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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Autumnal" data-source="post: 9740349" data-attributes="member: 6671663">Obligatory mention: “steampunk” the word was coined by K.W. Jeter, who loathes punk culture(s). He was referring to the “Victorian fantasies” he and his friends James Blaylock and Tim Powers were writing: Morlock Nights, Homunculus, The Anubis Gates, and like that. The name was an intentional mockery of cyberpunk, about as useful as calling a monster manual a BADD resources directory or a players handbook a Southern Baptist etiquette guide. Obviously the term took on other meanings, because living words in every language and dialect do that. Compare the meanings of words like “republic” and “democracy”, or “church”. But it’s useful to be slow to claim that there is a primal meaning that ought to take precedence, particularly in a case where an origin can be so precisely identified: the April 1987 issue of Locus magazine’s letter column.</blockquote>