Dieselpunk


Dieselpunk is a retrofuturistic subgenre of science fiction similar to steampunk or cyberpunk that combines the aesthetics of the diesel-based technology of the interwar period through to the 1950s with retro-futuristic technology and postmodern sensibilities. Coined in 2001 by game designer Lewis Pollak to describe his tabletop role-playing game Children of the Sun, the term has since been applied to a variety of visual art, music, motion pictures, fiction, and engineering.

Origin

The name "dieselpunk" is a derivative of the science fiction subgenre cyberpunk, and represents the time period from World War I until the 1950s, when diesel-based locomotion was the main technological focus of Western culture. The "-‍punk" suffix attached to the name is representative of the counterculture nature of the genre with regard to its opposition to contemporary aesthetics. The term also refers to the tongue-in-cheek name given to a similar cyberpunk derivative, "steampunk", which focuses on science fiction based on industrial steam power and which is often set within the Victorian era.

Differences from steampunk

Author Scott Westerfeld addresses the question of where to draw the line between steampunk and dieselpunk, arguing that his novel Leviathan qualifies as steampunk despite the fact that the technology it depicts includes diesel engines:
I like the word "dieselpunk" if you are doing something like 'Weird World War II'. I think that makes perfect sense. But to me, World War I is the dividing point where modernity goes from being optimistic to being pessimistic. Because when you put the words "machine" and "gun" together, they both change. At that point, war is no longer about a sense of adventure and chivalry and a way of testing your nation's level of manhood; it's become industrial, and horrible. So playing around with that border between optimistic steampunk and a much more pessimistic dieselpunk, which is more about Nazis, was kind of interesting to me because early in the war we were definitely kind of on the steampunk side of that.

Jennifer McStotts, another author, considers the two genres to be close cousins. She defines steampunk as concerned with the Victorian era, and the shift in technology and energy generation that came with industrialization, and dieselpunk as combining the aesthetic and genre influences of the period of both world wars.
Science fiction editor and critic Gary K. Wolfe defines steampunk as primarily set in the Victorian era and dieselpunk as set in the interwar period.
Iolanda Ramos, an assistant professor of English and Translation studies at NOVA University Lisbon, argues,
Dieselpunk draws not on the hiss of steam nor on the Victorian and Edwardian aesthetics and cosplay but on the grease of fuel-powered machinery and the Art Deco movement, marrying rectilinear lines to aerodynamic shapes and questioning the impact of technology on the human psyche.

In addition, Ramos gives "noir ambience" as an element of dieselpunk.

Dieselpunk inspiration

Dieselpunk draws its inspiration from the diesel era and a characteristic referred to by dieselpunks as "decodence". According to the online magazine Never Was, decodence, "embraces the styles and technologies of the era; it rejoices in a prolonged Jazz Age ambience characterized by great enthusiasm and hopes about the future."
The term "diesel era" is a period of time that coincides with the interwar period, that is 1918-1939. The interwar era is central to one school of dieselpunk often labeled "Ottensian". In addition to the interwar period, World War II also plays a major role in dieselpunk, especially in the school of the genre referred to as "Piecraftian". The exact ending of the diesel era is in some dispute in the dieselpunk community. Depending on the source it ends either at the conclusion of World War II or continues until the early part of the 1950s with the advent of such cultural icons as the Golden Age of Television and the replacement of Big Band and Swing music with Rock and Roll in popularity.

As an art movement

Although the term "dieselpunk" was not coined until 2001, a large body of art significant to the development of the genre was produced before that. Artwork created in the dieselpunk style are heavily influenced by elements of the art movements most prevalent in Western culture during the diesel era such as:
According to Tome Wilson, creator of the now-defunct website Dieselpunks, the term was retroactively applied to an already existing trend in literature. An alternative term was "low-brow pop surrealism". Writers of this trend blended traditional tropes and genres, such as Pulp Adventure, Film noir, and Weird Horror, with a contemporary aesthetic. In his words: "They were creating a future fueled by the spirit of the Jazz Age." In their works, the reader could see Sam Spade in the era of smartphones and John Dillinger use a hovercar as his getaway vehicle. They were writing cyberpunk stories about the era of The Great Gatsby.
In discussing punk genres, Ted Stoltz defines dieselpunk as the quasifuture from the Art Deco era. He argues that cyberpunk, steampunk, clockpunk, atompunk, and biopunk are all defined by their connection to their respective technological element. He found this does not apply to other related genres such as elfpunk, mythpunk, and splatterpunk where technology plays a minor role.

