Here at Behind-The-Times blog, we are only just getting to grips with New Wave phenomena like cyberpunk, steampunk and dieselpunk although we have previously mentioned retro-sf. (Scroll down.)
Tim Powers' The Anubis Gates is seminal steampunk.
SM Stirling's Lords Of Creation is retro.
Anderson did not write any steampunk or retro although he could easily have turned his hand to either of these sub-genres if an editor or publisher had asked him to.
Every time that a new sf idea or sub-genre is mentioned, it is necessary to scan Anderson's vast output to check whether anything that he wrote does come under this category. And probably none of us is familiar with everything that he wrote.
Steampunk or retro characters would easily fit into the multiversal clientele of the Old Phoenix, whose name seems appropriate.
Sf is always looking forward, to the future, and back to the classics like Wells, people in the past looking forward - to the future. Now we just have to meet ourselves.
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