Who put the "punk" in "steampunk"?

[mmadsen]

The term made perfect sense when used as a joke -- e.g. cyberpunk is the current fad, what do we call our Victorian SF? -- or when the fiction in question had a cyberpunk ethos mixed with Victorian technology -- as in The Difference Engine, where "the street found its own use for technology."

It doesn't make much sense to label fantasy plus giant clockwork devices as steampunk.

 

[Hussar]

The term made perfect sense when used as a joke -- e.g. cyberpunk is the current fad, what do we call our Victorian SF? -- or when the fiction in question had a cyberpunk ethos mixed with Victorian technology -- as in The Difference Engine, where "the street found its own use for technology."

It doesn't make much sense to label fantasy plus giant clockwork devices as steampunk.

I dunno.

If you look at China Mieville, that's definitely Steampunk. But, there's also lots of fantasy mixed in there as well. Various beings can use magic for example. The whole ReMade thing is a sweet mix of tech and magic, but, the setting is straight out Steam.

Just a side note, but, I stumbled across a very, very cool free pdf site with steampunk stories. Check out Steampunk Magazine. Very cool.

 

[GreatLemur]

It doesn't make much sense to label fantasy plus giant clockwork devices as steampunk.

That's another weird piece of drift and generalization, too: "Steampunk" has been combined with fantasy elements so many times that in some quarters, it's actually taken to mean "fantasy with technology". For example, I think we've all heard Eberron referred to as a steampunk setting (which is basically hilarious).

 

[JDJblatherings]

there was an excellent article about Steampunk in Arcan emaagzine many years ago. It's cyperpunk in quasi-victorian setting. Instead of internet and computers yuo have teletypes and lots of improbably sized steam engines workign all sorts of devices. Cyberpunk is about people dealing with a society under rapid technological change (lot's of us live cyberpunk lives compred to the folks reading the first stories in the early 80's). Steampunk is the same thing it is just misplaced in time and space. Throw magic into either and it spoils the brew...it ads a layer of hope that isn't there when it is all man and his technological toys.

 

[bento]

One of the first steampunk books I encountered, "The Difference Engine" was written by two fathers of the cyberpunk genre, William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. Set in 1855, the title refers to a steam-driven computer.

I just took the term on faith - cyberpunk writers enamoured by the 19th century. A backwards positioning of the concept is Neil Stephenson's "Diamond Age", where a Victorian-like society is an outgrowth of 21st century nanotechnology.

 

[Umbran]

Throw magic into either and it spoils the brew...it ads a layer of hope that isn't there when it is all man and his technological toys.

Not necessarily true. In my personal readings, at least, about half the time the magic is just as bad as the technology.

In some cases (for example the movie "The Prestige") the question of magic and tech is largely blurred (and perhaps irrelevant - "any sufficently advanced technology", and all that) but it sure doesn't end up as anything you'd call "hopeful".

 

[Klaus]

The same as Gothic Punk; it emphasizes individualism and anti-authoritarianism.

I believe this was the reason behind "cyberpunk", which was itself the origin of "steampunk". Cyberpunk rose up in the late 70s/early 80s, and back then "punk" stood for the lower class youths who gave a finger to the system and the high-brow trippy navelgazing thing that rock had become, and turned to bare-bones rock (eventually "punk rock"). In a cyberpunk setting, the main characters are supposedly also giving the finger to the system and the high-brow trippy navelgazing thing that society had become. And so it is in steampunk. Without the cynicism and the rebellious streak, it's just steam-fi (as opposed to sci-fi).

 

[el-remmen]

Terms like this are usually coined by people who know nothing about punk rock.

Even punk rock was never punk rock.

 

[Tewligan]

Just a side note, but, I stumbled across a very, very cool free pdf site with steampunk stories. Check out Steampunk Magazine. Very cool.

As a side note to your side note, there's a print version of this as well. I was browsing through the magazines at Powell's (the awesomest bookstore in the WORLD!), and they had a copy of it in the Zines sections.

 

[davidschwartznz]

Steampunk is the same thing it is just misplaced in time and space.

I wouldn't say misplaced; its more a realization that this isn't the first time in history rapid technological advances have created a economic divide.