“Steam” has entered our contemporary vernacular in a big way. “STEAM” programming is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. As a popular literary genre and aesthetic, Steampunk can generally be defined as a story set in either Victorian England or America’s Wild West wherein modern technologies are re-imagined. For instance, “Dr. Who” has Steampunk elements with its time-travel plots. As for the genre’s origin story, K.W. Jeter wrote to Locus magazine in 1987: “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 ‘steam-punks’, perhaps.” Continue reading →