Steampunk and Victorian Age

[Saya]

Mmhmm, finally creating a thread for something that hasn't been mentioned elsewhere on the OB. The general discussion regarding favorite works in the Steampunk/Victorian time period. It has been mentioned as it pertains to individual series/movies here on the forums, but this is for general discussion purposes only.

Two of the genres I enjoy the most in video games, literature, and movies are the Steampunk and Victorian settings. While it has been mentioned in a number of threads on the OB it has never once been the sole focus of a thread. Likewise I?m curious to know if any other OB members out there like the two genres I previously mentioned, and what works from them you like or dislike.

For those of you who do not know, Steampunk is a general term used to describe literary works, movies, and so on which are set in either an alternative reality type world, or otherwise abnormal world in which a Victorian England type setting is used (in combination with modern technological ideas.

For instance in a Steampunk video game or role playing game you might find a transportation device similar to a helicopter and yet unlike a modern helicopter it might have a number of odd gears and components reminiscent of 18th century scientific advancements and yet overall serve the same purpose as a modern day helicopter.

Wikipedia describes it best! Their entry ([URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk]click here[/URL]) also contains a lot more useful information such as sub-classifications within the genre for those interested in classifying the literature that they?ve read:

[quote name='Wikipedia Steampunk Entry'] Steampunk is a sub-genre of speculative fiction, usually set in an anachronistic Victorian or quasi-Victorian alternate history setting. Fiction in the steampunk genre is set in the past, or a world resembling the past, in which modern technological paradigms occurred earlier in history, but were accomplished via the science already present in that time period. The genre typically falls into the realm of science fiction.[/quote]This thread is both dedicated to Steampunk as well as Victorian themed productions and literature and the general interest in both those genres (Cyberpunk can be tolerated so long as the setting is somehow related to the Victorian time period and less on later time periods such as the Edwardian early 1900s, which it [i]typically[/i] is not).

So what types of stuff am I into?

Well, I like Victorian Age Vampire by White Wolf Game Studios for a general guide to role playing a Vampire: The Masquerade type game in the Victorian age. I?m also very fond of video games like the Final Fantasy series, and most suited to the Steampunk genre, Dark Cloud 2. Comic books? I?d have to say that CrossGen?s Ruse is best for a sci-fi Victorian setting insofar as the historical setting mixed with magic is concerned. It stretches as far as anime too, doesn?t it? From trace elements of Steampunk in Last Exile to the reminiscent Edwardian period left over in pieces that take place in the 20s like Chrono Crusade, and the pilot of episode of YamiBou.

Of course more traditional works of literature such as The Difference Engine also play a role in my love of the genre. Traditional Victorian pieces are too numerous to name, but I love quite a number of Victorian books (both classic and new), as well as classic Victorian poems.

The time period is just fascinating to me, and I?ve done a lot of historical research of the time period, specifically as it pertains to England, as a result. The style of dress, socially acceptable etiquette, decadence which was kept behind veils and other such things interest me. Being a sci-fi and fantasy fan, it?s no wonder that one such as myself can quickly come to love Steampunk. If you think it sounds interesting but want more information about it or what works are considered Steampunk, please post!

Does anyone else share my love of the genres mentioned? If so, what sort of movies, books and games relating to them do you like? Anyone have any good suggestions for other anime series/movies that fit the bill?

Completely open discussion,

Enjoy

[Retribution]

[size=1]Well, I'm a bit confused as to what Steampunk encompasses, but would something like Brave New World be considered Steampunk? They have helicopters and jets, yet it's all gear-operated. All controls are analog ones, so far as I can tell. But the reason why I'm unsure is because they have electronic things, such as robots and intercoms. I suppose I'm a Steampunk fan as well -- exploring an alternate reality that takes places in the past sounds extremely intriguing.

