Another dieselpunk outfit from Velda Lauder
Hey, guys! So, we’re all familiar with Cyberpunk and Steampunk, but there are so many more alternate histories/speculative science fiction genres out there! I came across this handy-dandy infographic and figured I could share a bit of these punk genres for anyone interested.
- Steampunk
Roughly covers the Western world during the mid- to late-19th century (ie: Victorian era, US wild west, etc.), and sometimes up to the Edwardian era.- Dieselpunk
1920s up through WWII, ending at just about the Cold War.- Decopunk
A cleaner, artistic, more “optimistic” version of Dieselpunk (same time period)- Clockpunk
Covers the time of the Renaissance (think da Vinci)- Atompunk
Cold War era, ie: the Space Race- Teslapunk
Derivative of Steampunk, but focuses on electricity rather than steam.- Splatterpunk
Explicit horror and gore- Biopunk
Biotechnology, genetics (part science fiction, part real life)- Nanopunk
Nanotechnology, sometimes overlaps with Biopunk- Cyberpunk
The granddaddy of them all: computer technology, the internet, hackers, etc.Others not included in the infographic
- Elfpunk
Fantasy-based, features creatures like elves and fairies.- Mythpunk
Mythology and folklore, includes urban fantasy.- Seapunk?
- Stonepunk, Bronzepunk, Plaguepunk
Okay, uh, TW for graphic descriptions of rape in the Splatterpunk explanation link (specifically as examples of ~look how edgy and without boundaries this subgenre is~), but I think all the other links should be safe.
Also, Arcanepunk is a theme with combinations of magic and science/technology, or with technology so complex it appears to be magic.
(via techsgtjenn)
More research material - this is the train which takes a character to the fictional Aéroporto Hidroavião Lisboa-Tejo - Flying-Boat Terminal Lisbon-Tagus River. Its passenger service was equally fictional: this Talgo I was never more than a prototype, though a record-breaking one. “Real” Talgos - they still run today, both in Spain and other countries such as the US - look more mundane, and I have a feeling they never ran as conveniently across the Iberian Peninsula as my period plot requirements demand.
At least most of them do, but the T-350 has brought back the “going fast while standing still” style of its ancestor. One day…
I found the old photos (there are many others, mostly originating with Life Magazine) and their accompanying article on the excellent Dieselpunks.org website. Well worth a visit!
I’m researching background stuff for a novel set in the early 1940s but one world over, so I can play with historical events. Since everybody seems to love Zeppelins in that sort of environment (to the point of overuse, sometimes) I decided to go for the other dieselpunk means of air travel, the big transatlantic flying-boat.
The really big transatlantic flying-boat.
I’d made up a bunch of stuff before I found this website and this plane, just what I was looking for. Meet the Blohm & Voss P.200. When I saw the colour art and the schematic I thought that the wraparound upper glazing was the cockpit and the lower one some sort of passenger’s observation port, like the old observation carriages on trains or the good seats just behind the driver of a German ICE-train Mark III.
Nope, wrong way round. The lower one is the cockpit (and it’s big enough for pilot and co-pilot, which starts to give some idea of scale) while the upper one is the window for the, get this, passenger lounge, bar and dance-floor(!) This was on the top deck of three; next down had a 65-seat dining room (no folding tray-tables here) and both a smoking-room and a cinema, besides some sleeping berths; the rest of the berths were on the lowest deck.
The BV P.200 never got further than some models (the little plane on top of this one is there for size comparison, not a piggy-back rider) and paper plans, and may not have come up to scratch if ever built, but since it’s going back on paper that doesn’t matter. If Sky Captain’s P-40 can dive into the sea and become a submarine without coming apart , then Lisbon to New York via the Azores on this big bird is just as likely!
Megalomania & New Deal by Stefan Prohaczka
Interview with Stefan Prohaczka at Dieselpunks.org
New Deal by *stefanparis (DeviantArt)
Megalomania by *stefanparis (DeviantArt)
(via necronovelist)
DIESELPUNK-Streamline Steam
Australia produced one of the classiest streamliners in their S class locos.
Quote:-“In November 1937, iconic Victorian Railways Commissioner Harold Clapp, introduced one of Australia’s best loved trains, the Spirit of Progress, which operated from Spencer Street to Albury. At Albury, passengers indulged in the infamous change of gauge to NSW trains that took them to or from Sydney. VR’s four crack 4-6-2 ‘S’ class steam locomotives were given a special, easily recognised and prestigious, streamlined body and the locos were painted in a new blue and gold colour scheme, as were the new, all-steel cars that were also an integral part of the Spirit of Progress.”
In my student days, a friend of mine in London came across a couple of very original ladies who produced a little printed magazine called The Romantic. Google has found me their website. They also produced cassette tapes of amusing “news” from the Great Invisible Empire of Romantia. The cassette was to be put into a tape recorder hidden inside the shell of an old 1930′s wireless set. Imagine listening to the hissing cassette and hearing a precious female voice imitating something like the Queen but pronouncing the “r” as a “w” like children in the 1920′s in aristocratic families (as in Be vewwy quiet: I’m hunting wabbits), saying: “This is the News of the Imperial Home Service, coming to you from somewhere in the Great Invisible Empire“!
The implication is that you imagine that you are back in the days of the British Empire, namely the Victorian and Edwardian eras. I found it all very funny and amusing – until. It turned out, according to something I heard, that these two ladies set up a “school” variously in Ireland or north London, where teenage girls could go and get an “old-fashioned” education with corporal punishment – which seemed to have sado-masochistic overtones. They have a site at Aristasia and it all still seems to be in the wrist! Obviously, those two ladies are outrageous eccentrics, and my friends and I took it all as one big joke.
(via TumbleOn)Trains that seem like they’re running at high speed even when standing still.
E-4 Streamliners in Chicago c.1945
(via tremblingcolors)
