I have long been fascinated by the aesthetic of punk fiction, and finally, this month, I finished reading William Gibson's and Bruce Sterling's steampunk classic *The Difference Engine.* Good gracious, did it require brain cells.
I have read a few dieselpunks here and there, Storming by K. M. Weiland and Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld (I highly recommend both, by the way), but wanted to experience something widely regarded as an absolute must-read of the genre. After combing through Reddit and some listicles (it's hard to come by Steampunk recommendations without digging), I concluded The Difference Engine would be a good place to start. Published in 1990, the novel imagines an alternative history of the Industrial Revolution, exploring what might have happened if Charles Babbage had succeeded in the invention of the mechanical computer, and ushered in the Information Age a century early.
This novel is significant for several reasons. First, as an alt history, it brilliantly reimagines the activities of historical figures (such as Lord Byron, Ada Lovelace, Sam Houston, etc.), and the what-ifs of a different timeline (the government made up of technocrats, America as several nations, riots during the Great Stink). I was particularly fascinated by how the storyline blurs history and fiction, and a couple of standout details for me included a debate about brontosaurus anatomy, and the use of characters from Benjamin Disraeli's novel, Sybil.
In this rich landscape, The Difference Engine also explores very relevant themes related to technology's impact on society and politics. The plot weaves in questions about social inequality, the dangers of rapid technological progress, mass surveillance, and the power of information. In fact, the central conflict of the story is a set of punch cards—containing the data for the most powerful software yet seen.
On top of all that, the writing is rich and detailed in language and description, which, to me, felt appropriate for its 1850s setting, but also required extreme attention for understanding all the terminology and visualizing the alternative tech. Due to such depth and density, it's no surprise that The Difference Engine is considered a classic among early works of mainstream steampunk.
Truth be told, I largely got into this -punk genre for its vibes—that mashup of airships and clockwork, steam and flying beasts, androids and wires. But after reading Gibson and Sterling, I started to wonder—where did this originate? How do we categorize all the variations of punk, like -retro, -nano, -diesel, and -cyber? What's the difference, and what's their unique appeal as literature?
Let's begin with terminology. As you may have already observed, the words we use to describe this genre and its adjacent offshoots are many. Most people will probably be familiar with steampunk, a term that evokes ideas of steam engines and propellers, goggles and gears, Victorian lace and cobblestone streets. You may have also heard of cyberpunk, perhaps dieselpunk, even clockpunk if you've read enough—and perhaps, like I, you have dubbed it all in your head as punk. However, the overarching literary category is generally referred to as retro-futurism.
Retro-futurism is the broad umbrella term for genres that imagine modern or future technology in settings of the past. While such sci-fi has been around for a long time (think H. G. Wells and Jules Verne), it was in the 1970s that such specific genre categories were given names, as writers began exploring these alternative mash-up concepts. First came cyberpunk. As suggested by its name, cyberpunk fiction generally deals with a high-tech dystopian near-future, and common elements include cyberspace and artificial intelligence, hackers and low life rebels. Famous titles include Neuromancer by William Gibson and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick (both on my tbr, of course).
The word cyberpunk then gave birth to the other terms. Steampunk was coined in 1987 to describe an emerging speculative genre that brought anachronistic tech to the Victorian age (steam refers to the steam power that was used back then). Like cyberpunk, steampunk dealt with themes of technology's effects on society—it was just less dystopian. The other subgenres follow suit, named for the different time period or technology type they explore. Clockpunk throws us back to the Renaissance and Da Vaincian gears; dieselpunk, to the diesel powered machines of the World Wars era; atompunk, to mid-century Cold War espionage. In a more futuristic vein akin to cyberpunk, nanopunk deals with nanotechnology, biopunk, biotechnology, and so forth and so on. You get the idea. We keep innovating new titles.
So why do we love this genre? Beyond the imaginative aesthetic and innovation, why does it speak to us? While the answer will, of course, vary by book and reader, retro-futurism's uniqueness lies in how it treats the future.