Clockpunk

(via Warren Ellis)

Clockpunk is the new name for alternate history stories that take place in a world where the Renaissance yielded more technological innovation than ours did. (I'm assuming, from the few writeups I've seen so far, that the soon-to-be-cliched premise of much of this fiction will be "What if we had listened to Da Vinci?")

The term appears to derive from an old role-playing-game manual, and the term may have referred to something else entirely at one point.

The new blog devoted to this Renaissance strain of clockpunk -- The Da Vinci Automata -- seems interesting enough so far. But, so far, it also seems more an attempt to create a subgenre around a label than a recognition of an actual literary movement within either science or historical fiction. (For example, click on the "Bibliography" at DVA, and all you'll see is "To be added soon.")

Still, I'll keep an eye out. Good alternate history can be fascinating, and it's possible the Da Vinci Automata will point out some solid stories that would otherwise get overlooked.