Clockwork Futures
The Science of Steampunk and the Reinvention of the Modern World
- 400 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About This Book
Airships and electric submarines, automatons and mesmeristsâwelcome to the wild world of steampunk. It is all speculativeâor is it? Meet the intrepid souls who pushed Victorian technology to its limits and paved the way for our present age. The gear turns, the whistle blows, and the billows expand with electro-mechanical whirring. The shimmering halo of Victorian technology lures us with the stuff of dreams, of nostalgia, of alternate pasts and futures that entice with the suave of James Bond and the savvy of Sherlock Holmes. Fiction, surely.But what if the unusual gadgetry so often depicted as "steampunk" actually made an appearance in history? Zeppelins and steam-trains; arc-lights and magnetic rays: these fascinating (and sometimes doomed) inventions bounded from the tireless minds of unlikely heroes. Such men and women served no secret societies and fought no super-villains, but they did build engines, craft automatons, and engineer a future they hoped would run like clockwork.Along the way, however, these same inventors ushered in a contest between desire and dread. From Newton to Tesla, from candle and clockwork to the age of electricity and manufactured power, technology teetered between the bright dials of fantastic futures and the dark alleyways of industrial catastrophe.In the mesmerizing Clockwork Futures, Brandy Schillace reveals the science behind steampunk, which is every bit as extraordinary as what we might find in the work of Jules Verne, and sometimes, just as fearful. These stories spring from the scientific framework we have inherited. They shed light on how we pursue science, and how we grapple with our destinyâyesterday, today, and tomorrow.
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Table of contents
- Cover
- Title
- Contents
- Perambulation: The Mad, Mad World
- Part One: Chaos Order
- Part Two: Darkness Light
- Part Three: Privation Industry
- Part Four: Anarchy Control
- Part Five: Death Immortality
- Finishing Thoughts: Mad Science Reprise
- Illustrations
- Endnotes
- Acknowledgments
- Index
- Also by Brandy Schillace
- Copyright