what-even-is-thiss:
In the steampunk universe you can buy dime novels in a genre known as electrofiction. Electrofiction takes place in a world where everything is powered by electricity created by gas, wind, and sunlight.
In this world of electricity and gas, great winged metal tubes fly higher than blimps. Gears have been replaced in computers with mysterious green boards covered in weird shapes of metal, and telephones can fit in people’s pockets.
It’s a world of simple clothing and complicated machines. A world where the average man can drive an automobile powered by explosions rather than steam and take it hundreds of miles away in a matter of hours. No tracks required.
It’s a vision of the future that has been cold for a hundred years. The type of fiction that would’ve been written by those who believed in the fallacy of gasoline over a hundred years ago. Though people keep writing about this world. Why? Could it have something to do with the colorful clothing? The aesthetic of mechanics getting grease on their faces? The desire for movement and freedom?
Or maybe it has to do with all that soot in the sky. The pea soup fogs and dust masks. The coal burning in homes and unbearably hot summers. Maybe people want to believe that there’s a universe out there that’s not so completely beyond repair. That maybe if they wish hard enough all the steam will clear away and the storms will leave.
Maybe that’s the appeal of electrofiction.