Sowewerereadingthisbookinclassand…Woah woah woah. I think we need to slow down. And back up. Yes, we are reading a book in class and yes it has to do with steampunk. But wait….what’s steam punk? 

 

For those of you who don’t know steampunk is, steampunk is a type of science fiction that is set in the Victoria era but they have advanced machinery. It came about during the 1970’s ish. Normally, steam punk is focused on all the wacky machines they come up with. In class we are reading a book that is steampunk themed, called the Leviathan. It is focused around the premises of the steampunk universe. So there’s a whole range of books based in steampunk as well as costume fairs and steam punk fairs.

We have been tasked with doing some extra research on the steam punk genre. And my question about steam punk is:

Is there one person or group at the route of the steam punk genre?  Why did they create steam punk? 

So I dived into the world of….THE INTERNET. And found quite a lot of interesting stuff.

Who created this?

There isn’t one specific person at root of Steam Punk. There are many authors who are considered to have been at the root of Steam punk:

– H.G. Wells was an author during the Victorian times and wrote science fiction, he is considered to be an inspiration for Steam punk.

 

– Edward S. Ellis, wrote western stories featuring Cowboys and sheriffs and all that. But he wrote a book called steam man on the prairies which is considered to be one of the first steam punk type books.

– K.W. Jeter, K.W. Jeter is considered to be the father of modern Steam punk by many, but not much credit can be given to one single person.

– Jules Verne. Jules is a source of inspiration for steam punk novels. He wrote romantic science novels. Many steam punk authors took inspiration from his novels and the idea of science and mechanics and all that.

Why did they create this? 

Steam punk is a fairly recent type of science fiction. As I said earlier, steam punk only came around in the 1970’s. But no date can be placed exactly on Steam punk. I think the reason that many people created steam punk was to be able to explore a new genre of science fiction. It used to be that steam punk was only a genre under the umbrella of science fiction but has now risen to the level where it is now not only considered a sub genre of science fiction. Additionally, Steam punk was a totally new way to go. From my research I think Steam punk might have come about during the 70’s for a reason. During the 70’s many things in the world were changing, technology politics etc. I think that Steam punk authors took inspiration from this “age of technology knowledge stuff” if you will and took that idea of the age of technology and set it in the Victorian era. Where things were also changing.

Thats it for today folks! But if I were you I would keep a look out for a very interesting post coming up.