Comments on: What is retro-futurism? http://2011.swancon.com.au/2011/01/what-is-retro-futurism/ Get ready to party like it's Easter 2011 Fri, 28 Jan 2011 06:04:21 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Richard harland http://2011.swancon.com.au/2011/01/what-is-retro-futurism/comment-page-1/#comment-94 Richard harland Thu, 27 Jan 2011 08:39:17 +0000 http://2011.swancon.com.au/?p=438#comment-94 I read Charlie Stross's comment on the Dickensian past of steampunk, and agree with everything he says - except the implication that a place you wouldn't want to live is also a place you wouldn't want to read about. No, no, a thousand times no! It's the dreadful, dangerous, hellish times that make for the most exciting fiction. And it's the Utopias that makes for the most boring fiction. I've read a couple and they are BORING! I love steampunky fiction when it creates an alternative nineteenth century that's even more dreadful and hellish than the real one. Isn't that why sf futures keep on taking on backward-looking qualities? An efficient, well-organized, smoothly running world just isn't interesting. It's when the future gets dark and dangerous and unpredictable that we get interested, as with post-apocalyptic futures. Steampunk isn't necessarily retro-futuristic and retro-futures aren't necessarily steampunk (though Phillip Reeve's Mortal Engines certainly has the best of both worlds), but it's the same impulse in both cases, I reckon! Richard I read Charlie Stross’s comment on the Dickensian past of steampunk, and agree with everything he says – except the implication that a place you wouldn’t want to live is also a place you wouldn’t want to read about. No, no, a thousand times no! It’s the dreadful, dangerous, hellish times that make for the most exciting fiction. And it’s the Utopias that makes for the most boring fiction. I’ve read a couple and they are BORING! I love steampunky fiction when it creates an alternative nineteenth century that’s even more dreadful and hellish than the real one.

Isn’t that why sf futures keep on taking on backward-looking qualities? An efficient, well-organized, smoothly running world just isn’t interesting. It’s when the future gets dark and dangerous and unpredictable that we get interested, as with post-apocalyptic futures. Steampunk isn’t necessarily retro-futuristic and retro-futures aren’t necessarily steampunk (though Phillip Reeve’s Mortal Engines certainly has the best of both worlds), but it’s the same impulse in both cases, I reckon!

Richard

]]> By: Laurie http://2011.swancon.com.au/2011/01/what-is-retro-futurism/comment-page-1/#comment-83 Laurie Fri, 14 Jan 2011 11:12:52 +0000 http://2011.swancon.com.au/?p=438#comment-83 Hey, Those pictures are very cool. People reading this article might be interested in the current issue of UK based journal Neo-Victorian Studies, which I was both excited and disappointed to discover is a special issue called "Steampunk, Science, and (Neo)Victorian Technologies" (Disappointed because I missed out on contributing). http://www.neovictorianstudies.com/ Hey,

Those pictures are very cool. People reading this article might be interested in the current issue of UK based journal Neo-Victorian Studies, which I was both excited and disappointed to discover is a special issue called “Steampunk, Science, and (Neo)Victorian Technologies” (Disappointed because I missed out on contributing).

http://www.neovictorianstudies.com/

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