I’ve decided to depart from the usual sketches and silly pictures today, and instead, uh, actually write something. And it’s about steampunk.
I have a bit of trouble with the word “steampunk” and with the vague, lax realm the literary subgenre has become. We can trace the term back to K.W. Jetter, but what he coined comes from simply grasping for the right descriptor:
“Personally, I think Victorian fantasies are going to be the next big thing, as long as we can come up with a fitting collective term for Powers, Blaylock and myself. Something based on the appropriate technology of the era; like ‘steampunks’, perhaps…” (1987)
One Last Sketch 