The Hard Edge of Empire: "We know about the real world of the era steampunk is riffing off. And the picture is not good." Ladies and gentlemen, Charlie Stross has come through with the "steampunk sucks because fuck the victorians" post that I no longer feel any need to write. See also Nisi Shawl, who is currently on chapter 5 of her cotton-gin-punk novel.
(Side note: I have never understood the insistence that Tim Powers's The Anubis Gates, a novel of magical time travel in which deep sorcery and Egyptian mythology feature quite prominently, is somehow "proto-steampunk." What are these people smoking? It's not even Victorian, it's... whatever the era before Victorian was. Williamic? Georgian, I guess.)
( Mac nattering )
(Side note: I have never understood the insistence that Tim Powers's The Anubis Gates, a novel of magical time travel in which deep sorcery and Egyptian mythology feature quite prominently, is somehow "proto-steampunk." What are these people smoking? It's not even Victorian, it's... whatever the era before Victorian was. Williamic? Georgian, I guess.)
( Mac nattering )