Steampunk "primer"?

[tecnowraith]

What would movies?Van Helsing (in a way), wild wild west, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (maybe)

What would be Anime? Steamboy, Crono Cross, Laputa: Castle in the Sky, Howl's Moving Castle

What would be tv shows? Wild wild west, Brisco county Jr, The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Prestige, and Sherlock Holmes would say they are steampunk but I would what makes them steampunk? Both the Prestige and SH tech were done in that era and Nemo's tech not sure. Steampunk tech is supose to be outragous not be able to made in that era. Think Stempboy's tech.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I am going to suggest a bunch of things that aren't directly Steampunk, but that give a feel.

To get a feel for a steampunk setting, though without any weird tech, the excellent movie The Man Who Would Be King.

Documentaries about WWI - there is a level of nihilism that is often neglected in steampunk games. (And I am as guilty of that as anyone - my tastes run toward the Vernesean. ) An awful lot of Steampunk builds on a framework analogous to WWI.

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

The silent film Metropolis is in some ways the quintessential steampunk movie - decades before the term is coined. I cannot recommend it enough. (And a newly restored version is nearing completion - with the twenty minutes or so that have been missing for eighty years. )

The not all that good Lionsgate movie of War of the Worlds - it makes an attempt to be true to the period.

For magical Steampunk - the novel Whitechapel Gods is nice and grim.

And now it is bed time, I have been misspelling words all over the place.

The Auld Grump

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

A good point about Metropolis. A very good point.

 

[TarionzCousin]

What'cha workin' on, Ari?

There is a nice overview at Wikipedia.

Steampunk as popular fiction
See also: List of steampunk works

William Gibson and Bruce Sterling's 1990 novel The Difference Engine is often credited with bringing widespread awareness of the genre among science fiction fans.[4][8] This novel applies the principles of Gibson and Sterling's cyberpunk writings to an alternate Victorian era where Charles Babbage's proposed steam-powered mechanical computer, which he called a difference engine (a later, more general-purpose version was known as an analytical engine), was actually built, and led to the dawn of the information age more than a century "ahead of schedule".

The first use of the word in a title was in Paul Di Filippo's 1995 Steampunk Trilogy, consisting of three short novels: "Victoria", "Hottentots", and "Walt and Emily", which respectively imagine the replacement of Queen Victoria by a human/newt clone, an invasion of Massachusetts by Lovecraftian monsters, and a love affair between Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson.

Alan Moore's and Kevin O'Neill's 1999 The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic book series (and the subsequent 2003 film adaption) greatly popularized the steampunk genre and helped propel it into mainstream fiction.[9]

An anthology of steampunk fiction was released in 2008 by Tachyon Publications; edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer and appropriately entitled Steampunk, it collects stories by James Blaylock, whose "Narbondo" trilogy is typically considered steampunk; Jay Lake, author of the novel Mainspring, sometimes labeled "clockpunk";[10] the aforementioned Michael Moorcock; as well as Jess Nevins, famed for his annotations to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

While most of the original steampunk works had a historical setting, later works would often place steampunk elements in a fantasy world with little relation to any specific historical era. Historical steampunk tends to be more "science fictional": presenting an alternate history; real locales and persons from history with different technology. Fantasy-world steampunk, such as China Miéville's Perdido Street Station and Stephen Hunt's Jackelian novels, on the other hand, presents steampunk in a completely imaginary fantasy realm, often populated by legendary creatures coexisting with steam-era or anachronistic technologies.

 

[Mouseferatu]

What'cha workin' on, Ari?

Heh. Nothing steampunk at the moment. I've just wrapped up an urban fantasy period piece, and I'm not sure what my next novel's going to be. Of the various ideas I'm looking at, however, two of them are steampunk in nature, so I figured I ought to learn more about the genre/aesthetics than I have so far.

I appreciate all the thoughts and suggestions, everyone.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Danged multiple posting error....

Let's see.... What to use to cover this up?....

Ah! Buster Keaton's The General (1927)
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b24wqhy0Zo]A classic from way back.[/ame]

Humor, but more than a trace of runaway technology.

The Auld Grump

 

[TheAuldGrump]

The computer steampunk/fantasy game Arcanum was actually pretty good (says someone who has played it through something like four times...).

And how the heck could I forget
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vORsKyopHyM]This-[/ame]
The Mysterious Geographical Explorations of Jasper Morello? A wonderful steampunk short animation. (By wonderful I mean 'awesome'. )

And another Steampunkish/fantasy - Randall Garret's Lord Darcy, which takes place in a steam powered 1970s - magic was explored by many of the same people who would expand the fields of scientific endeavor, resulting in the advance of magic, at the expense of technological advancement. The two main characters are a spy and a forensic sorcerer. Not much by way of nihilism, but a fun romp.

The Auld Grump

 

[Desdichado]

Now, it may boggle some minds, but since the Victorian era is technically the period of Queen Victoria's reign from June 1837 until her death on the 22nd of January 1901, that encapsulates the majority of what we think of as the era of the "Wild West" in America.

Thus, "weird West" fiction, such as found in TV series like "Wild, Wild West", "The Adventures of Briscoe County, Jr.", Kurt R.A. Giambastiani's Fallen Cloud novels, and even movies like The Valley of Gwangi would fit nicely on the American side of a world with steampunk sensibilities. They are, essentially, steampunk set in America.

Not really. Steampunk needs an element of steam-powered technology run somewhat amok. It needs a vibe of urban dystopia, a 19th century version of cyberpunk.

Steampunk isn't just defined by the era it emulates, and weird west fiction isn't by default steampunk.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Not really. Steampunk needs an element of steam-powered technology run somewhat amok. It needs a vibe of urban dystopia, a 19th century version of cyberpunk.

Steampunk isn't just defined by the era it emulates, and weird west fiction isn't by default steampunk.

Or to put it another way - child labor in Boston c. 1863 is steampunk, Jesse James with a Gatling gun, not so much.... Either dystopia or cacatopia would work, I think, it is the breakdown of society, not the direction that it takes.

And an excellent resource in a new look at science and consequences - [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Map-Londons-Terrifying-Epidemic/dp/1594482691/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275681638&sr=8-1]The Ghost Map[/ame] - charting London's Cholera epidemic, and how two men forever changed the means of tracking the disease to its source. An excellent, excellent book.

Mind you, I am as fond of Edisonades and Vernesian fantasy as well as true steampunk - Weird West can come under the Edisonades, and has since The Steam Man of the Prairies back in 1868.

The Auld Grump

 

[Desdichado]

Or to put it another way - child labor in Boston c. 1863 is steampunk, Jesse James with a Gatling gun, not so much.... Either dystopia or cacatopia would work, I think, it is the breakdown of society, not the direction that it takes.

Kind of, yeah. If Charles Dickens were to write Jules Vernes stories, then you'd have incipient steampunk. Except that Dickens always had plucky, admirable heroes for all the grime and dystopia of the world in which they found themselves.