The Machine Anxieties of Steampunk

The Machine Anxieties of Steampunk
Author: Kathe Hicks Albrecht
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2021-11-04
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1501349333

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What is steampunk and why are people across the globe eagerly embracing its neo-Victorian aesthetic? Old-fashioned eye goggles, lace corsets, leather vests, brass gears and gadgets, mechanical clocks, the look appears across popular culture, in movies, art, fashion, and literature. But steampunk is both an aesthetic program and a way-of-life and its underlying philosophy is the key to its broad appeal. Steampunk champions a new autonomy for the individual caught up in today's technology-driven society. It expresses optimism for the future but it also delivers a note of caution about our human role in a world of ever more ubiquitous and powerful machines. Thus, despite adopting an aesthetic and lifestyle straight out of the Victorian scientific romance, steampunk addresses significant 21st-century concerns about what lies ahead for humankind. The movement recovers autonomy from prevailing trends even as it challenges us to ask what it is to be human today.

Steampunk and Nineteenth-Century Digital Humanities

Steampunk and Nineteenth-Century Digital Humanities
Author: Roger Whitson
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2016-12-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1317509110

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Steampunk is more than a fandom, a literary genre, or an aesthetic. It is a research methodology turning history inside out to search for alternatives to the progressive technological boosterism sold to us by Silicon Valley. This book turns to steampunk's quirky temporalities to embrace diverse genealogies of the digital humanities and to unite their methodologies with nineteenth-century literature and media archaeology. The result is nineteenth-century digital humanities, a retrofuturist approach in which readings of steampunk novels like William Gibson and Bruce Sterling's The Difference Engine and Ken Liu's The Grace of Kings collide with nineteenth-century technological histories like Charles Babbage's use of the difference engine to enhance worker productivity and Isabella Bird's spirit photography of alternate history China. Along the way, Steampunk and Nineteenth-Century Digital Humanities considers steampunk as a public form of digital humanities scholarship and activism, examining projects like Kinetic Steam Works's reconstruction of Henri Giffard's 1852 steam-powered airship, Jake von Slatt's use of James Wimshurst's 1880 designs to create an electric influence machine, and the queer steampunk activism of fans appearing at conventions around the globe. Steampunk as a digital humanities practice of repurposing reacts to the growing sense of multiple non-human temporalities mediating our human histories: microtemporal electricities flowing through our computer circuits, mechanical oscillations marking our work days, geological stratifications and cosmic drifts extending time into the millions and billions of years. Excavating the entangled, anachronistic layers of steampunk practice from video games like Bioshock Infinite to marine trash floating off the shore of Los Angeles and repurposed by media artist Claudio Garzón into steampunk submarines, Steampunk and Nineteenth-Century Digital Humanities uncovers the various technological temporalities and multicultural retrofutures illuminating many alternate histories of the digital humanities.

Steampunk

Steampunk
Author: Paul Roland
Publisher: Oldacastle Books
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2015-04-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1843442507

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Credited with cofounding the movement with his Edwardian/Victorian themed albums, Paul Roland traces the history of the genre, drawing on exclusive quotes from leading writers, artists, musicians, and filmmakers in the fieldWhat began in the late 1980s as an underground community of science fiction and fantasy aficionados with a fetish for Victoriana now pervades almost every aspect of popular culture from music and movies to comics and computer games. Written by one of the godfathers of steampunk, this cultural history includes exclusive interviews with key figures including Cherie Priest, Mark Hodder, Kris Kukski, Chaz Kemp, Professor Elemental, and Abney Park. This account demonstrates that steampunk is much more than a retro-futuristic fashion statement or a subgenre of science fiction. On the surface its adherents profess a penchant for neo-Victorian fashion, fanciful clockwork accessories, and have a desire to live in an alternative reality inhabited by airships and eccentric inventions. But the literature, art, music, and movies of this burgeoning community offer a radical and irreverent reimagining of society the way it might have evolved had history taken a sharp detour prior to the industrial revolution giving us a world without electricity, the infernal (sic) combustion engine, and the technology that we take for granted today. The world of steampunk as explored here is the elegant gas lit world of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, of Michael Moorcock and their literary antecedents for whom the digital age never dawned.

