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Steampunk
Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates retrofuturistic technology and aesthetics inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. Steampunk works are often set in an alternative history of the Victorian era or the American "Wild West", where steam power remains in mainstream use, or in a fantasy world that similarly employs steam power. Steampunk most recognizably features anachronistic technologies or retrofuturistic inventions as people in the 19th century might have envisioned them — distinguishing it from Neo-Victorianism — and is likewise rooted in the era's perspective on fashion, culture, architectural style, and art. Such technologies may include fictional machines like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne. Other examples of steampunk contain alternative-history-style presentations of such technology as steam cannons, lighter-than-air airships, analog computers, or such digital mechanical computers as Charles B ...
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Retrofuturistic
Retrofuturism (adjective ''retrofuturistic'' or ''retrofuture'') is a movement in the creative arts showing the influence of depictions of the future produced in an earlier era. If futurism is sometimes called a "science" bent on anticipating what will come, retrofuturism is the remembering of that anticipation. Characterized by a blend of old-fashioned "retro styles" with futuristic technology, retrofuturism explores the themes of tension between past and future, and between the alienating and empowering effects of technology. Primarily reflected in artistic creations and modified technologies that realize the imagined artifacts of its parallel reality, retrofuturism can be seen as "an animating perspective on the world". Etymology The word retrofuturism is formed by the addition of the prefix "retro" from the Latin language, which gives the meaning of "backwards" to the word "future", a word also originating from Latin. According to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'', an ea ...
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Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the ''Voyages extraordinaires'', a series of bestselling adventure novels including ''Journey to the Center of the Earth'' (1864), ''Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas'' (1870), and '' Around the World in Eighty Days'' (1872). His novels, always well documented, are generally set in the second half of the 19th century, taking into account the technological advances of the time. In addition to his novels, he wrote numerous plays, short stories, autobiographical accounts, poetry, songs and scientific, artistic and literary studies. His work has been adapted for film and television since the beginning of cinema, as well as for comic books, theater, opera, music and video games. Verne is considered to be an important author in France and most of Europe, where ...
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Neo-Victorian
Neo-Victorianism is an aesthetic movement that features an overt nostalgia for the Victorian period, generally in the context of the broader hipster subculture of the 1990s-2010s. It is also likened to other "neos" (e.g. neoconservatism, neoliberalism), which do not simply look back to the past but also reiterate and replay it in more diverse and complicated ways. This characteristic makes neo-Victorian art difficult to define conclusively. In arts and crafts Examples of crafts made in this style would include push-button cordless telephones made to look like antique wall-mounted phones, CD players resembling old time radios, Victorianesque furniture, and Victorian era-style clothing. In neo-romantic and fantasy art, one can often see the elements of Victorian aesthetic values. There is also a strongly emerging genre of steampunk art. McDermott & McGough are a couple of contemporary artists whose work is all about a recreation of life in the nineteenth century: they only u ...
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Anachronism
An anachronism (from the Ancient Greek, Greek , 'against' and , 'time') is a chronology, chronological inconsistency in some arrangement, especially a juxtaposition of people, events, objects, language terms and customs from different time periods. The most common type of anachronism is an object misplaced in time, but it may be a verbal expression, a technology, a philosophical idea, a musical style, a material, a plant or animal, a custom, or anything else associated with a particular period that is placed outside its proper temporal domain. (An example of that would be films including non-avian dinosaurs and prehistoric human beings living side by side, but they were, in reality, millions of years apart.) An anachronism may be either intentional or unintentional. Intentional anachronisms may be introduced into a literary or artistic work to help a contemporary audience engage more readily with a historical period. Anachronism can also be used intentionally for purposes of rh ...
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Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving Magic (supernatural), magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and drama. From the twentieth century, it has expanded further into various media, including film, television, graphic novels, manga, animations and video games. Fantasy is distinguished from the genres of science fiction and horror fiction, horror by the respective absence of scientific or macabre themes, although these genres overlap. In popular culture, the fantasy genre predominantly features settings that emulate Earth, but with a sense of otherness. In its broadest sense, however, fantasy consists of works by many writers, artists, filmmakers, and musicians from ancient mythology, myths and legends to many recent and popular works. Traits Most fantasy uses magic (paranormal), magic or other supernatural elements as a ma ...
