Steampunk is the imagining and creation of a world that never was, inspired in style and ethos by several Victorian-era writers. Jules Verne and his contemporaries wrote the earliest works of science fiction, sometimes dark and sometimes optimistic (even utopian), but always adventures involving travel, derring-do, and remarkable technology beyond their day (but often stunningly prescient).
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Giant squid peeking at audience
in Legion Fantastique parlor |
The term itself wasn't coined until the 1980's. At that time, the term cyberpunk came into play to describe a sub-genre of science fiction typically involving machines and artificial intelligence getting out of hand and threatening to take over (or succeeding) the human world. Author KW Jeter was searching for a word to describe a number of alternate history stories he had read, all "Victorian fantasies."
Although the term Victorian is used often, and many characters portrayed are British, important technological, political and cultural changes occurred throughout the world between the mid-1800's and the early 1900's. Steampunk stories and characters may be rooted in any part of the world, using an alternate history based on real people and/or events.
Whatever the year or territory covered, you can count on a certain ethos, a common spirit of steampunk that many find as appealing as the handcrafts and costuming.
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