As the Charles Stross antipope pieces ( http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/10/the-hard-edge-of-empire.html , http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/11/a-zeppelin-wearing-a-top-hat-s.html ) concerning Steampunk have reared their ugly heads again in various places across the internet, largely sending Steampunks into fits of disgust or boredom, I thought I’d try to throw some light on possible reasons why and try to get to the bottom of the reaction that Stross and various other writers have to the Steampunk genre (which is what they’re responding to, I’d imagine that most of them haven’t even heard of the subculture or have no opinion on it one way or another). The first issue seems to be one of classification, Steampunk is certainly fantastic fiction but it differs from its parent, Cyberpunk, in that whilst that genre is a certainly a form of science fiction (albeit one that resembles noir crime fiction spliced with advanced technology in a dysto...