Quote:
Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan
Steampunk is an interesting type of SF: On one hand, it mostly applies technology that could have existed, but didn't, making most of it "hard" SF; On the other hand, it represents an alternate reality, which is "soft" SF, and as my 3rd law suggested, it is usually considered "soft" based on its alternate reality element.
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Yes and no. Steampunk normally assumes a roughly Victorian level of technology, with steam as the primary motive power, supplemented by things that might have been developed but weren't, like mechanical computers based on Babbage's Analytical Engine. (The Analytical Engine never got made because British industry of the time couldn't make parts with the required tolerances. There
was one instrument maker who could, but he had a falling out with Babbage over money. And in any case, wider use would have required more than him.) Those stories can be seen as a branch of Alternate History.
Others can't. Jay Lake is doing a series of steampunk novels set in a clockwork universe, where the Earth is a node on a cosmic orrery, implying a cosmic instrument maker to construct it and set it in motion. The characters in his novels are well aware of the nature of their universe. These can only be called "Alternate Reality".
So Steampunk straddles several sub-genres, and we may be dealing with a case of "Steampunk is what I'm pointing at when I say the words."
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Dennis