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Science Fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universes, extraterrestrial life, sentient artificial intelligence, cybernetics, certain forms of immortality (like mind uploading), and the singularity. Science fiction predicted several existing inventions, such as the atomic bomb, robots, and borazon, whose names entirely match their fictional predecessors. In addition, science fiction might serve as an outlet to facilitate future scientific and technological innovations. Science fiction can trace its roots to ancient mythology. It is also related to fantasy, horror, and superhero fiction and contains many subgenres. Its exact definition has long been disputed among authors, critics, scholars, and readers. Science fiction, in literature, film, television, and other media, has beco ...
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Horror (genre)
Horror is a genre of fiction which is intended to frighten, scare, or disgust. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror, which is in the realm of speculative fiction. Literary historian J. A. Cuddon, in 1984, defined the horror story as "a piece of fiction in prose of variable length... which shocks, or even frightens the reader, or perhaps induces a feeling of repulsion or loathing". Horror intends to create an eerie and frightening atmosphere for the reader. Often the central menace of a work of horror fiction can be interpreted as a metaphor for larger fears of a society. Prevalent elements of the genre include ghosts, demons, vampires, werewolves, ghouls, the Devil, witches, monsters, extraterrestrials, dystopian and post-apocalyptic worlds, serial killers, cannibalism, cults, dark magic, satanism, the macabre, gore and torture. History Before 1000 The horror genre has ancient origins, with roots in folklore and r ...
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Historical Fiction
Historical fiction is a literary genre in which the plot takes place in a setting related to the past events, but is fictional. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym for historical fiction literature, it can also be applied to other types of narrative, including theatre, opera, cinema, and television, as well as video games and graphic novels. An essential element of historical fiction is that it is set in the past and pays attention to the manners, social conditions and other details of the depicted period. Authors also frequently choose to explore notable historical figures in these settings, allowing readers to better understand how these individuals might have responded to their environments. The historical romance usually seeks to romanticize eras of the past. Some subgenres such as alternate history and historical fantasy insert intentionally ahistorical or speculative elements into a novel. Works of historical fiction are sometimes criticized for lack of authe ...
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Hybrid Genre
A hybrid genre is a literary genre that blends themes and elements from two or more different genres. Works in hybrid genres are often referred to as cross-genre, multi-genre, mixed genre, or fusion genre. Hybrid genres are a longstanding element in the fictional process. An early example is William Blake's ''Marriage of Heaven and Hell'', with its blend of poetry, prose, and engravings. Examples In contemporary literature, Dimitris Lyacos's trilogy ''Poena Damni'' combines fictional prose with drama and poetry in a multilayered narrative developing through the different characters of the work. Many contemporary women of color have published cross-genre works, including Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Giannina Braschi, Guadalupe Nettel, and Bhanu Kapil. Giannina Braschi creates linguistic and structural hybrids of comic fantasy and tragic comedy in Spanish, Spanglish, and English prose and poetry. Carmen Maria Machado mixes psychological realism and science fiction with both humor and el ...
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Speculative Fiction
Speculative fiction is a term that has been used with a variety of (sometimes contradictory) meanings. The broadest interpretation is as a category of fiction encompassing genres with elements that do not exist in reality, recorded history, nature, or the present universe. Such fiction covers various themes in the context of supernatural, futuristic, and other imaginative realms. The genres under this umbrella category include, but are not limited to, science fiction, fantasy, horror, superhero fiction, alternate history, utopian and dystopian fiction, and supernatural fiction, as well as combinations thereof (for example, science fantasy). History Speculative fiction as a category ranges from ancient works to paradigm-changing and neotraditional works of the 21st century. Characteristics of speculative fiction have been recognized in older works whose authors' intentions, or in the social contexts of the stories they portray, are now known. For example, the ancient Greek ...
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Charles Babbage
Charles Babbage (; 26 December 1791 – 18 October 1871) was an English polymath. A mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer, Babbage originated the concept of a digital programmable computer. Babbage is considered by some to be " father of the computer". Babbage is credited with inventing the first mechanical computer, the Difference Engine, that eventually led to more complex electronic designs, though all the essential ideas of modern computers are to be found in Babbage's Analytical Engine, programmed using a principle openly borrowed from the Jacquard loom. Babbage had a broad range of interests in addition to his work on computers covered in his book ''Economy of Manufactures and Machinery''. His varied work in other fields has led him to be described as "pre-eminent" among the many polymaths of his century. Babbage, who died before the complete successful engineering of many of his designs, including his Difference Engine and Analytical Eng ...
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