Word of the Day: Steampunk
Steampunk is both a genre of science fiction and a type of subculture.
As you can guess from the name, it comes from the age of steam in the 19th century when there was no electricity and no internal combustion engine.
Think about Jules Verne or Phillip Pullman, and you will have an appropriate image of the steampunk genre.
Quite a few people now like to dress up in clothing from the age of steam such as top hats and vests.
The whole genre glorifies and romanticizes a time when machines ran on steam.
I enjoy steampunk novels and find that they help me to get away from it all for a while.