What is Steampunk?
While it is growing as new authors and stories are coming out all the time, Steampunk as a genre is not widely known.
Perhaps the best definition can be found on the steampunk page of wikipedia that describes the genre as:
Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction and speculative fiction, frequently featuring elements of fantasy, that came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used — usually the 19th century, and often Victorian era Britain[citation needed] — but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy, such as fictional technological inventions like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, or real technological developments like the computer occurring at an earlier date. Other examples of steampunk contain alternate history-style presentations of “the path not taken” of such technology as dirigibles, analog computers, or digital mechanical computers (such as Charles Babbage‘s Analytical engine); these frequently are presented in an idealized light, or with a presumption of functionality.
A more streamlined definition would be that steampunk is a genre birthed from the marriage of science fiction and history. It asks what the past would have been like if they had some of the inventions and knowledge that we have today.
