Audio By Carbonatix
Steampunk, that oddball literary and art movement that injects elements of science fiction and the fantastic into the Victorian era, continues to evolve as it ages. Once easily — if not entirely accurately — pigeonholed as ray guns and airships in Olde England, the genre is expanding its scope both temporally and geographically. Luckily, AnomalyCon, Denver’s steampunk convention, is happy to embrace those changes.
“People are discovering that the Victorian era encompassed the entire world. They’re noticing multiculturalism,” explains Tegan Deeney, the con’s “professional wizard.” “People are applying this aesthetic to other time periods, like dieselpunk…which is World War I to World War II, that era. People are discovering it’s more than Victorian England.”
The con’s also broadened its scope of guests, adding a significant contingent of musical and dance performers to its slate of authors and visual artists. Add that to the usual con activities, such as a costume contest, a dealers’ room and panels on everything from board games to time travel, and you have a convention that should appeal not just to fans of offbeat alternate histories, but to anyone who likes their entertainment a little weird and a lot geeky.
AnomalyCon starts tonight at the Doubletree by Hilton, 7801 East Orchard Road in Greenwood Village, and runs through Sunday. Tickets are $15 to $20 for individual days, $35 for the weekend. For more info, visit anomalycon.com.
March 29-31, 2013
