Throughout World War II, Allied policymakers pondered how to rearrange the world once victory was achieved. Oftentimes their thinking confined itself to the outlines of postwar Europe, but some schemes were more ambitious. Continue reading “New World Order”
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Killzone
Besides tulips and cannabis, the Netherlands now has a more colorful, and perhaps even more addictive, export product: the video game Killzone, developed by the Amsterdam-based Guerilla Games.
The first Killzone shooter was released back in November 2004 and, in spite of average reviews, sold more than two million copies worldwide. In just a few days, on February 27, the third game in the franchise will go on sale and already over one million have been preordered in Europe alone.
So what is all the fuss about?
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Peering Into Space
Somewhere in the remote barrenness of the former Soviet republic Tajikistan stands a group of giant snow globe-like structures, “like straight off a pulp-era dime novel cover,” as Redfezwriter puts it over at our message-board community, the Smoking Lounge.
The things aren’t snow globes nor huge Pac-Macs, but telescopes monitoring the satellites Russia is still able to maintain in orbit.
Continue reading “Peering Into Space”Gone with the Blastwave
Gone with the Blastwave is a post-apocalyptic comic by Kimmo Lemetti from Finland. He occasionally — though unfortunately not often — uploads a new installment, but there are plenty of old stories on his website to keep you amused for a while.
Although the quality and humor of Gone with the Blastwave is not in doubt, we wonder whether to call it dieselpunk.
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RMS Mauretania
On July 28, 1938, at the Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead, England, the flagship of the new Cunard White Star Line was launched. In honor of the proud and record-breaking vessel that served Cunard between 1906 and 1934, this ship was christened Mauretania and — like her predecessor — destined to become a favorite among transatlantic travelers because of her speed and luxury.
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Introduction to Victorientalism
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With the increasing contact with the East and its ensuing colonization, people in the West became fascinated by this strange new world. For centuries, adventurers, novelists and romantics had been interested in the lands beyond the horizon. Europe had all been explored and people became more and more familiar with the world they lived in. The Orient was still a realm of mystery, inhabited by alien people, exotic and sometimes cruel, with customs that Enlightened Europeans thought of as barbaric; a place where time had stood still.
An age-long Orientalist tradition of those who studied the East has in our times been criticized for its presumed bias and even racism. In the realm of steampunk, however, we can safely recreate the Orient as it was described and depicted by nineteenth-century authors and artists who might never have seen it. All the myths and miracles of the East that enchanted the Victorians can come true.
Continue reading “Introduction to Victorientalism”Chinatown
No film genre has been as beloved by dieselpunks as film noir and, for many, the first glimpse of this classic American genre was through the subsequent attempt to revive it.
This genre, generally referred to as neo-noir, is probably best known for its fusion with cyberpunk in Blade Runner (1982). However, one the oldest and purest examples of the neo-noir genre came in the form of the period film Chinatown (1974), directed by the infamous Roman Polanksi.
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The History of Dieselpunk II: Diesel Classics
With Hollywood reverting back into its archives for added inspiration for narrative ideas, we find a recent trend of nostalgic hindsight to the age of the Roaring Twenties and the 1930s. This seems to have infiltrated gradually the science-fiction genre that is emerging in contemporary cinema.
Films like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) and The Mutant Chronicles (2008) have perhaps inspired the intrigue in the early first half of the last century. Other recent films like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) and The Spirit (2008) have sparked new interest in the previous century, overcast with economic turmoil, lawlessness on the streets and in politics and the ever-present dystopian sentiment toward a near-hopeful future with the potential of war hanging in the balance.
We must also not forget the alternative historical elements of the times, when people perceived a future that could at one time or another have been dominated by the totalitarian powers, specifically the Nazi regime — evoking concepts of the supernatural and Über-technology that was revolutionized by the whacky radicalism of engineers and scientists of the time. Such themes promoted in the independent feature Iron Sky — which alludes to what would have happened if the Nazis had escaped to the Moon — present the growing fascination with the emerging genre of dieselpunk.
Continue reading “The History of Dieselpunk II: Diesel Classics”The Adventures of Tintin
It must have been a nostalgic mood that gripped me when I decided to buy the boxset of The Adventures of Tintin. I was yearning back to rainy Saturday afternoons when the TV or a good book offered the only chance for some innocent high adventure. So I acted on this whim and made the purchase, remembering the brightly colored characters and escapist adventures of Tintin.
Although not strictly what we might call dieselpunk, being based quite directly on period comic strips, these Tintin films could still be considered as good examples of the pulp genre and so are worthy of our study.
Continue reading “The Adventures of Tintin”Scarlet Traces: The Great Game
The sequel to Scarlet Traces (our review here) takes place in the Britain of the 1930s, with the invasion of Mars by the British Empire going badly.
We follow the Lady Charlotte, a photographer and reporter for The Interceptor, the last remaining liberal newspaper. With an insurgency in Scotland getting worse and branching into suicide attacks, Oswald Mosely as home secretary and the Commonwealth trying to withdraw its troops from Mars, Lotte manages to sneak onto the frontlines only to discover that she is stuck with the rearguard — and there is no rescue coming for them.
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