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San Francisco, 3:19 PM
Tue Nov 10
27 posts in the last 24 hours
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10/15/09
10/14/09
Hint: GW ain't Steampunk.
10/14/09
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10/14/09
10/21/09
10/14/09
I actually miss when Steampunk was stylish and Victorian and was richly textured in settings that evoked the romance and dangers of both our technological progress and historical traditions. I miss Jules Verne and Georges Melies and Walt Disney and Karel Zeman. Damnit, I'm even wistful for the Wild Wild West movie, which at least LOOKED good.
Now get off my damn lawn!
10/14/09
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10/15/09
10/14/09
Some of the images are really really cool though, my only issue with Steampunk is that it tends to focus so heavily on Victorian and Edwardian culture and time-reference that it almost ignores the rest of the world. I'd love to see some creative people come up with what a Steampunk Asia or Africa or South America would have been like - or by extension, would be like now.
10/14/09
10/14/09
10/14/09
Interestingly, in terms of looks, what you would see in something like Sakura Wars isn't substantively different from what you would see in something like Wild Wild West. The difference is context, which is fascinating enough in it's own right.
One of the problems with exploring Steampunk in non-Euro-American cultures (Meiji! Qing! Tanzimat!) is that unless it's actualy done BY people from those cultures, it's just cultural apropriation... More white people's Orientalism. It would require getting more non-white, non-European people interested in it, which is not the sort of thing you can force.
10/14/09
10/14/09
I miss the days when Steampunk was Steampunk and the people who liked it were sharing a mutual love for it. Thanks to the DIY Punk types, Steampunk now means anything to anybody, particularly if its ugly and dirty and looks like crap.
10/14/09
They did have color during the era that steampunk attempts to recreate rather fantastically. They just couldn't reproduce it in any kind of media form yet. No need for steampunk now to use the same pallette range all the time.
10/14/09
10/14/09
10/14/09
OTOH some devices here that don't explicitly use steam or at least allow for the existence and use of electricity are much better. I may read books based on that technology (as long as it is not supposed to be designed in the 1800's or something).
Oh, also, this is exactly what Charles Stross is talking about, only taken to an extreme. Pretty much by definition these books & images postulate identical humans and stories to those that could be based in non-science fiction. Not only that, but they also seem to be an completely ignore technology and engineering, not even trying to fill in the "tech tech" statements with something plausible.
10/14/09
I think your first question answers your second, balloon propelled by cannon fire.
10/14/09
Or, to be fair, you're just looking for sci-fi that's a little harder on the sci and not so much the fi?
Seriously though - they're pretty pictures and an interesting concept. Let it be.
10/14/09
And I am not fighting these pictures - I am commenting on them. In the vain attempt to bring more scientific rationale into the area. :P
10/14/09
First of all, the aerodynamics all wrong - the canons need to be in the tail of the dirigible in order for this to work properly. And second, this implies even more weight that needs to be carried by this contraption.
The only way this would work is if it was on a low-grav world, which in turn begs the question of how the atmosphere stays on it. I guess if it was some sort of large space habitat...
09/09/09
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