Top hats and automatons

Men in three-piece suits and women in elegant dresses sit together at a large dinner table.

They talk to each other in low, formal tones and eat their food with the proper fork and knife out of the many they have to choose from. When they drink wine, it’s from sparkling crystal glasses with small, polite sips. 

After everyone finishes the course, the host calls for the next. A servant walks in – and it’s made entirely of highly-polished brass. It is shaped and moves like a human, but instead of muscle and bone, it is made of metal and gears. It lays down each diner’s new plate, bows, and leaves. No one in the dining room seems surprised. 

You, dear Learning Nugget readers, have just experienced „steampunk.“ Below you can find out more about what that means. 

What is steampunk? 

Steampunk is a blend of genres, mainly historical fiction, science fiction, and fantasy.  
 
Worlds created in the steampunk style usually mirror societies during the Victorian period, which was roughly from the 1830s through the very early 1900s. Clear differences between high and low class groups, formal dress in all public settings for high society, and extremely proper speech and behavior are all hallmarks of this period. 

But in steampunk, old-fashioned ways contrast with technology like advanced airships, thinking automatons, and time machines. The mechanical wonders are typically built with complicated sets of cogs and wheels and powered by ingenious mechanisms or – you guessed it – steam. It’s this interesting blend of futuristic and old-timey that defines steampunk. 

It’s also common for supernatural elements like magic and monsters to appear. 

Why is it called steampunk? 

The word „steampunk“ is credited to author K.W. Jeter, who first wrote it in a letter to a magazine for science fiction and fantasy. It’s a play on the word „cyberpunk“ that describes fiction set in very technologically advanced future societies that are full of violence and corruption (think Blade Runner).

„Cyber“ refers to the tech, and „punk“ comes from how themes in the genre are similar to ones from punk music and culture. 

Jeter wrote what many consider the first cyberpunk novel, but he and other writers also began exploring themes from cyberpunk in a reimagined, tech-savvy Victorian era. He thought the genre could be extremely popular, but it needed a name. He suggested „steampunk“ because it showed ties to cyberpunk but replaced „cyber“ with the main power source for Victorian machines. 

Today, steampunk doesn’t need the „punk“ elements to fit the genre. Whether funny, suspenseful, or heartbreaking, any story set in a Victorian-like world with technology that’s advanced beyond anything that existed in the 19th or early 20th century (or often even today) can likely be considered steampunk. 

Steampunk now 

Today, steampunk is common in stories, TV, movies, and video games. Some people even enjoy dressing up like characters from a steampunk world. Their outfits are usually old-fashioned formalwear mixed with large clocks or cog wheels, but leather aviator gear and goggles from the early years of air travel are also common. 

If you’re interested in experiencing steampunk stories, people on the TIP TOP team recommend the book The Golden Compass by Philipp Pullman as well as the short story „A Dead Djinn in Cairo“ by P. Djèlí Clark.