]

1. Don't be silly. (Like SF, steampunk is a moving target.)

2. The ur-text is probably "A Trans-Atlantic Tunnel, Hurrah" by Harry Harrison, but "The Space Machine" by Chris Priest is waiting in the wings if ATATH is disqualified for some reason. In either case, early 1970s.

[rdmasters.livejournal.com]

Steampunk is a loose term generally covering entertainment featuring a pseudo-Victorian period setting with high-technology effects conveyed by in-or-near period physical constructs. There is an implication that in-period speculative fiction is not within this genre.

Based on this, we can see some of the earliest modern examples appearing in the late 1980's with a pseudo-Victorian space opera role-playing game, although there are earlier appearances.

[rdmasters.livejournal.com]

A clarification:
By "in-period speculative fiction", I am meaning speculative fiction actually written during the period in question.

[verana1111.livejournal.com]

1. Simple answer: Victorian-based S/F. Slight expansion: S/F based on a starting point of Victorian-era technology

2. Most obvious answer: Late 1800s, early 1900s if you include authors like Jules Verne. Otherwise, 1980s?

Steampunk

[kimuro.livejournal.com]

I've been putting a lot of thought into Steampunk lately for a bulletin board in the high school library - trying to refine my thoughts on the matter.

To me, Steampunk is Victorian-based science fiction/ science fantasy; i.e. science fiction/ science fantasy which is based on the technology of the period of the 19th c, early 20th c period.

I include in this category the "real" Victorian Science Fiction of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. (I was unable to convince the librarian at the school to include Sherlock Holmes even though his deductions are science based and extend before the then existent capabilities of forensic science of the time.)

Re: Steampunk

[kimuro.livejournal.com]

I missed the last question until after I'd pressed "Send". I think that the old Wild Wild West Show was the earliest popular depiction of Steampunk.

[liadan-m.livejournal.com]

Steampunk for me is the fantization of the victorian era, asking the "what if" question: "What if Charles Babbage's difference engine had been built and worked? And what are the effects of that radical a technology shift on a society that was just beginning industrialization?"

Most of the work out there in genre seriously idealizes the era, without all that much understanding of the society of manners of the upper crust (All those noble female adventurers!) or the class problems involved - Like most fantasies, these are glossed over. Hazard of the metagenre. (Someday, I will write a boring character sketch of minor-but-wealthy steampunk nobility, and their normal day. It will not involve airships, it might involve trains. And a postal service that works.)

On the other hand, what do I know? I play a widowed patroness of the unusual arts and sciences around the turn of the century.

I'd put the beginning of steampunk in the mid eighties, but it really took off somewhere around '05.

[alicebentley]

Steampunk is an aesthetic, a "look and feel" more than a genre or topic.
It incorporates the leather, brass and glass materials of Victorian and Edwardian European invention and costume, and shows a marked preference for devices that are seemingly simple in construction.

Jules Verne and H. G. Wells wrote about the times and the types of inventions that steampunk centers around, but the term itself wasn't invented until the early 1980's, and didn't achieve widespread use (especially in its current form) until the mid 00's.

(keeping the answer short - this topic comes up a lot, and I will cheerfully burble on for pages if encouraged)

[orlacarey.livejournal.com]

1 - Steampunk is a genre of life (including hobby, writing and music) that merges an interest in the Victorian Time period and SF/F. Steampunk people seek to merge the technology of today (and the future) with the astetics of the past. This results in imagery that is best conveyed by the quote "Steampunk is what happens when Goths discover brown".

2. I first started hearing the term about 2 or 3-ish years ago, but I was late enough to the party that I'd say it probably is closer to 10 years old .

Edited to fix the worst of the "typing on a smartphone" errors

[sb-moof.livejournal.com]

I don't know when it started, but I was first introduced to it at the 1st Santa Rosa Handcar Regatta in 2008. There I saw many people dressed in vaguely Victorian garb, and many, many home made mechanical contraptions beyond the self made hand cars. So to me steampunk is a combination of Victorian style, individuality and mechanical workmanship.

[pgranzeau.livejournal.com]

Steampunk is a kind of SF&F literature based in the late 19th century, any number of anachronisms may be present, such as steam-powered vehicles and aircraft, mechanical computers, etc., and modern electricity or internal combustion engines do not exist.

I would guess that the original steampunk was Jules Verne, but he was writing true SF for his time. Modern steampunk generally creates a Vernesian world.

I don't know why "punk" is used to describe literature. The "steam" is pretty obvious: STFnal literature without electricity (I am ignoring the fact that Verne's Nautilus was electrically powered). Much of the 19th century was lived using steam as the only source of power.

[dmellieon.livejournal.com]

Steampunk for me is an emerging sub-genre of SF and F that combines the elements of gadgets, supernatural and all things Victorian/Edwardian. It can be alternative history or futuristic. As with Goth it is becoming a sub culture. I liken it to cyberpunk set in Victorian times. Think “Bladerunner” set in Queen Victoria’s England or the “Shadowrun” series/game in Edwardian times. Oh speaking of that – if you’ve ever played the role playing game Space:1889, you’ve touched on early steampunk. That game came out in the 1990s. Well, that all my memory has without google and Wikipedia support.
Hope this helps.

[cailleuch.livejournal.com]

Yah, I remember that game. Think I still have the box around here somewhere.

Every play Arcanum, Van Helsing or Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends? A few more games that I would categorize as Steampunk. Not big names but I teach Animation & Game Design so...

