Friday, February 23, 2007

My current fascination

I recently have become fascinated with all things Steampunk. If you're unfamiliar with the term, it's a genre of fiction based in the Victorian era, but with sci-fi like technology, albeit powered by chronologically sensible sources. So, for instance, their tanks are steam powered; robots wound up like clocks, etc.

Mostly what I like is the visual aspect of Steampunk, with lots of gears and cogs and brass. There is a great deal of Steampunk art out there, including animation, comic books, novels, music, and - best of all - homemade mods and art. I found a great blog called Brass Goggles (which I've linked to on the side there) that posts about all things Steampunk. The best post, in my opinion? The guy who made his home theater the interior of Captain Nemo's Nautilus.

If you read Jules Verne when you were a kid, like I did, or if you're fascinated by Nickola Tesla and Charles Babbage, you'll like Steampunk stuff. If you're "too cool" for such nerdy stuff? Screw you. This stuff is cool.

Mattbear out.

4 comments:

Wiwille said...

I used to be a huge fan Jules Verne when I was a kid, so I'm with you on this. Kind of disappointed in the Steampunk label. I would have used something that included victorian women's undergarments, but I'm kind of pervy that way.

Memophage said...

Ah yeah, I love the steampunk style - what could have happened if transistors were never invented, copper was the cheapest thing on the planet, and you could ignore a few inconvenient laws of physics. Damn cool looking though. In this age of buzzing, beeping electronics, there's something visceral about giant solid manmade mechanical machines that whirr, clank and THUD.

I sat through "Steamboy" one time about 2:00 in the morning when my son was keeping me awake. Cool animation, but painfully slow.

I'm a big fan of speculative alternate-history fiction. If you haven't, I recommend reading The Difference Engine (Gibson and Sterling) - extrapolating the rise of mechanical, rather than electronic, computing.

Memophage said...

Btw, the blog post that you link to about the Steampunk PC Case mod was made by Cory Doctorow, one of my current favorite SF authors. Just found that interesting...

Mattbear said...

I was starting to think this post was going to get no attention at all. :)

I'm glad you guys appreciate this stuff too.