Steam-Driven Dreams: The Wondrously Whimsical World of Steampunk
By Gareth Branwyn/WIRED Magazine
Retro-futurism is all the rage these days: antique computers, 8-bit game art, classic cases for modern gear, anything to make the onslaught of new technology less disposable. The yearning for timelessness in a constantly renewing tech culture has led to a spike in interest in the steam-powered, brass-encrusted world of steampunk.
The ideas behind the steampunk sci-fi subgenre have been around since Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, but it was given its moniker in the late '80s as a speculative-fiction genre, alongside cyberpunk, ribofunk and splatterpunk.
STEAMPUNK RAYGUNS
While the others peer 15 minutes into the future, steampunk envisions a future that has collapsed onto a re-imagined Victorian past. Steam and clockworks replace silicon logic, brass and copper stand in for titanium and plastic, and airships replace spaceships.
Unlike other speculative-fiction genres, steampunk enthusiasts are not simply content to read its fiction, or passively consume its media. Today's steampunks don't want to just watch the movie, they want to build it, play in it, live it.
NP: DICK DALE - KING OF THE SURF GUITAR! (thanks, Baker!)
PEEVE DE JOUR: missed James and Ester on their last visit. grrrrrrrr.....