Never Was Magazine

When I excluded events from my analysis in “Who Killed Steampunk?“, critics said I was overlooking the most thriving part of the steampunk movement. Book sales may be down; blogs and magazines may have closed; Hollywood may have lost interest in the genre, but conventions, some said, are booming.

I’m not much of a convention-goer, so I wouldn’t know. But if conventions and other events are where steampunk lives now, I ought to look into it.

So I did.

The Art of Maciej Rebisz

Atompunk

Nick OttensSeptember 11, 2019October 12, 2019

Maciej Rebisz is the man behind Space That Never Was, which imagines the Space Race didn’t end. Spacecraft based on the Apollo mission that first landed men on the Moon now travel to Venus. The Soviets reached the Moon. There are crewed missions to Mars. Private space companies flourish. The people of Earth, as Rebisz puts it, have “never stopped dreaming big and aiming high.”

Revisiting Nostalgic and Melancholic Steampunk: Correcting the “Varieties of Steampunk Experience”

Steampunk

Cory GrossSeptember 8, 2019One Comment

It’s been a long time since I left the steampunk scene and an even longer time since I should have. Yet as someone who writes a blog on historical film and literature should know, the past is inescapable. Hardly a month goes by when I’m not alerted by aggregators of academic journals — which I use for my offline life as a history and science educator — that my name has popped up in a paper about steampunk. Invariably these papers are referencing a piece I did over a decade ago in SteamPunk Magazine titled “Varieties of Steampunk Experience”.

Unfortunately, every single academic paper I have seen reference my piece has misinterpreted it, and misinterpreted it in almost exactly the same way.

Moorlander

Steampunk

Hilde HeyvaertSeptember 5, 2019

Industrial rivalry, plots for murder, intrigue, politics and a world where wondrous devices are engineered: Moorlander has it all.

At first glance.

The first in a series by Robert T. Bradley, this book takes you into a world where plots unfold all around the main characters.

The author has absolutely done his best to create a fully developed world with fleshed-out characters. It’s great that we’re not lacking backstory. But there is too much of a good thing.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow scene

Flying Aircraft Carriers

Dieselpunk

Nick OttensAugust 30, 2019October 17, 20193 Comments

Flying aircraft carriers show up in steampunk, dieselpunk and atompunk fiction so often, we can consider them a genre trope. From Castle Wulfenbach in Girl Genius to the British aircraft carriers in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow to the helicarriers of S.H.I.E.L.D., here is a look at these behemoths of the sky.

High Tech Low Life

Cyberpunk

Hilde HeyvaertAugust 27, 2019August 27, 20195 Comments

High Tech Low Life, the cyberpunk band from Okinawa, Japan, came as somewhat of a surprise to the European scene.

Not just a band, but an entire worldbuilding setting with their own characters and concept. Which is in itself nothing new, as many steampunk bands have done that. But their intent on doing better and saving the future is something done so well, I had to go and investigate.

So I sat down with the guys from High Tech Low Life to find out more about them and the terrible possible futures converging in 2069, which is, let’s face it, not that far away!

Which you can read right behind the piece about their music and concerts I witnessed. Stick with it til the very end, because there is a little giveaway!

The Art of Ulric Leprovost

Steampunk

Nick OttensAugust 25, 2019

Ulric Leprovost is a French artist with an unmistakable style of his own. I’ve picked the most steampunk-looking pieces from his portfolio.

Elftopia

Steampunk

Hilde HeyvaertAugust 21, 2019August 21, 2019

Elftopia fantasy faire has grown during its four years into an event that can easily compete with others of the same nature.

Unbuilt Paris

Steampunk

Nick OttensAugust 15, 2019September 15, 2019

A monumental elephant in place of the Arc de Triomphe. An aerodrome in the Jardins de Bagatelle. Multiple Eiffel Towers. Take our tour of the Paris that never was!

The Island at the Top of the World

Steampunk

Hilde HeyvaertAugust 11, 2019August 11, 2019

Back in the 1970s, the Walt Disney Company produced a series of adventure movies, some of which fit right into the steampunk genre. One is The Island at the Top of the World (1974).

The movie was co-written by John Whedon, grandfather of Joss Whedon of Buffy, Firefly and Avengers fame.

The story starts in 1907 London, where a British aristocrat is mounting an expedition to the Arctic to find his lost son. He travels there accompanied by an archeologist and the aeronaut and inventor as well as captain of the airship that is taking them there: the Hyperion.