The Steampunk Bible

The Steampunk Bible
Author: Jeff VanderMeer
Publisher: Abrams
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2012-06-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1613121660

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“Wonderful essays on everything steampunk, written by well-known names in the movement who are living steampunk every day” (Wired.com). Steampunk—a grafting of Victorian aesthetic and punk rock attitude onto various forms of science-fiction culture—is a phenomenon that has come to influence film, literature, art, music, fashion, and more. The Steampunk Bible is the first compendium about the movement, tracing its roots in the works of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells through its most recent expression in movies such as Sherlock Holmes. Its adherents celebrate the inventor as an artist and hero, re-envisioning and crafting retro technologies including antiquated airships and robots. A burgeoning DIY community has brought a distinctive Victorian-fantasy style to their crafts and art. Steampunk evokes a sense of adventure and discovery, and embraces extinct technologies as a way of talking about the future. This ultimate manual will appeal to aficionados and novices alike as author Jeff VanderMeer takes the reader on a wild ride through the clockwork corridors of Steampunk history. Praise for The Steampunk Bible “An informed, informative and beautifully illustrated survey of the subject.” —The Financial Times “The Steampunk Bible is far and away the most intriguing catalog of all things steam yet written.” —The Austin Chronicle

Like Clockwork

Like Clockwork
Author: Rachel A. Bowser
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2016-12-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1452952531

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Co-winner, Ray & Pat Browne Award for Best Edited Collection in Popular Culture and American Culture Once a small subculture, the steampunk phenomenon exploded in visibility during the first years of the twenty-first century, its influence and prominence increasing ever since. From its Victorian and literary roots to film and television, video games, music, and even fashion, this subgenre of science fiction reaches far and wide within current culture. Here Rachel A. Bowser and Brian Croxall present cutting-edge essays on steampunk: its rise in popularity, its many manifestations, and why we should pay attention. Like Clockwork offers wide-ranging perspectives on steampunk’s history and its place in contemporary culture, all while speaking to the “why” and “why now” of the genre. In her essay, Catherine Siemann draws on authors such as William Gibson and China Miéville to analyze steampunk cities; Kathryn Crowther turns to disability studies to examine the role of prosthetics within steampunk as well as the contemporary culture of access; and Diana M. Pho reviews the racial and national identities of steampunk, bringing in discussions of British chap-hop artists, African American steamfunk practitioners, and multicultural steampunk fan cultures. From disability and queerness to ethos and digital humanities, Like Clockwork explores the intriguing history of steampunk to evaluate the influence of the genre from the 1970s through the twenty-first century. Contributors: Kathryn Crowther, Perimeter College at Georgia State University; Shaun Duke, University of Florida; Stefania Forlini, University of Calgary (Canada); Lisa Hager, University of Wisconsin–Waukesha; Mike Perschon, MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alberta; Diana M. Pho; David Pike, American University; Catherine Siemann, New Jersey Institute of Technology; Joseph Weakland, Georgia Institute of Technology; Roger Whitson, Washington State University.

The Real World of Victorian Steampunk

The Real World of Victorian Steampunk
Author: Simon Webb
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2019-02-28
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1526732866

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A look at the surprising nineteenth-century technology that inspires this literary and cultural movement: “I was very impressed by this book.” —SF Crowsnest In recent decades, steampunk has grown from a rather obscure subgenre of science fiction into a striking and distinctive style of fashion, art, design, and even music. It is in the written word, however, that steampunk has its roots—and in this book Simon Webb explores and examines the real inventions that underpin the fantasy. In doing so, he reveals a world unknown to most people today. Webb reveals the Victorian era as a surprising place: one of steam-powered airplanes, fax machines linking Moscow and St Petersburg, steam cars traveling at over 100 mph, electric taxis, and wireless telephones. It is, in short, the nineteenth century as you’ve never before seen it—a steampunk extravaganza of anachronistic technology and unfamiliar gadgets. Imagine Europe spanned by a mechanical internet, a telecommunication system of clattering semaphore towers capable of transmitting information across the continent in a matter of minutes. Consider too, the fact that a steam plane the size of a modern airliner took off in England in 1894. Drawing entirely on contemporary sources, we see how little-known developments in technology have been used as the basis for so many steampunk narratives. From seminal novels such as The Difference Engine to the steampunk fantasy of Terry Pratchett’s later works, this book shows that steampunk is at least as much solid fact as it is whimsical fiction.

