So yesterday we hopped up to Oxford to see the Steampunk show at the Museum of the History of Science. Both Oxford and Cambridge have such museums, and they’re both a short day trip from London. And to have a show on Steampunk—the first museum show on the subject, we’re assured. How cool is that?
So for the unenlightened, what is Steampunk? It’s a genre of sf (which can be either science fiction, or speculative fiction, although when I use the latter term, people usually look a little confused, so then I have to explain that it’s what a lot of people call science fiction these days, since the term “science fiction” barely encompasses the breadth and depth of the genre any more—but that’s another post). Anyway, Steampunk (or, more properly, the Steampunk revival) got its start with The Difference Engine, in which William Gibson and Bruce Sterling married hardcore sf with a Victorian world. Full Story »
