Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Science fiction set in an alternate version of the historic past, especially 19th-century England, and involving advanced technologies usually based on steam power.
- noun An aesthetic style inspired by steampunk fiction.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun uncountable, neologism A
subgenre ofspeculative science fiction set in ananachronistic 19thcentury society . - noun countable, cosplay A person
cosplaying as a steampunk character. - verb transitive To depict in a steampunk manner.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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This led to books like "Morlock Night" (1979), by K.W. Jeter (who invented the term "steampunk"), or Stephen Baxter's "The Time Ships" (1995).
Why Steampunk's Time Has Come Tom Shippey 2011
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Jenny – I really need someone to explain steampunk to me!
Catastrophe and Coincidence « Tales from the Reading Room 2010
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I believe that steampunk is transhumanist Singularitarianism transposed to the key of Victorian adventure-writing.
[GUEST POST] Lavie Tidhar Asks 'What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Steampunk?' 2010
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Your "Clarkean" argument of steampunk is quite elegant, Lavie - I couldn´t agree more!
[GUEST POST] Lavie Tidhar Asks 'What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Steampunk?' 2010
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I'd argue that steampunk is basically a form of science fiction that looks backwards rather than forwards.
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But I think it will contain steampunk and bloodmagic, prophets and gladiators.
learned so much in such a short time nathreee 2010
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Compared to say, high fantasy, it is actully pretty hard to find good (or any) material in steampunk (and other smaller genres).
Genre dilettante « 2009
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One of the interesting things about steampunk is that it hasn't formed an expectation of tone in the same way that something like cyberpunk has.
The art of Leviathan, Part Two: An interview with Keith Thompson 2010
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But I think it will contain steampunk and bloodmagic, prophets and gladiators.
learned so much in such a short time nathreee 2010
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Sherlock Holmes has pretty much convinced me that steampunk is just not for me.
and if you win you get this shiny fiddle made of gold, but if you lose the devil gets your soul intertribal 2009
edwardvielmetti commented on the word steampunk
Half the excitement about the online steampunk revival seems to source from the fact that it's only been done once before. That's what it comes to, in the anachronesis condition: it's exciting because it's only a bit old.
Warren Ellis,
http://suicidegirls.com/news/culture/22516/
October 22, 2007
ecbrenner commented on the word steampunk
"Item of SF terminology coined in the late 1980s, on the analogy of cyberpunk, to describe the modern subgenre whose SF events take place against a 19th-century background." --Encylcopedia of Science Fiction, 1161.
March 30, 2009
erinmckean commented on the word steampunk
"steampunk is nothing more than what happens when goths discover brown" (Charles Stross)
November 6, 2010