Steampunk III: Steampunk Revolution

Steampunk III: Steampunk Revolution
Author: Ann VanderMeer
Publisher: Tachyon Publications
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2012-10-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1616961112

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Playfully mashing up the romantic elegance of the Victorian era with whimsically modernized technology, the wildly popular steampunk genre is here to stay. Now...long live the revolution! Steampunk Revolution features a renegade collective of writers and artists, including steampunk legends and hot, new talents rebooting the steam-driven past and powering it into the future. Lev Grossman’s “Sir Ranulph Wykeham-Rackham, GBE, a.k.a. Roboticus the All-Knowing” is the Six-Million-Dollar Steampunk Man, possessing appendages and workings recycled from metal parts, yet also fully human, resilient, and determined. Bruce Sterling’s “White Fungus” introduces steampunk’s younger cousin, salvage-punk, speculating on how cities will be built in the future using preexisting materials. Cat Valente’s “Mother Is a Machine” explores the merging of man and machine and a whole new form of parenting. In Jeff VanderMeer’s anti-steampunk story “Fixing Hanover,” a creator must turn his back on his creation because it is so utterly destructive. And Cherie Priest presents “The Clockroach,” a new and very unsettling mode of transportation. Going far beyond corsets and goggles, Steampunk Revolution is not just your granddad’s zeppelin—it’s an even wilder ride.

Steampunk FAQ

Steampunk FAQ
Author: Mike Perschon
Publisher: Backbeat Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2018
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9781617136641

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(FAQ). "What is steampunk?" Going beyond the standard default definitions of "Victorian science fiction," "yesterday's tomorrow today," or some other equally vague or limited description, Steampunk FAQ provides a historical exploration of its literary and cinematic origins. The journey begins with a look at steampunk's genesis in the novels and short stories of three Californians who hung out a lot with Philip K. Dick, before moving on to the inspirations and antecedents of steampunk. Contrary to what many articles and books say, steampunk's direct inspiration is arguably far more cinematic than literary, a likely reaction to the many film adaptations, pastiches, and knockoffs of the scientific romances of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. While Verne, Wells, and a host of other Victorian and Edwardian writers have influenced steampunk fiction, cinematic elements from films such as Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) and George Pal's Time Machine (1960) show up more often as immediate influences on the style we call steampunk. In offering a celebration of steampunk's style and cultural aesthetic, Steampunk FAQ also explores its connection to cyberpunk, the world of fashion, comics, and culture around the world.

The Sunken

The Sunken
Author: S C Green
Publisher: Grymm & Epic
Total Pages: 447
Release: 2017-09-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0473305577

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“… one of the most original books I’ve ever read.” – I Heart Reading “One of my most enjoyable reads of this year, cracking along at high speed and using intriguing ideas to create a world that’s like a cracked mirror version of our own history.” – BookieMonster In the heart of London lies the Engine Ward, a district forged in coal and steam, where the great Engineering Sects vie for ultimate control of the country. For many, the Ward is a forbidding, desolate place, but for Nicholas Thorne, the Ward is a refuge. Deep within the bowels of the Ward, Nicholas can finally escape his strange affliction – the thoughts of animals that crowd his head. The shadows of his past hang over him, forcing him to remain hidden alongside the Stokers – a forgotten people who toil day and night to keep the boilers of the Ward constantly firing, so that the engine of progress may continue to hum. But rebellion is stirring within the ranks of The Stokers, led by Nicholas' childhood friend, the brilliant engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Forbidden to do the work that brings him his only joy, Brunel innovates in secret, his mind growing ever more twisted by the desire for knowledge. Battles rage in the shadows of bizarre buildings at the heart of this nightmarish alternative London. As men transform into flesh-eating monsters, Nicholas and Brunel seek a way to restore peace – will London's salvation come from a mechanical army, or on the backs of prehistoric beasts? The Sunken is the first book in the Engine Ward fantasy series by S C Green. For fans of China Mieville and Neal Stephenson who want to explore the clash of religion, technology, and bestiary in a city on the cusp of industrial revolution. metaphysical fantasy, dark fantasy, epic fantasy, grim dark, steampunk, science fiction, alternate history, Victorian, Georgian, London, dragons, dinosaurs, zombies, vampires, dystopian, gothic, historical fantasy

The Steampunk User's Manual

The Steampunk User's Manual
Author: Jeff VanderMeer
Publisher: Abrams
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2015-11-25
Genre: Games & Activities
ISBN: 1613127081

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This comprehensive guide to Steampunk creations of all kinds offers inspiration and practical tips for bringing your own retro-futuristic visions to life. Whether you’re a newbie to the world of Steampunk, or a long-time enthusiast of airships, goggles, and mad scientists, The Steampunk User’s Manual is essential reading. The popular subgenre of science fiction has grown into a cultural movement; one that invites fans to let their imaginations go wild. In this volume, Jeff VanderMeer—the renowned expert in all things Steampunk—presents a practical and inspirational guidance for finding your own path into this realm. Including sections on art, fashion, architecture, crafts, music, performance, and storytelling, The Steampunk User's Manual provides a conceptual how-to guide on everything from the utterly doable to the completely over-the-top.