The Second Coming of Steampunk

Dave Monroe against.the.dave at gmail.com
Fri Sep 12 09:02:33 CDT 2008


The Second Coming of Steampunk: An Interview with Ann and Jeff VanderMeer
[11 September 2008]

Originally a literary movement that mashed cyberpunk-style themes with
speculative rewritings of Victorian culture, steampunk is now equally
a subculture devoted to repurposing mass-market consumer products into
gloriously obsessive idiosyncratic designs.

by Jason B. Jones


It's fair to say that  steampunk is enjoying an odd sort of second
coming these days. Originally a literary movement that mashed
cyberpunk-style themes with speculative rewritings of Victorian
culture, steampunk is now equally a subculture devoted to repurposing
mass-market consumer products into gloriously obsessive idiosyncratic
designs. Scarcely a day—some days, scarcely an hour—goes by without a
BoingBoing post devoted to some lovingly crafted steampunk mod.

As Ann and Jeff VanderMeer discuss below, however, that DIY culture is
frequently unaware of its own literary roots. Their new anthology,
Steampunk, from Tachyon Publications, should help that situation:
Collecting together stories by such writers as Neal Stephenson, James
Blaylock, Michael Chabon, Paul Di Filippo, Joe Lansdale, Ted Chiang,
and others, as well as an excerpt from Michael Moorcock's The Warlord
of the Air, as well as helpful essays by Jess Nevins, Rick Klaw, and
Bill Baker, Steampunk is a thoroughly engaging read....

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/63176/the-second-coming-of-steampunk-an-interview-with-ann-and-jeff-vandermeer/#share




More information about the Pynchon-l mailing list