Legal Commentary

How you can write a whole article about "steampunk" -- in the author's words, "a subculture that is the aesthetic expression of a time-traveling fantasy world, one that embraces music, film, design and now fashion, all inspired by the extravagantly inventive age of dirigibles and steam locomotives, brass diving bells and jar-shaped protosubmarines" -- without mentioning Neal Stephenson's classic The Diamond Age is quite beyond me.

Having said that, I must admit that even raising this objection is rather like criticizing Mazes and Monsters for offering an unrealistic and insulting caricature of Dungeons & Dragons.  It doesn't do the author any good, it gives attention to something that would be better off dying for lack of oxygen, and it won't exactly raise my own cool quotient any.