Themes in Steampunk (Blog Prompt #5)

There are many basic underlying characteristics that I see in the genre of Steampunk. Obviously, Steampunk is a sort of reflective, critical genre which looks back on late 19th and early 20th century history and technology and asks the question of how life may have been had further technological advances been made. The future (or what would be the future during the Industrial Revolution) seems somewhat bleak at all times, be that with a cataclysmic invention that will send the earth hurdling into a comet or a futuristic society in which the smallest insect is, in reality, a highly complex surveillance device.
This brings me to the nature of the inventions in Steampunk. Inventions generally tend to revolve around a common theme in literature and other media. They are either imaginative inventions of convenience, inventions built off of technology already in place, or technology which leads to the downfall of society. In Lord Kelvin’s Machine, one new technology is a mere pill that, when dropped into a cup of coffee, is capable of turning a bland cup of java into something fantastic. This exemplifies a theme of modern-day convenience which runs throughout much literature. However, another common theme is the loss of privacy. In The Minutes of The Last Meeting, Russia has a system called the IIE which utilizes tiny surveillance technology to spy on anyone and everyone it so chooses. Something as simple as a cricket has become, in the novel, a model for surveillance equipment. Medical equipment has also been upgraded in ways that none could have imagined. What I find so interesting about Steampunk is that it is, in essence, a futuristic look at the past.