Steampunk for Pynchon Readers

[Anville Azote]

On 10/30/06, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> But how did the term "Steampunk" get coined?  There doesn't seem to be
> anything "punkish" about it other than that Gibson wreote those
> "Cyber-punk" classics.
>

A sentence I wrote months ago for the Wikipedia:

"Among the subgenres of cyberpunk is steampunk, which is set in an
anachronistic Victorian environment, but with cyberpunk's bleak film
noir world view. The term was originally coined around 1987 as a joke
to describe some of the novels of Tim Powers, James P. Blaylock, and
K.W. Jeter, but by the time Gibson and Sterling entered the subgenre
with their collaborative novel The Difference Engine the term was
being used earnestly as well."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk

The source I found for this was Michael Berry, "Wacko Victorian
Fantasy Follows 'Cyberpunk' Mold," The San Francisco Chronicle, 25
June, 1987, quoted online by Wordspy:

"Jeter, along with fellow novelists Tim Powers and James Blaylock,
seems to be carving out a new sub-genre of science fiction with his
new book. Whereas such authors as William Gibson, Michael Swanwick and
Walter Jon Williams have explored the futuristic commingling of human
being and computer in their "cyberpunk" novels and stories, Jeter and
his compatriots, whom he half-jokingly has dubbed "steampunks," are
having a grand time creating wacko historical fantasies."

http://www.wordspy.com/words/steampunk.asp

-A. A.