Fiction and literature

and World War II feature prominently in dieselpunk literature. Len Deighton's SS-GB, Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle, Alan Glenn's Amerikan Eagle, Robert Harris's Fatherland, Philip Roth's The Plot Against America, Guy Saville's The Afrika Reich, Harry Turtledove's The War That Came Early series and The Man with the Iron Heart, and Jo Walton's Farthing are considered dieselpunk by some.
Other examples of dieselpunk novels are Hugh Ashton's Red Wheels Turning, David Bishop's Fiends of the Eastern Front, Anders Blixt's The Ice War, Kevin Cooney's Tales of the First Occult War, Larry Correia's Hard Magic: Book 1 of the Grimnoir Chronicles, Richard Kadrey's The Grand Dark, J.W. Szczepaniak's Beyond Aukfontein, and Arlo Z. Grave's Black Rose and The Ice Moves for No One, Book 1 of the Duskingr Saga.

Common themes

A feature that was first identified by the online magazine The Flying Fortress is that dieselpunk can be divided into two primary themes or styles: Ottensian and Piecraftian. The dividing line between the two themes is commonly acknowledged as the start of World War II.
One theme, named "Piecraftian" after its proponent author "Piecraft", focuses on the aesthetics of the world wars and speculates on how human culture could theoretically cease to evolve due to constant, widespread warfare. According to Ottens and Piecraft, this theme continues the aesthetics of the diesel era into later periods of history by describing a world where survival is placed above aesthetical evolution.
A second theme, named "Ottensian" after its proponent author Nick Ottens, focuses on a setting where the decadent aesthetics and utopian philosophies of the American Roaring Twenties continued to evolve unhindered by war or economic collapse. Ottensian dieselpunk fiction is primarily concerned with a positive vision of technology, where the utopian ideals predicted by the World's Fairs of the times came to light. As a result Ottensian dieselpunk incorporates "an enthusiasm for the predictions about the future", and often shares elements with retro-futurism.

Games

Dieselpunk features prominently in the gaming industry, in both tabletop role-playing games and computer and console video games. World War II is a popular theme in dieselpunk games. One of the more prominent of these was Activision's Return to Castle Wolfenstein, as well as the sequel to the 2009 game Wolfenstein, Wolfenstein: The New Order, which takes place in an alternate 1960s Europe where the Nazis have won World War II. Other dieselpunk games include Command & Conquer: Red Alert, Crimson Skies, Iron Storm, You Are Empty, Scythe, Turning Point: Fall of Liberty, Sine Mora, Iron Harvest, HighFleet, BioShock, BioShock 2, Frostpunk 2, and Deadlock. The Benoît Sokal-created games Amerzone, Syberia, and Paradise all use the dieselpunk aesthetic and machines.

Cinema and television

With regard to moving pictures, dieselpunk combines the tropes, character archetypes, and settings of diesel-era fiction genres such as Serial Adventure, Noir, Pulp, and War with postmodern storytelling techniques and cinematography. Inspirations for dieselpunk cinema include Metropolis and Things To Come, thanks to their period visions of utopian culture and technology. Even the popular film Star Wars has been noted as having strong dieselpunk influences, as it drew heavily on pulp and World War II iconography but mixed them with futuristic settings. Some even argued that the steampunk country named Steamland, led by an odd industrialist named Alva Gunderson voiced by Richard Ayoade, in the American fantasy animated sitcom, Disenchantment, created by Matt Groening for Netflix, was "dieselpunk inspired".
Some commonly referenced examples of dieselpunk cinema and television include:
  • The Indiana Jones franchise.
  • The neo-noir movie Blade Runner, though widely labeled as cyberpunk, may also be described as dieselpunk due its strong borrowings from film noir.
  • Tales of the Gold Monkey, an adventure television series.
  • Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, an anime film by Hayao Miyazaki.
  • Brazil
  • Laputa: Castle in the Sky, an anime film by Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli.
  • Tim Burton's movie Batman has also been referred to as a dieselpunk movie.
  • TaleSpin, a Disney animated television series.
  • The Rocketeer
  • Porco Rosso, an anime film by Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli.
  • Dark City
  • Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones?, an animated television series set in a diesel world of the 1980s.
  • The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
  • Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
  • The Sky Crawlers
  • 9 has been described by director Shane Acker as a subgenre of dieselpunk which he calls "stitchpunk"
  • Sucker Punch, directed by Zack Snyder, includes dieselpunk-inspired adventures with the protagonist Babydoll and her team infiltrating a bunker protected by clockwork World War I German soldiers, etc., mixing many retro, fantastic and sci-fi elements.
  • Captain America: The First Avenger, whose imagery has been described as having a "dieselpunk quality".
  • Iron Sky
  • The Spy
  • Mad Max: Fury Road, while not a true dieselpunk film, has many dieselpunk elements.
  • The Man in the High Castle, a television series produced by Amazon Studios.
  • ''Iron Sky: The Coming Race''