Something New

In poking around and playing with ideas for a new creative writing project I've stumbled across a genre called Steampunk (technically a sub-genre of speculative fiction but hey). The whole premise of the genre is taking a historical time and place where steam-power is still widely used (typically Victorian London), and then introducing prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy. One of the most common fictional devices is the introduction of technological developments far more advanced than what was around at the time.

This means you get crazy contraptions like steam-powered rockets, floating cities, walking fortresses, wacky flying contraptions, steam-driven submarines, dirigibles... basically anything you can think of you can invent, bring to life and then slot into a kind of alternate history, a vision of what could have been.

The term "steampunk" wasn't really coined until the late 1980's but has been retrospectively applied to the work of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, the fathers of contemporary sci-fi. As is so often the case, since I stumbled across the genre I've been tripping over it everywhere. I have an eight thousand word project coming up for uni, so I'm going to try writing a steampunk piece. I'll keep you updated with how it's coming along.

In the meantime, here's some examples of work that falls under the steampunk sub-genre if anyone is interested-

Books-

His Dark Materials- Phillip Pullman
A Series of Unfortunate Events- Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler)
Around the World in Eighty Days- Jules Verne
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea- Jules Verne
The Island of Dr. Moreau- H. G. Wells
The War of the Worlds- H.G. Wells
The Hungry City Chronicles- Phillip Reeve

Movies-

Akira
Howl's Moving Castle
Spirited Away
Steamboy League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

Video Games-

Benoit Sokal's Syberia,
Sinking Island
and Paradise