It's Back to the Future at the New Albion Steampunk Expo

In case you don't know, steampunk is a hobby and lifestyle that glorifies all things related to Victorian and Edwardian science fiction. Using such writers as H.G. Wells and Jules Verne as inspiration, steampunk enthusiasts like to marvel in wonderment at what the world would be like if 19th-century technology had been created with the insight of 2010.

Steampunks also geek out over the Ren-faire-esque idea of role playing. This means that the they tend to stay in character while gathered amongst their own, gamely spouting (shaky) Victorian accents.

I was on hand this past weekend at the Hilton Garden Inn in Emeryville, California, where the annual Nova Albion Steampunk Expo was held this year.

Though many attendees looked like they might have arrived in a rocket-ship contraption built by silent film director Georges Melies (as seen in his film, A Trip to the Moon), most steampunks arrived in such vehicles as new Hondas -- clearly manufactured in the modern era.

Click on Asylum to experience all the vintage fashion, anachronistic festivities, and crazy time-travel role-playing action.