Steampunk London

<b>Tracing the genre through fiction visual art film and videogames from the 1980s to the present this book offers a comprehensive exploration of the intersection between neo-Victorianism urban spaces and Steampunk.</b>Characterised by its interplay between past and present and its anachronistic retro-speculation Neo-Victorian-infused Steampunk remixes modern collective memory to produce a re-imagined vision of Victorian London. Investigating how Steampunk's re-calibrated Londons both source from and subvert Victorian discourse about the city <i>Steampunk</i>London offers a deeper understanding of how a popular cultural memory of the Victorian past is shaped and transmitted in light of present-day identity politics.<br/> <br/>Covering key themes including retrofuturism gender and sexuality colonialism and postcolonialism it considers such ideas as how early Steampunk synthesizes Victorian urban ethnography; how Victorian urban Gothic shapes shared transmedia memory to challenge reactionary nostalgic meta-narratives; how Steampunk video games mobilize urban space as an immersive storytelling device with cities open to play; and how Steampunk interprets the modern metropolis as an opportunity for feminist and queer agency. Through examination of Victorian-era writers from Charles Dickens to Arthur Conan Doyle the book digs into works of fiction and media alike looking at <i>The Difference Engine Soulless</i> and <i>The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen</i> <i>From Hell</i> Guy Ritchie's <i>Sherlock Holmes</i> cyberpunk classic <i>Blade Runner</i> and <i>Assassin's Creed: Syndicate and The Order 1886.</i> An important intervention in the study of steampunk Helena Esser demonstrates how the works explored invite participatory consumption and considers the genre's potential- and failures- to interrogate and challenge our relationship with the Victorian past.