Vintage Tomorrows—A Historian and a Futurist Journey Through Steampunk into the Future of Technology

Can you imagine what today’s technology would have looked like in the Victorian Era? That’s the world Steampunk envisions: a mad-inventor collection of 21st Century-inspired contraptions powered by stream and driven by gears. It’s more than just a whimsical idea. In the past few years, the Steampunk genre has captivated makers, hackers, artists, designers, writers, and others throughout the world.

In this fascinating book, futurist Brian David Johnson and cultural historian James Carrott offer insights into what Steampunk’s alternative history says about our own world and its technological future. Interviews with experts such as William Gibson, Cory Doctorow, Bruce Sterling, James Gleick, and Margaret Atwood explore how this vision of stylish craftsmen making fantastic and beautiful hand-tooled gadgets has become a cultural movement—and perhaps an important countercultural moment.

Steampunk is everywhere—as gadget prototypes at Maker Faire, novels and comic books, paintings and photography, sculptures, fashion design, and music. Discover how this elaborate view of a future that never existed can help us look forward.

James H. Carrott may have been born a historian, but definitive proof awaits further mapping of the human genome. A self-described tech nerd, anachronist, game geek, fanboy, and contrarian, James has followed an eclectic career path that has taken him from the deepest recesses of America's colonial past to the future of gaming and entertainment and everywhen between. Among many other things, he's been a miniature strategy game national champion, co-founder of a community radio station, union steward and treasurer, host and producer of innumerable radio programs, and once had the San Francisco Mime Troupe over for supper. Prior to embarking on his Vintage Tomorrows adventure, he served as global product manager for Xbox 360 hardware. James (aka CultHistorian) is currently a freelance historian, writer and design consultant, researching cultural change to explore the future through the creative application of the past. He resides in Seattle, Washington with his two daughters in a little flat packed with books, comics, games, and toys.

The future is Brian David Johnson's business. As a futurist at Intel Corporation, his charter is to develop an actionable vision for computing in 2020. His work is called "future casting"—using ethnographic field studies, technology research, trend data, and even science fiction to provide Intel with a pragmatic vision of consumers and computing. Along with reinventing TV, Johnson has been pioneering development in artificial intelligence, robotics, and using science fiction as a design tool. He speaks and writes extensively about future technologies in articles and scientific papers as well as science fiction short stories and novels (Fake Plastic Love, Nebulous Mechanisms: The Dr. Simon Egerton Stories and the forthcoming This Is Planet Earth). He has directed two feature films and is an illustrator and commissioned painter.