One of my favorite types of fiction in the whole wide world is steampunk, which has been described as "Victorian science fiction" - but beyond that, the definition has been the subject of some debate lately. There are two basic camps: First, the Neo-Victorians, who emphasize the "steam" part and consider steampunk to be primarily a form of alternate history, with all the trappings of the historical Victorian era, with some crazy steam-powered technology and mad scientists thrown in; and second, the people who emphasize the "punk," and associate steampunk less with historical accuracy and more with a particular aesthetic and ideology.
Reading over some of my favorite steampunk stories reminded me of the idea of "Italianicity" in the Rhetoric of the Image essay. To read the pasta ad, you had to have an idea of what the cultural symbolizers of Italy were - which didn't have to have anything to do with real Italy. In steampunk stories, "Victorian-ness" is a similar idea. Whether or not the story is set in the historic Victorian era is less important than if it has certain elements that the reader can pick up on as "Victorian."
For example, one of the longest-running serials in SteamPunk Magazine (available free for download, if you're curious,) is set in an entirely fictional world called Angelina that has almost nothing in common with historical Victoriana, except for some vague ideas about class inequality in which the rich guys wear lace. However, because the setting features things like gas lamps and cobblestone streets and grand opera halls, the reader can recognize it as having "Victorian-ness" and therefore count it as steampunk, even if the main character has a mohawk instead of a top hat.
This wouldn't be true of all genres - hard science fiction will never get shelved in the non-fiction science section for having "science-ness" - but in steampunk, the punks kind of win it. A few aesthetic hints are all a story needs to read Victorian, despite all Neo-Victorian instances on historically accurate details.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
At one part, at a party, zombies break in and start eating the guests, and the sisters all get into a formation and fight while daintily holding onto their fans. It's a pretty interesting take on what we typically view as classic literature!
Punk is Punk. Romeo and Juliet should Die
In high school we got into a discussion with our teacher, because me and two other guys didn't like the way Romeo and Juliet ended. Our argument was that Romeo and Juliet would have been a much better story if instead of them taking forever to kill themselves, as soon as Juliet met romeo outside of her window, Rambo and MGS Snake would show up and fight to the death, and Romeo and Juliet would be considered Acceptable casualties. In the end Rambo would think he won and walk off, and Snake would pull himself out of a box and crawl back home so they could fight again in Wuthering Heights and save us from boring ourselves to death. Our teacher than brought up the whole idea of steampunk, and argued that the steampunk was more punk, becuase of the huge sense of sarcasm in how it translates the original story. He believed that it was much like listening to The Dead Kennedy's to understand politics in the 80's. I personally think that is a fair discreption of this genre.
I read all of these posts and
I read all of these posts and they are all pretty funny. I enjoyed reading the one about the zombies in pride and prejudice. Is that for real or was that just made up because I would totally read that book.
Similar to steampunk...
I've been scouring the internets and looking up all sorts of weird stuff and decided to find out exactly what steampunk is - only to find that I knew exactly what it was, just not the name. I love this pic of honest Abe. Now I'm wondering, is there a name for that sort of Art Deco sci-fi revival that appears in the video game Bioshock? Or the similar 50's sort of sci-fi in another video game Fallout 3 and the movie Skycaptian and the World of Tomorrrow? I really wish that they would've made the G.I. Joe movie with a reimagined 80's kind of sci-fi. I really dig the idea of taking an old ascetic and either making it sci-fi (e.g. Steampunk) or resurrecting an outdated vision of sci-fi. Is there a name for doing all that? Or even that medieval sci-fi that you can find in a ton of anime?
Re: 50's era alt-history
The genre you describe (Skycaptain, Bioshock etc.) is called Dieselpunk.
It is a close cousin of steampunk but set a few decades later.
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