As for things set in the Victorian Age, I can't really say I enjoy such works. I'm more of a science-fiction guy myself, so Steampunk sounds more up my alley than something with comparatively primitive technology.[/size]

[Ailes de Velour]

I've never heard of steampunk until now. I mean, I recognized the basic parts of it, such as Victorian influences, but I didn't know that they were a part of such a thing. I love some of the things Wikipedia mentioned as being steampunk; Rasputina (more like an obsession), Wizard of Oz, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (the movie), Lemony Snicket, Read or Die, etc. It looks like my band will finally have a definitive genre and not just "a whole bunch of rock stuff" or "gothic/symphonic metal/emo/psychobilly/progressive/ambient." Thank you, so very much. =D

(I adore Victorian fashions and plan to deeply integrate it into my band's functioning. <3)

[Saya]

[quote name='Retribution']but would something like Brave New World be considered Steampunk? [/quote]Well I'm certainly no expert on it:animeswea, but it would be my guess that Brave New World would be simply sci-fi. The problem with Brave New World, if I'm remember it correctly, was that there wasn't Victorian-esque engineering components to simulate modern day technology (I remember "old" things but I think that was because it was a post apocalyptic world... I don't remember Victorian things or anything from around that time period). But in the end I think it wouldn't be considered Steampunk because it takes place in the future and speculates what the future would be like (basing this off the movie, as I did not read the book Brave New World, or if I did I don't remember it well enough).

I might be completely wrong? the book might be majorly different, if so I deeply apologize. If it is slightly easier to visualize, I picture some of the earlier airships and the like in the Final Fantasy series to be very Steampunk-ish, but I doubt anyone is going to agree with me there. Again, the big video game that comes to mind is Dark Cloud 2.

RPGs like Shadowrun is often considered Cyberpunk, Wikipedia classifies that as this:

[quote name='Wikipedia on Cyberpunk']Cyberpunk (a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk) is a sub-genre of science fiction that focuses on computers or information technology, usually coupled with some degree of breakdown in social order.[/quote]While it doesn't sound entirely like Brave New World, it does sound right up your alley Retribution. :)

[quote name='Ailes de Velour']I've never heard of steampunk until now. I mean, I recognized the basic parts of it, such as Victorian influences, but I didn't know that they were a part of such a thing. I love some of the things Wikipedia mentioned as being steampunk[/quote]While not on the same subject, you're quite right - like existential writings for instance, Steampunk encompasses a whole lot of things, in fact, sometimes it encompasses literature which not everyone would agree is Steampunk. Truth be told I wouldn't agree entirely with some of the books that article classifies as Steampunk, but like the Cyberpunk and film noir genres, I suppose it is all up to individual opinion. And like you said, once you consider the themes present in those films, you kind of see how they all relate... at first I thought "Steampunk" was a dumb new movement, but in actuality it seems quite appropriate.

It's interesting, at the very least I found it to be a useful term in that it attempts to define certain characteristics in movies and literature which one might find desirable and yet otherwise difficult to make mention of.

[quote name='Ailes de Velour']It looks like my band will finally have a definitive genre and not just "a whole bunch of rock stuff" or "gothic/symphonic metal/emo/psychobilly/progressive/ambient." Thank you, so very much. =D[/quote]Actually.... you know it sounds like industrial too! *Snickers and knows this further confuses matters* but I would love to hear your stuff sometime, sounds like my kind of music (I used to make ambient/electronica music... some of my pieces includes jazz remixes, real fun).

R.O.D. (and all branch offs from it) are high in Steampunk. While at first it comes across as a background theme, one particular in episode in R.O.D. the TV features (this spoiler pertains somewhat to the ending of the series), [spoiler]Dokusensha/the British library transfering London back into the Victorian age. Ontop of that there are a lot of machines which are brought into the equation that did not actually exist in that time period.[/spoiler] I thought that one particular episode was extremely well done.

Defining Steampunk is pretty difficult. :animeswea I guess the only real way of being able to tell is either by seeing something that is [i]clearly[/i] Steampunk without any reasonable doubt or just by searching for it online (one good example in my opinion is La cité des enfants perdus - The City of Lost Children).

[Ailes de Velour]

Haha, I forgot to attach industrial to that little genre list. xP; silly me.

I'd love to share some music with you, but the only stuff I've recorded is just me experimenting with Audacity, a synthesizer, and my guitar. Actually, only one of the three songs uses a guitar, and the synthesizer's pre-made drum beats. One of the songs I recorded (for a movie I made in the game, The Movies), "Discordant Attack," plays on my band's freewebs site. As soon as I can remember the password/username for both our garageband and myspace account, I'd be happy to upload the other two songs ("Superior Benevolent Radio" and "Nocturne" are both just ambient synthesizer while "Discordant Attack" is reminiscent of early days of AFI...only instrumental). Then, of course, our lyrics can be read [URL=http://www.freewebs.com/pandoramusic/verses.htm]here[/URL]. =D Swaaaaaamping thou! I apologize.

