*wishes there was a specific area for this*

What is the definition of steampunk besides gears, grease, and people with metal limbs? And how far can someone go with gaslamp fantasy before it becomes steampunk or sci-fi?

I'm planning on designing Tinted Lands to be at least partially steampunk, and was wondering: Can you mix them without making it cheesy?

Opinions are appreciated.


- V

Tsahraf has mixed them; he has his own sub forum on Sci Fi forum which he is developing.

Steampunk is a rather wide genre--I don't think you can make a concrete, definitive definition, but there are a few aspects that are frequently employed/emphasized in various takes on steampunk. By no means does steampunk need to include all of these.
- Victorian-era culture/society
- Steam-powered technology...
- ...and/or highly mechanized/clockwork devices...
- ...usually accompanied by a "grease, gears & brass" look.
- Airships, frequently of the lighter-than-air sort

A look at Wikipedia's main Steampunk article might be helpful, or the Cyberpunk derivatives page. (Although steampunk technically grew out of cyberpunk, it's taken a different direction, and now the term is frequently used to describe works that pre-date the cyberpunk genre entirely.)

Steampunk is usually futuristic technology in a historic setting. The explanations used to be that they were powered by steam, hence the name but I think it's gone more toward a feel of setting rather than anything else. Even though I have no futuristic technology, I have parts of my world that seem steampunky because they have more metal and steam related technology. I think as long as it's realistic within your world, you don't really need to put a label on it.

Aubrey could help you flesh out this genre.

This is what I write elsewhere.
(I'm a self proclaimed expert. )

There really isn't any rules for Steampunk that is why it is so confusing. Many things have Steampunk elements and there is nothing that really defines the genre like there is for fantasy.

The two things that really make Steampunk in my opinion are Romantic to Victorian culture, and Punk culture mixed together.

As far as writing steampunk stories there aren't really any limits the most common i've read are usually Science fiction as in what the future could be or Alternate history as in what could it be like today if we still used steam power for everything.

That takes us to the machine end of things. Machines are very much a part of steampunk Everything from wrist watches to giant space ships. But what defines them as steampunk is, steam.
(But this rule is broken too. Does that confuse you?)


Then we come to the aspect of steampunk that isn't really talked about. The punk end of things many steampunk stories are very heavily filled with angst and pushing the idea of anarchy for some reason.
I really would like to see more Christians getting into steampunk right now there is hardly anything that is good in steampunk. hardly any of there websites are clean and most steampunk stories are rather immoral.

I think the alternate history angle of steampunk is very interesting. You could have steampunk set in almost any era. which would fit in great on this forum.

(If anyone wants to see some steampunk costumes or art let me know. I wouldn't suggest just searching images on google.)

City of Ember is Steampunk.

Here's a couple movies that I think fit the steampunk genre well.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Steam boy
Last Exile
Wild Wild West
Heartless: The Story of the Tin Man
Howl's Moving Castle

And here are some steampunk-like movies.

Sherlock Holmes (2009)
The Three Musketeers (2011)
Hugo
A series of unfortunate events.
City of ember
Van Helsing

*has seen very few of those *

To my mind, just as "cyberpunk" is a fantasy of the future as projected from the era of cyberspace ('70s or so through, to a much lesser extent, today), "steampunk" is a fantasy of the future as projected from the Age of Steam. Cyberpunk is so named because part of the culture being projected was "punk"; steampunk is named by analogy with cyberpunk. Cyberpunk projects the technology, politics, and culture (to varying degrees) of the decades before I was born into sophisticted forms of the "future"; steampunk does the same for the steam-powered, dirigible-connected world that people at the turn of the 20th century thought would last forever. It's more clearly fantasy because we can now see why it would never work out that way in reality , and science fiction has a to-us-far-more-interesting current reality to speculate from.
That's the "pure" form. But a lot of authors like to push the boundaries, mix and match, or otherwise diverge from the "pure" form of their genre. (A very wierd author my dad reently discovered, Jasper Fforde, has a somewhat steampunk-ish world ... but mixes in time travel, very strange politics---the Crimean war is still going on, and Wales is an independent socialist state---and detective work involving going into books ...) So if your work even keeps some of the "essential" elements of the genre in reognizable form, it's reasonable to call it "steampunk-slash-something".

I'm so facebook-indoctrinated, I frequently find myself looking for the "Like" button on people's comments, only to remind myself that there isn't one.

Anyways, great comment there, kingjon.
Really captures the important details of what steampunk came from and what it has/can become.

Same here. I was looking for a share button as well.

There's also the approach that now it's more of a style than a genre, especially now that we have the genre mashes and experimenters. It's almost like trying to define what art is.

