Steampunk vs. Cyberpunk
 

Akira or Steamboy?
Gears or Computer chips?
copper or silvery metal?
1800s mustaches or 2200s metal hole in the back of your head?

which would you rather live in? which has the cooler art/outfits? who would win in a fight? whats the steampunk version of Neuromancer?

While I am a fan of both sub-genres, I would have to say I still prefer feel of Cyberpunk. Black leather and mirrorshades.

i like both equally, but to live in, i would choose cyberpunk. cyberpunk has waaaaay better drugs.

the steampunk version of neuromancer would be the difference engine.

I originally meant to post this as an homage / tributary to the monster re-imagined as Plan9, but seeing as he does not have his own dedicated page of intrigue, nor do I know how to call him out intimately, I just saved this feature in my queue to figure out where/how/why I'd come to finally unveil it some lost months later (when everyone has already most likely left). I did not know that time would be a mere two days later (and here, of all places).


Long story short: here is a visualisation of his / my sphere of imagination.
http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lj...sv32o1_500.jpg
by the collaborative of Darick Robertson & Warren Ellis.


-- (to note: while I prefer gears and analog systems to their digital counter-parts, I also prize ambient air-conditioning much more. So bring me back to the dystopian future of my eventual undoing.)

There's something charming and almost regal about steampunk.

I watched 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (the 1954 movie) when I was a kid and the design of the Nautilus was really interesting. It combined modern and futuristic submarine technology with the look of mid 1800s technology. It looked like an iron fish, with rivets and hatches and that cool detachable raft/rowboat. Some parts of the vessel were cramped, but there were grand rooms with massive windows and beautiful antique furniture and even a full pipe organ. They dined (on seafood, primarily) with fine china and beautiful old flatware. Even the diving suits were these thick, iron things that were reminiscent of the old copper helmets that divers used in the 1800s (the kind similar to those seen in Bioware's steampunk game Bioshock). Despite the fact it was a whale of a tale, there was a dignity and a feeling of historical significance to Nemoy and the Nautilus.

after a (IMO) shitty Metal Gear Solid: 2 play through, i think they need to make a steampunk version of Metal Gear Solid: 2 just to see which Ray would rock harder

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

I like the look of steampunk- it is so damn cool, but to live in, give me cyber punk- which , hell, we almost are too anyway...

While I like the idea of "jacking" in virtual network, I'm steampunk all the way. It just LOOKS cooler and I love the idea of their weapon sets. Even their melee weapons look awesome (steam driven power warhammers) and like the "underground" style of tech upgrades.

I don't know if it's the equivalent, but in 1990, Gibson (and Bruce Sterling) published The Difference Engine. There are, of course, many precursors and early works before this in the genre.

I have a limited exposure to each genre, but I do understand the tropes and aesthetics of each.

My understanding is that steampunk appeals to those who are into history and speculative fiction, as many of the works consider alternative history and what-if scenarios regarding steam technology. Most works are set in the Victorian period and are Anglo-centric; however, more recent works are looking at other periods and locales, maintaining the tech aesthetic.

Cyberpunk tends to appeal to futurists: those who speculate where humanity is headed vis-à-vis the hard and social sciences. With it you get a different aesthetic, but you also get a different set of tropes. Cyberpunk has generally benefited from a much higher profile regarding its literary merit; in terms of postmodern literature, it has found a place as a literature that explores many of the concerns of the late 20th century.

William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy (starting with Neuromancer) is on my reading list, along with some other cyberpunk-esque works (e.g. Pynchon), but I have yet to see anything highly compelling within the steampunk genre. I like the aesthetics of steampunk, but for some reason the genre as a whole doesn't appeal to me much. I think it's because I have little interest in alternative history (and history in general). I know there are works that veer away from that, but there are few that I've seen that attract my interest.

An exception is the work of China Miéville. I can't seem to let them drop off my radar, so I should probably sample one of his books to see what they're like.

cyberpunk.

i'm not a bit sci-fi person. cyberpunk is kinda dystopian and that appeals to me. but it's not as interesting as j.g. ballard or burroughs in general. no comparable playing with language.

unless i've just not read the correct authors/titles. so suggestions?

if pynchon is anywhere in this cyber/steam grid, he'd be steam. crying of lot 49 is early 60s l.a.. gravity's rainbow is a hallucination about world war 2. v is 60s new york. vineland an interminable wandering through the anderson valley. mason & dixon vaguely 18th century except for the mechanical talking duck. against the day is closest to steampunk proper and centers on the 1892 columbian exposition for a while before wandering away into colorado.

mieville i've heard good things about but haven't yet read. he's on my little list.

Wifey and I go to loads of Renaissance Festivals. Over the past year, we've seen a lot more people dressed out in SteamPunk. They make their own garb. Some of it is absolutely fantastic. While it isn't exactly period, we don't care. It looks great and they have fun. More power to them, we say. So, I'd have to go with SteamPunk - just because our introduction to it was so tactile rather than cartoons.

I haven't read Pynchon, and so I was projecting based on what I thought after reading a brief description of Gravity's Rainbow. However, having not read Pynchon is probably one of my greatest literary atrocities as a reader. I suppose I've always told myself that I need to finish Ulysses before touching Gravity's Rainbow. For the record, I'm about 1/3 of the way into the Joyce.

I'm also going on this a bit because of Gravity's Rainbow appearing on Larry McCaffrey's list: The 20th Century’s Greatest Hits: 100 English-Language Books of Fiction. This was his response to the Modern Library's own list. He felt it was out of touch with significant works of the century, with regard to what we're most likely to be still reading years from now. I thought it an interesting response to the ML list and intend on hitting up many of the titles he's listed there.

For those who are unfamiliar with McCaffrey, he is, among other things, a critic. He is best known—aside from his studies on Bruce Springsteen—for having legitimized science fiction as a major literary genre.

Anyway, a few on his list are easily considered science fiction (Gibson's trilogy and the Le Guin), which is what intrigues me about it. I would like to read good examples of sci-fi that have artistic merit beyond the common expectations of the genre. I'm after books more like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four—that kind of thing. I guess I too am intrigued with dystopia.

I'd go with Steampunk, because to me it's fairly fresh- on the other hand, I'm a bit burned out on cyberpunk and could do without it easily.

Cyberpunk for me.. I'm all about jackin' in and pumpin' up, navigating the intertubes and living in some half-man half-cyber world of technology.. I'm thinking something like the "real world" in the Matrix..

maybe this belongs in Tilted Gaming, but i found a DOS emulator and the "Neuromancer" game. so far... its better than i could've imagined, and also worse with a whopping 16 different colors to choose from

just finished reading it. it definitely ranks in my top 5.

Of course, Cyberpunk is a "what will be" idea, but Steampunk is a "what never was". As such, Steampunk will never be contradicted by dull reality.

Ultimately, Star Trek communicators were somehow cheapened by realising that far from using all that power to call in humanitarian assistance, we use it to play Angry Birds...

Steampunk will always be pure, because it will always be a counterfactual history.

Plus, girls in corsets, and with clockwork rayguns are monstrously sexy.