Surely, everyone is aware of the importance of science to the steampunk movement. We all have heard about the scientific importance of the Victorian era, thus it comes as no surprise that this lives on in the steampunk of this day.

Inventions and scientific revelation and discoveries, and the entire DIY feel that comes with them, are vital to the movement and many members build their own mechanical contraptions and spend many an hour on some kind of experiment. And what better way to do this than in style?

The Company of the Dead

Steam

Alasdair CzyrnyjMay 1, 2009March 30, 2019

It is a truism of alternate history that no good deed ever goes unpunished. Whenever someone attempts to change the world for the better, the intervention all too often allows some greater calamity to transpire. Kill Hitler and the Soviet Union will conquer Europe. Start an industrial revolution in Renaissance Europe and nuclear war will break out by the end of the sixteenth century. Give the prehistoric peoples of the Americas seed grain and livestock and their conquest by Sung-dynasty China is assured.

The Company of the Dead, the first novel by Australian author David Kowalski, shares this basic conceit, describing a world not entirely unlike our own doomed to destruction by the actions of a single honest man.

A War Without Alternative: The First World War in Alternate History

Steam

Alasdair CzyrnyjMay 1, 2009May 23, 2020

The First World War was one of the great catastrophes of human history. In four years of fighting, almost ten million soldiers were killed and wounded, with great swathes of the European continent laid to waste.

By the end of the war, the political landscape of Europe had changed irrevocably, with the German, Austrian, Russian and Ottoman Empires crumbling into a rabble of new nation-states straddling Central Europe and the Middle East.

Brazil

Diesel

Ella KremperMay 1, 2009April 1, 2019

I’ll slip in a current-affairs reference into this article for, let’s face it, recession’s not exactly painting the landscape in bright, Wizard of Oz Technicolor shades of glorified self-smugness. It is grey and gloomy; distinct features of the misery of dreary, dire dystopia.

But I will not go so far as to say that society at the moment is sliding deeper into Orwellian doom, because that would be a rather grim view and detract from the fact that this is meant to segue into a positive review about a jolly good film.

What If Friedrich III Had Lived?

Steam

Marcus RauchfußMay 1, 2009April 19, 2020

Historically, Friedrich III was already terminally ill with cancer when he ascended the throne in 1888 and died 99 days thereafter.

He was married to Princess Victoria, eldest child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and held Great Britain in high regard (half of his personal medical staff was British).

Friedrich was on excellent terms with his parents-in-law; took rather liberal views and there are indications that he wished to turn the German Empire into a constitutional monarchy modeled after the British.

George Griffith’s Astronef Series

Steam

Alasdair CzyrnyjMarch 1, 2009March 30, 2019

George Chetwynd Griffith-Jones is one of the forgotten luminaries of the classic British Scientific Romance. A best-selling author and sometime rival of H.G. Wells’ at the beginning of the twentieth century, his work has been mostly forgotten by later generations. While much of them are steeped in the opinions and prejudices of his day, Griffith’s tales contain many elements that would lay the basis for the first great boom of science-fiction.

The Astronef series is a good case in point.

Iron Storm

Diesel

Alasdair CzyrnyjMarch 1, 2009December 11, 2018

With the gaming marketplace dominated by a glut of World War II-themed shooters, it is always refreshing to see titles experiment with depictions of obscure or allohistorical conflicts.

While Iron Storm, created by defunct French developer 4x Studio and released in 2002, takes the First World War as its starting point, it borrows and combines elements from the long history of twentieth-century warfare to create a darkly surreal experience that should surely appeal to particularly the dieselpunk enthusiast.

Rather appropriately, Iron Storm is set in an odd little history that would warm the heart of a 1920s pulp novelist.

The Adventurer Style

Steam

Hilde HeyvaertMarch 1, 2009April 12, 2020

The adventurer is crucial to steampunk, for he explores the boundaries of empires and brings back new and exiting things from his journeys into the previously unknown. Adventurers are brave, daring and, most importantly, looking the part, no matter where they go — be they the brave explorers of lost civilizations in deep jungles or underneath the mighty oceans, the gallant aviators that soar the skies or anything in between.

How to Be a Villain

Atomic

Hilde HeyvaertMarch 1, 2009April 16, 2020

This book is dedicated to everyone who ever thought evil was just a dream. Rejoice, would-be miscreants, your time has come!

With these words begins one of the most amusing how-to-books in literary history.

Author Neil Zawacki and illustrator James Dignan take inquiring minds on an extremely hilarious and comprehensive five- step program on becoming the perfect villain.

With a lot of humor involved, they explain you how to get started with the forces of evil, covering all the basics from what kind of villain to chose from, evil overlord-type names, appearances and let’s not forget a very important aspect: the evil laugh!

Chinatown

Diesel

Sigurjón NjálssonJanuary 1, 2009April 1, 2019

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.

Gatehouse Gazette

The Mad Scientist Style