I propose the following definition, which I think best fulfills the criteria:

1. Is concise
2. Encompasses as much as possible of what we would naturally call "steampunk".
3. Excludes as much as possible of what we would naturally consider not steampunk.

I don't claim I came up with this definition.

Steampunk is science fiction with a Victorian or Edwardian aesthetic, specifically either:

1. Alternate history where certain technological advances were made in the Victorian or Edwardian eras, typically not such advances as would make steam power or clockwork obsolete or significantly change the aesthetics of the time

or

2. Fiction set in the future as Victorians and/or Edwardians might have envisioned it.

@SamStarrett: I can agree to that definition

I must confess to having second thoughts about my definition. If you read my thread on HWSF, you'll see why, but just to sum it up, I don't think my definition above adequately accounted for the "punk" part of "steampunk," that is, the progressive or even radical ideology that drove the "pure" or "early" or even "true" steampunk authors. These people wrote what was fundamentally a criticism of the Victorian era for its imperialism, its colonialism, its monarchism, and especially its Christian social mores, or, as the punks would call it, "Puritanism."

I think authors of Christian "steampunk," especially of a politically reactionary bent (which my work certainly is), should get a new name for what they write, because we're not punks, and I see little reason to try to posture as a punk. Perhaps simply "gaslight," although that brings to mind a lot of fantasy with very little high technology. Perhaps "gaslight sci-fi" or "Victorian retro-futurism." I'm obviously open to suggestions on this point.

By contrast, my understanding (though I admit I've read very little of the genre itself) is that the "punk" in the name is merely indicative of its etymology, its having been derived from "cyberpunk." (See my explanation above.) And the "punk" in "cyberpunk" seems to have been lost as an "essential" of that genre (though, again, I'm not very familiar with it at all).


I've seen "gaslight fantasy"; the "gaslight" indicates that it's a lot higher tech level than most (non-"urban") fantasy includes.

But genre labels "sticking" when the actual content of the genre has significantly and substantially changed is one of the hazards of our trade .

My info, although I have read some steampunk and to a large extent it fit this description, comes primarily from the introduction to Steampunk written by Jess Nevins.

"Steampunk, like all good punk, rebels against the system it portrays (Victorian London or something quite like it), critiquing its treatment of the underclass, its validation of the privileged at the cost of everyone else, its lack of mercy, its cutthroat capitalism. Like the punks, steampunk rarely offers a solution to the problems it decries -- for steampunk, there is no solution -- but for both punk and steampunk the criticism must be made before the change can come. The Edisonades could not have conceived of steampunk. Steampunk is well aware of the Edisonade boy inventor, and kills him, as villains must be killed, by the end of the story.

"It might be objected that the preceding only holds true for first generation steampunk, and that much or even most second generation steampunk is not true steampunk -- there is little to nothing "punk" about it. The politics of the punk position have largely disappeared from second generation steampunk, and most of it is more accurately described as "steam sci-fi" or, following John Clute, "gaslight romance." The authors of the Edisonades would have loathed first generation steampunk, but they would have approved of second generation steampunk, with its steam machines used against the American natives in Westerns, and steam-powered war machines being used in the service of the British army conquering Mars . . . This abandonment of ideology is . . . an emasculation that is inevitable once a subgenre becomes established . . . But its loss is nonetheless to be mourned."

I took his facts as gospel and rejected his politics. Nevertheless, I agreed with him that rightists should label their works accurately, and not as "punk" of any sort.




But, if I'm not mistaken, far lower than steampunk; closer to the actual Victorian era, yes?



I hate verbicide.

Hmm, gaslight fantasy technology can be as equally high as steampunk, it just tends to emphasize the fantasy aspects more.

The root of steampunk may be in Victorian version of cyberpunk, but it's grown much beyond that now, like all genres or subgenres grow beyond the works that kicked off the genre.

From what I've seen (in my quite limited experience), the difference between "steampunk" and "gaslight fantasy" (or "gaslight sci-fi") is primarily in who's talking; I would have said that the terms were essentially interchangeable.


(I'm sorry to be quite so pedantic here, but ...) Note that I didn't say "Victorian version of cyberpunk"; what I intended to say, and I think I did, was that the term was made by analogy with cyberpunk---that "proto-steampunk" was to the Victorian era what cyberpunk was to the "punk" era.

I know. But cyberpunk and the original steampunk had a lot of similarities, with details adjusted for era.

There's really no solid definition, that I know of. There are certain tendencies and things it is associated with, like the things you mentioned, but it's not limited to that. It usually involves interesting mechanical technology (steam driven, gears, that sort of thing) rather than electronic technology, but not always. It often involves the Victorian era or a setting that is similar, but not always. It can often be dystopian, but not always. It is almost always gritty and grungy rather than shiny and slick, that's the only consistent thing I've noticed thus far.