Therefore, I appreciate you enlightening me on this subject. =D

[Raiyuu]

[color=DarkGreen][font=Trebuchet MS]Arrgh. I was going to move this to the [b]Anthology, [/b]seeing as it covered Steampunk literature like [i]The Difference Engine - [/i]awesome book, by the way, William Gibson is my all-time favourite author - but now we have anime, movies and even music creeping in too, giving it three different forums it could fit into.

So I guess I'll just leave it here ;)

I actually started writing a Steampunk-ish novel a long time ago, though like most of my efforts at long fiction, it didn't really go anywhere; still got the story in my head, though! I think I bought magic into it as well, so I suppose it was more post-apocalyptic fantasy than true Steampunk, if we're being picky about genre classification.

Some more Steampunk works that I haven't seen/read myself, but which may spark off more discussion: Steamboy, a fairly highly-anticipated anime film that came out recently; and there was that book, [i]Mortal Engines, [/i]with the cities on caterpillar treads, which I think fits the genre.
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[2010DigitalBoy]

[quote name='Ailes de Velour']I'd love to share some music with you, but the only stuff I've recorded is just me experimenting with Audacity, a synthesizer, and my guitar. Actually, only one of the three songs uses a guitar, and the synthesizer's pre-made drum beats. [/quote]

I'd like to hear it to. Who knows, maybe you'll become the next Trent Reznor! (well... a slightly less sucky Trent Reznor)

I have alwayss wondered what the name of this genre was. I have always stared at the flying ships lain over the victorian landscape of Final Fantasy with a pondering of, "WTF why ain't they got guns and junk?" And now I finally know! Yeah, I like steampunk style,and infact I plan to creat my own work of steampunk fiction! Thank you for inspiring me!

Also, are you sure ROd would fall under this? It seems pretty modern-day. I do love ROD, though, a great movie/show.

[Saya]

[quote name='Raiyuu][color=DarkGreen][font=Trebuchet MS]Arrgh. I was going to move this to the Anthology, seeing as it covered Steampunk literature like The Difference Engine - awesome book, by the way, William Gibson is my all-time favourite author - but now we have anime, movies and even music creeping in too, giving it three different forums it could fit into. [/font'][/color][/quote]Exactly the same sound I made when I was trying to figure out where to put this given its very general scope! ;)
[QUOTE=Raiyuu][color=DarkGreen][font=Trebuchet MS] Some more Steampunk works that I haven't seen/read myself, but which may spark off more discussion: Steamboy, a fairly highly-anticipated anime film that came out recently; and there was that book, [i]Mortal Engines, [/i]with the cities on caterpillar treads, which I think fits the genre.
[/font][/color][/QUOTE]I saw the Steamboy movie at a Japanese bookstore today, looked really cool, I'd be interested in knowing if the anime was faithful to the time period. Truth be told I've stayed away from it thus far because I heard there were too many repetitive action sequences (one such review was by [url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050317/REVIEWS/50309001/1023]Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times 2005[/url]). If it is good and faithful to the genres mentioned I might just go rent it after all (I'm a big Akira fan so I was delighted to find out that it was the same director). Yeah, anyone know more about this?

[quote name='Nomad Tical']Also, are you sure ROd would fall under this? It seems pretty modern-day. I do love ROD, though, a great movie/show.[/quote]No no, quite right it is modern generally speaking. I meant that one episode in particular, although there are certain segments in the R.O.D. Read or Die OVA such as the way they did Mr. Gentleman and some other random technological things during the show (R.O.D. the TV) which touched upon the genre. It seems that many works of sci-fi trying to bring England into the picture contains some Victorian elements (and rightly so, serves to make it seem all the more lavish and interesting).

[Desbreko]

[color=#4B0082]Sounds like Final Fantasy VI would be another good video game example, if I'm understanding the criteria correctly. Everything is mechanical, with steam engines being about the most advanced form of technology present, short of the magitek stuff and the two airships. (Also all mechanical, however.) I really liked FFVI, so if it does fit, I guess you could say I enjoy the steampunk genre.

I still prefer straight up fantasy -- things like Zelda (video game), Lord of the Rings (book/movie), Slayers (anime), etc. -- but the steampunk setting does interest me.[/color]