great definition of steampunk

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Several people have lately asked me what “steampunk” literature is.
Rose Anderson, Author of  Dreamscape and Hermes Online, just posted this great definition of Steampunk on a listserve:
Steam grew from speculative fiction, think Jules Verne with his gadgets and machines being way ahead of their time, also Sherlock Holmes science, HG Wells philosophy etc. It’s a subculture too and this is where the punk part comes in. It’s as if the Victorian/Edwardian past has come to the future but retains much of the look of the past. It takes all modern conveniences etc and does them over with sheet metal and rivets and steam turbines and gears power it all. But more than that, it’s an ideology. It rejects the mass produced aspects of our culture and celebrates handcrafted. I know quite a few people who are into it and every one of them says it’s the romanticism of the Victorian age superimposed on the ugly realism of today. It’s fascinating really, an anachronism of sorts.
This site has the best description I’ve ever seen. http://ageofsteam.wordpress.com/2011/01/10/the-punk-in-steampunksteampunk-ideology/
More soon!
Lizzi
by LizziT

Lizzi grew up riding wild in the Santa Cruz Mountain redwoods, became an equine veterinarian at UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and practiced in the Gold and Pony Express Country of California before emigrating to New Zealand. She is the proud mother of two boys in that sea of green. When she's not writing, she's swinging a rapier or shooting a bow in medieval garb, riding or driving a carriage, playing in the garden on her hobby farm, singing, cooking, being an equine veterinarian or high school science teacher. She is multiply published and awarded in special interest magazines and veterinary periodicals.

With her debut novel, A Long Trail Rolling, she was Finalist 2013 RWNZ Great Beginnings; Winner 2014 RWNZ Pacific Hearts Award for the unpublished full manuscript; Winner 2015 RWNZ Koru Award for Best First Novel and third in Koru Long Novel section; and finalist in the 2015 Best Indie Book Award.