What is steampunk? Steampunk is simply a genre of science fiction what evolved from the victorian era. It follows the idea of technology evolving in a different way rather than today’s world of technology.
The question I’ve asked are there related genres to steampunk? The answer is yes, there are many different genres related to steampunk! Such as dieselpunk, biopunk, cyberpunk and that just the beginning.
Your probably wondering why I’m talking about steampunk? Well, our class is just finishing up a novel called Leviathan. The book follows two teenagers living around the time of world war 1. Although this isn’t our ancestors version of world war 1. The two teenagers live in alternate societies, the Clankers and the Darwinists.
The Clankers rely on their mechanic skills and use hight tech machines while the Darwinists fabricate beasties and follow the theory of Charles Darwin who in today’s world discovered DNA and developed the theory of evolution.
The reason this post is about steampunk is because the book takes place in an old time Victorian era and follows the ascetic of steampunk. We’re learning about the world war 1 era and how the genre of steampunk from books and films had an impact on society.
Let me talk a bit more about my driving question for this post. Are there related genres to steampunk?
Cyberpunk & Biopunk
Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction set in a futuristic society that focus on a combination of lowlife or criminal and hight technology. It’s based on advanced technological and scientific achievements, like artificial intelligence and cybernetics which is the automatic control system in both machine and living things. Cyberpunk was in the new movement of science fiction in the 1960s and 1970s when writers like Philip K. Dick, Roger Zelazny, J. G. Ballard, Philip José Farmer and Harlan Ellison re-examined science fiction.
Biopunk is again a subgenre of science fiction but it came from Cyberpunk. Cyberpunk is based around information technology or (IT) which uses computers and other technology to get, send and retrieve the information. Biopunk is the opposite as it focuses on the idea of getting the information from synthetic biology meaning made from chemicals which is an interdisciplinary branch of biology and engineering. Which basically means it comes from more than one branch of knowledge.
My conclusion from the question I asked was endless. I learned that steampunk is just a branch of many many different genres, theory’s and ideas of how the world could potentially be. Well known genres usually come from authors stories and films that create an idea of a new version of what could have been or could become. Steampunk is the idea of putting new with the old and creating a whole new version of something.
Until next time…