[dmellieon.livejournal.com]

Yes, we still have it somewhere in this mess we call a home. We have Arcanum but not the others. I will mention them to the GameMaster, aka Husband. Thank you.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

1. Steampunk is an envisioning of the turn of the 19th-to-20th century (not 20th-to-21st) as if it had continued those trends into the present. Technology is steam-powered and clockwork-controlled, society is heavily stratified, there are still unexplored (by Western civilization) corners of the world, and Britain rules the world, because people have utterly romanticized the idea of having a Queen.

2. With Jules Verne, for sure!

[zola.livejournal.com]

Before I look at anyone else's comments or get the link I have in mind to show you:

Steampunk is, I think, an art style, in the same way that Art Deco is a style, meaning it can be expressed through fashion, design, decor, and so forth.

It has its roots in Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and H.G. Wells, although I am not sure when it became cohesive enough to merit the name--I first saw it used about 10 years ago.

It is an elaborate, ornate, complicated, elegant style that pays close attention to detail.

When applied to fashion, it's similar to Victorian style, or for something more recent, think the styles of dress in "League of Extraordinary Gentleman". Think top hats and ornate pocket watches, multiple buttons, canes with a fancy metal head.

Objects in the style are usually very ornate, and when the object is high-tech, there's usually a marriage of the high-tech function with elaborate decoration, heavy on natural materials like wood, and brass. Think high-tech meets English Colonial.

In literature, Randall Garrett's Lord Darcy would most definitely qualify as steampunk although the term didn't exist at the time. :)

Now that I've made the comment, here is a link of a steampunk keyboard someone made, which is really cool. :)

http://mbarrick.livejournal.com/813718.html

[cailleuch.livejournal.com]

Well let's see -- works set in worlds that rely heavily on steam or spring power and perhaps influenced by Jules Verne, Mary Schelley & HG Wells.

Term coined by Jeter if memory serves and this "officially" started in the 1990's but there are exceptions to the dating all over the place. Wild, Wild West the TV show springs to mind.

I'm particualry fond of the movies like The City of Lost Children and SteamBoy.

The music is fun as well and I see you are listening to Abney Park, one of my favorites.

[sraun]

1. A sub-genre of SF/F/AH where Victorian level technology is used to produce artifacts that would normally be considered high-tech.

2. Somewhere between 2000-2005, although I'll bet there's stuff significantly earlier that can be pointed to and declared "that's Steampunk!".

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

1) A Victorian boot stamping on a human face — forever. (nicked with some modification from james_nicoll.

2) I'm going to say sometime around the late 1800s when Jules Verne was writing

Modern steampunk

[(Anonymous)]

as opposed to what is now being called Steampunk Prime (HG Wells, Jules Verne and their contemporaries).

2. started with "The Difference Engine" by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling.

1. is distinguished as a sub-subgenre of Alternate History wherein technology is driven by steam and mechanical devices --- instead of electricity and solid state.

My own opinion as a bookseller.
Lauretta@ConstellationBooks
who is going back to read everyone else's definition now.

Re: Modern steampunk

[(Anonymous)]

Um, that Harrison story mentioned above pre-dates the Difference Engine by at least 10 years. Maybe I'm late to the party.
Lauretta again.

[jelazakazone.livejournal.com]

1. I would say that Steampunk is a variety of science fiction that looks back at old technology to get solutions rather than inventing new technology, but it uses the technology in a different way (or makes it actually work).

2. The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling comes to mind as the first example and it was published in 1990.

Now I'm going to read what everyone else had to say:D

[(Anonymous)]

I think of the original TV show Wild Wild West and Artemus Gordon. Elaborate mechanical inventions instead of electrical.

But I don't know when the term steampunk started.

Wendy

[greylady.livejournal.com]

1. Steampunk is Victorian-Scifi. Anything that could have been made or imagined by a Victorian era engineering geek is game. Anything that can be imagined by a modern-day sci-fic/hostory buff is game. Anything that can be made with the least wave toward Victorian stylistic modes (i.e. Victorian-Goth) is game.

2. Victorian-era. Jules Verne. Possibly some Victorian-era pulp novels. Way longer than any modern person can claim to have been involved.

[baisleac.livejournal.com]

1) SCA for Jules Verne fans.
2) Have no idea.

Answers...

[psw456.livejournal.com]

#1. I've only recently been introduced to the term by discussions on the AAR (that's All About Romance) forums wherein it is described as an alternate reality - Victorian age with a technology based on steam... haven't read any of the recent books described as "steampunk" and I don't get the "punk" part of it in any case.

#2 Have no idea when the recent wave started. I immediately thought of the Randall Garrett Lord Darcy books where the technology is based on steam (and magic).

[kalimeg.livejournal.com]

In a lot of ways it's pseudo Victoriana, often projected forward in brass and steam rather than with gas and aviation fuel.

And I agree that Tim Powers and James Blaylock were doing similar quite awhile ago. Anubis Gates is very steampunk,

[redpimpernel.livejournal.com]

Steampunk: some version of the future draped in trappings from our industrial revolution past.

2. I don't know when it "officially" started, but my firs exposure to something that I would now call steampunk was the TV show Max Headroom.

[gryphonlsb.livejournal.com]

All I know about Steampunk is from friends who are kind of into it (also some friends made the steampunk goggles for the Castle episode that ran a few weeks back, so thats kind of cool)

Alternate Victorian England where tech had advanced by the use of steam power as its power source

I think it started in the 80s with a William Gibson novel (of which I cant remember and wont Wiki to find out)