Monthly Archives: June 2011

Steampunk Musketeers: A Bad Thing?

The good news is that there is another movie this summer with steampunk elements! The bad news is, well, take a look, starting about 48 seconds in:

Yes, that is an airship battle, and it even looks somewhat cool. Heck, the adventure of Alexander Dumas with the coolness of steampunk sounds like its made of win, right?

Not necessarily. My problem is not with the steampunkification of Dumas, so much as it looks like there was inadequate thought put into it.

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Going Mainsteam: A Three Step Plan in Taking Steampunk to the Masses

A guest post by Tee Morris

Steampunk, a recent trend in literature, fashion, and music… that’s been “a fad” since the Seventies. 1979, to be exact.

People tend to gloss over that little fact, and while some sneer at it as publishing’s “current flavor of the month” the term “steampunk” was originally coined by K. W. Jeter in a correspondence to Locus Magazine:

“Enclosed is a copy of my 1979 novel Morlock Night … a prime piece of evidence in the great debate as to who in “the Powers/Blaylock/Jeter fantasy triumvirate” was writing in the ‘gonzo-historical manner’ first…

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 ‘steampunks’, perhaps…”

Here we are, 32 years later, and still as Pip and I were writing Phoenix Rising: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel, we were asked again and again:

“Steampunk? What’s that?”

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Happy International Steampunk Day 2011!

June 14th is H. G. Wells’ birthday and in his honor it is also International Steampunk Day (and has been for several years). This is a day to celebrate steampunk even more than normal and to share all the steampunky goodness with the uninitiated (or even those who were initiated but for whom it didn’t take the first time).

So, let’s make this post a place where everyone can share whatever they are doing or reading or thinking or loving that is steampunk. Dressing up for the day? Leave a link to a pic! Hosting something cool on your blog? Leave a link to that! If you are part of an organization or are running an upcoming event or working on a book or a costume or a piece of art or… anything! Leave a link and a description. I’ll do my best (day job notwithstanding) to be Johnny-on-the-Spot with comment moderation, so everything gets updated in a timely manner. Tweet me the links and I’ll retweet ‘em. Post them on the Facebook wall and I’ll make sure they don’t get blocked.

Oh, and be sure to let other people know so they can share their steampunkish fun and love as well.

Happy Steampunk Day!

New Cowboys & Aliens Trailer

We have a new trailer for this weird west adventure coming later this summer. As a reminder, Cowboys & Aliens has Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, and Olivia Wilde in the old west facing an alien invasion. Here’s the official description from Universal:

The Old West.. where a lone cowboy leads an uprising against a terror from beyond our world. 1873. Arizona Territory. A stranger with no memory of his past stumbles into the hard desert town of Absolution. The only hint to his history is a mysterious shackle that encircles one wrist. What he discovers is that the people of Absolution don’t welcome strangers, and nobody makes a move on its streets unless ordered to do so by the iron-fisted Colonel Dolarhyde (Ford). It’s a town that lives in fear. But Absolution is about to experience fear it can scarcely comprehend as the desolate city is attacked by marauders from the sky. Screaming down with breathtaking velocity and blinding lights to abduct the helpless one by one, these monsters challenge everything the residents have ever known. Now, the stranger they rejected is their only hope for salvation. As this gunslinger slowly starts to remember who he is and where he’s been, he realizes he holds a secret that could give the town a fighting chance against the alien force. With the help of the elusive traveler Ella (Olivia Wilde), he pulls together a posse comprised of former opponents-townsfolk, Dolarhyde and his boys, outlaws and Apache warriors-all in danger of annihilation. United against a common enemy, they will prepare for an epic showdown for survival.

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