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 Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 10:30 am
I've read just about everything steampunk I could get my hands on, but the list is nowhere near an exhaustive one. I hope some of you would be so kind as to point me toward your favorite steampunk (or steampunk-ish) reads...mine are (besides the Holy Trinity of steampunk, Verne, Wells and Burroughs) China Mieville's Bas-Lag novels, Tim Powers' The Anubis Gates and Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age and The Baroque Cycle (which is really more clockpunk, I guess, since it takes place in the 17th and 18th centuries, but it rules anyway). My least favorites are Gibson and Sterling's The Difference Engine (I hear cries of "heresy!" While there are great ideas throughout the novel, the story itself never really takes off for me) and Philip Pullman's novels (it irks me that he equates God with religion and can't seem to separate the two, and besides, it's a tad juvenile). I'm currently reading Extraordinary Engines--the Definitive Steampunk Anthology, and the authors therein all seem to have a good handle on the subgenre. It's making me hungry for more, so please take a moment and give me a suggestion or two. Apologies if this topic has been covered in another thread.
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Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 11:02 am
Is the Diamond Age good? I've been contemplating buying it for a while.
I can think of a few things to recommend:
By Philip Reeve:
~ Mortal Engines quartet. A rather fantastic (and cliché free) post-apocalyptic steampunky series. One of my first SP reads.
~ Larklight (and others). Aimed at a younger audience (but really that does not matter; they're short but most definitely entertaining.) A more humorous series, supposing Newton 'discovered' alchemy, enabling ships to fly through the aether; and the subsequent tales of the Mumby family saving the Empire.
Also any book in the 'Pax Brittania' series - it's a marvellous setting, supposing the internal combustion engine had never been invented, and steam technology kept on advancing (the series is set in 1997, Queen Victoria now being a cyborg of sorts). I would recommend 'Unnatural History' especially.
I'm sure there are many more, but these are my favourites that come to mind.
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Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 2:01 pm
I quite enjoyed the Diamond age. It's set in the future, but with enough neo-Victoriana to be placed in the steampunk ouvre...I don't want to spoil it for those who haven't read it, so I won't say anything else. Thanks for the recommendations, I will investigate forthwith!
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Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 6:23 pm
Captain Amaranth Is the Diamond Age good? I've been contemplating buying it for a while.I can think of a few things to recommend: By Philip Reeve: ~ Mortal Engines quartet. A rather fantastic (and cliché free) post-apocalyptic steampunky series. One of my first SP reads. ~ Larklight (and others). Aimed at a younger audience (but really that does not matter; they're short but most definitely entertaining.) A more humorous series, supposing Newton 'discovered' alchemy, enabling ships to fly through the aether; and the subsequent tales of the Mumby family saving the Empire. Philip Reeve! Philip Reeve is the best. Kenneth Oppel's Airborn and Skybreaker are also quite good, although they aren't steampunk as much as just set on Victorian-type airships and the like.
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Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 9:55 pm
Well it's not fiction but might as well put it out there among the printed word. Fuel For the Boiler: A Steampunk cookbook by Elizabeth Stockton You can actually download it free.
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