“Hanamity” is the alias of a Russian artist. Many of his works are set in an alternative 1920s, straddling the boundary between steampunk and dieselpunk.
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Reversing the Rivers of Siberia
In late 1949, the Soviet Union claimed to have detonated a nuclear device to blow up a mountain range and start the reversal of two mighty rivers in Siberia: the Ob and the Yenisei.
The goal, Life magazine reported at the time, was to turn the arid desert of what is now Kazakhstan into a “pastoral landscape”.
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The Art of Lantern City
Lantern City was an ambitious attempt to create a trans-media steampunk experience. Set on a parallel Earth where the majority of the population is oppressed by a ruling class that literally lives above the rest, the franchise focused on an underground resistance movement.
The project spawned an illustrated novel (2013) and comic book series (2015-16), but a planned TV series never got underway.
Luckily, we still have the concept art!
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Ostalgie in Cinema
From Deutschland 83 to HBO’s Chernobyl, “Ostalgie” — which is what the Germans call nostalgia for the communist era — has become a trend in period and alternate-history fiction.
There are many variations of this. There is “Yugo-nostalgia” in the former Yugoslavia, Soviet nostalgia in Russia, and “Communist chic” in the West.
Here is an overview of the best productions.
Continue reading “Ostalgie in Cinema”Fail Safe
Fail Safe (1964) accomplishes a lot with very little. Almost the entire movie is shot on just four sets. There is no score. Many of the shots are closeups, which feels appropriate to the crisis atmosphere. The movie succeeds because it has a solid plot and solid acting from such actors as Henry Fonda, Dan O’Herlihy, Walter Matthau and Frank Overton.
Fail Safe was compared unfavorably to Dr. Strangelove when it first came out (a year after the Cuban Missile Crisis). Both show how a nuclear war might happen accidentally between the Soviet Union and the United States. Strangelove is superior, but, judged on its merits, Fail Safe is a strong entry in the Cold War genre.
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The Trans-Saharan Railway That Wasn’t
In March 1941, Vichy France started building a railway across West Africa that was meant to link up Algiers, Casablanca and Tunis in the north with Dakar in the west and Abidjan, the capital of Côte d’Ivoir, in the south.
Construction never got farther than Béni Abbès, an oasis town in the Algerian desert.
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The Art of Justin Van Genderen
Justin Van Genderen is an American graphic designer, who Space Age-style illustrations draw on movies like Star Wars and 2001: A Space Odyssey for inspiration.
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The Fabulous Vehicles of Thunderbirds
F.A.B.! If you grew up watching Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s marionette science-fiction show, you’ll remember that among the greatest things about it were the futuristic vehicles. In addition to the Thunderbirds machines, there were supersonic airplanes, nuclear-powered ships and spacecraft.
For the uninitiated: the 1960s franchise, set in the 2060s, is about a wealthy family that runs the life-saving International Rescue organization from an island in the South Pacific. Each episode features a disaster, typically involving a futuristic vehicle, to which the Thunderbirds respond with their unique capabilities.
Here is a look at some of the most fabulous vehicles of the week.
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Unbuilt Amsterdam
Amsterdam could have had a Parisian-style boulevard.
Around the turn of the last century, the city council accepted proposals for a new commodity exchange. It initially favored a design sponsored by hotelier W.P. Werker, who would have demolished a whole street of buildings between the Dutch capital’s central railway station and the Royal Palace on the Dam Square to create something of a miniature Champs-Élysées.
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The Art of Remy Hoff
Remy Hoff is a Norwegian artist with two passions: botany and steampunk. It turns out the two combine exceptionally well. These are some great settings for a steampunk story.
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