So today on the ‘steampunk’ yahoo mailing list, someone wrote:

Hello Sarah, it's meatloaf from planet jazz!!! I'm a steampunk person and loving it!!!

So, umm, its time for me to get the hell off that list. I’m not a steampunk person, seems to me, nor do I want to be

steampunk is a genre of fiction that proposes an alternative history. Generally this history has some version of a victorian society that’s evolved somewhat from what actually occurred in that time period but with advanced technologies based on steam power. The Difference Engine from Sterling and Gibson is a good example of the genre and a fairly entertaining book, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is a decent example of the genre in comic book form