Steampunk question

[rodlox]

Would there be much, if any difference between the following?:
* Georgian steampunk
* Victorian steampunk
* Edwardian steampunk

...and which would you most like to read, if you were in a library or a bookstore with a comfy chair?

(Edwardian would have tanks, I presume. and Victorian would have daleks urchins)

Comments

[lsellersfic]

I think it very much depends how fantastical your steampunk setting is. If you're setting your story in something very realistic, i.e. it's basically historical fiction with a slight SF twist then you want to keep it as realistic as possible. The further you get away from that the more free you are to mix and match your periods (and, obviously, your outfits).

But the periods you pick take you from the very start of industrialisation, where the steam-driven pump was a novelty through to, as you say, the invention of the tank, there is a lot of places on that scale where you can choose to place your mad scientist/adventurer. Not to mention what-ifs like "What if you actually could get to the moon in a balloon..."

I guess you could also take a tack in which you hypothesise very advanced science but nevertheless pick the clothing and mores of one particular era - after all Regency behaviour was very different to High Victorian behaviour was very different, again, to the Edwardian era.

[sar_kaz_m]

?? I see your icon & I wonder.... did I just read your Steampunk!Primeval fic today??

[lsellersfic]

Probably! I wrote it for rodlox. I'm getting the impression that it has set his muse running somewhat... I anticipate more Steampunk!Primeval in the not too distant future.

[dejla]

Probably Edwardian would appeal to me. The question of steampunk in Georgian England--where would it fit in? Well, you could probably borrow from Leonardo DaVinci and have someone inventing airships on the theory of balloons... Pistols and rifles existed, so maybe you could have some sort of raygun?

I'd have to think about this longer.

[steamshovelmama]

EXCELLENT kids' skiffy book by Scott Westerfield: "Leviathan" is Edwardian steampunk style plus first-world-war alternate history and strange take on Darwinism and genetic engineering... I strongly recommend it to anyone interested in this kind of SF (it's aimed at the older 9-12/teen bracket but could be read by anyone.)

That doesn't answer any of your questions but I thought I'd just throw it in there as an item of interest.

Hmmm... isn't steampunk by definition Victorian? Due the steam aspect of it (and early-mid Victorian at that). Shouldn't there be another word for earlier/later eras?

[rodlox]

I've heard of
* Steampunk
* Dieselpunk (outlandish oil machines)
* Claypunk (Sumerian supertech, I suppose)

[pimpmytardis]

I don't think you can properly have Georgian steampunk, at least not by traditional definitions of the period and the genre. To me, steampunk is strongly tied to the Second Industrial Revolution, with the advent of steamboats, trains, and factories being the jumping-off point.

As for the Edwardian era, I associate that with expanding electrification, so again the necessity of steam is diminishing. I hasten to add that the Edwardian period =/= World War One. On a different note, steampunk WWI pisses me off.

[dejla]

I'm curious. Why is that?

[sar_kaz_m]

Being only on the outskirts of the steampunk thing (like the fashion, not actually reading the lit), I always consider the steampunk genre to be progressive from 1822, with Burbagge's Difference Engine.