Almost gothic

I first encountered the term “steampunk” a couple of years ago, after reading Neal Stephenson’s “The Diamond Age.” Now the concept seems to be popping up everywhere I look.

Mostly, I just love the word, the awkward union of these two nouns hitherto rarely found in each other’s company.

I’m not sure what the point of the genre/trend/fad is — why should we get excited about how H.G. Wells might have envisioned Star Wars? And I still don’t get what’s so punk about it, unless you consider that some of the eponymous musical genre’s predecessors dressed like Edwardian dandies.

On an unrelated note, there are fools and then there are fools.