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 Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 8:40 am
(If this is in the wrong forum, I'm sorry, please feel free to move it)
So has anyone read any novels with a steampunk or neo-victorian theme?
I, for one, am a fan of Phillip Pullman's Sally Lockheart series. There are four books: Ruby in the Smoke, Shadow in the North, Tiger in the Well and I can't, for the life of me, remember the last one. You need to read them in order, as stated, to understand the plots and characters.
It's set in Victorian London and focuses on Sally, as she solves mysteries that revolve around her life. It's a very good set to read.
The themes of Ruby in the smoke are not very steampunk and are more centered on opium trading but Shadow in the North features a steam powered machine gun on train tracks. The details of the gun is surprisingly well thought out and would make any steampunk fan squeal in delight! 3nodding
I haven't gotten round to reading the others so I must make a start! sweatdrop
Anyone else know of a book that they would like to share?
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Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 10:30 am
Nope, this is a good place.
On the subject of Sally Lockhart (the fourth book is the Tin Princess, btw) - have you seen the televised versions of the first two books? They were done by the BBC so I'm not sure if they've been aired in the US.
I'm sure I'll think of a recommendation soon! xD
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Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 11:19 am
Ah, Tin Princess, of course!
Anyway, no I haven't seen them. They look quite good, I'll keep an eye out in HMV for the dvd!
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Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 8:08 am
Well, the closest book I can think of would be Mortal Engines.
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Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 2:06 pm
That sounds interesting, would you mind giving a little summary of the plot?
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Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 2:24 pm
The wiki steampunk article labelled H.G. Wells's The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds as being of the steampunk genre, although the stories were really intended as political statements.
And while not directly steampunk, I'd be willing to argue that the Dinotopia books have quite a bit of steampunk elements in them.
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Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 8:13 am
Mortal Engines...well, it takes place in a post-war era, where humanity has destroyed the surface of the earth and uprooted their cities. Gads this is difficult to explain. OOH! The wiki article backs me up on the genre! Quote: The book is set in a postapocalyptic steampunk world, ravaged in ages past by a nuclear holocaust known as the "Sixty Minute War," which caused massive geological upheaval. To escape the earthquakes, volcanoes and other instabilities, English inventor Nikolas Quirke designed a system known as Municipal Darwinism, where entire cities essentially become immense vehicles known as Traction Cities, and must consume one another in order to maintain themselves in a world deprived of most natural resources. Although the planet has since become stable again, Traction Cities are still used despite the fact that they were intended to escape from natural disasters, and the new world order continues.[1] Much technological and scientific knowledge was lost, and what remains of "Old Tech", artifacts remaining from our more developed society, are dug up and pored over by scavengers and archeologists. Europe, some of Asia, North Africa, South America, Antarctica and the Arctic are inhabited by Traction Cities, and North America is a radioactive wasteland, while much of the rest of the world is the stronghold of the Anti-Traction League, an organisation that seeks to stop cities from moving and thus stop the intense consumption of the planet's resources. In the world of Traction Cities, nations no longer exist - each city is an individual state.
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Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 9:19 am
the graphic novel "scarlet traces" featured in the UK comic mag called "2000 AD" is a great steam punk themed look at the H G Wells world, based after the invasion and victory on earth, of the Martians.
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Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 11:56 am
Michael Moorcock's "A Nomad Of The Time Streams" series.
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Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 2:45 am
Wow, more for my bookshelf, then! eek
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Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 4:11 am
Going back to the OP's suggestion, more by Phillip Pullman. Check out the His Dark Materials series (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass.). Most of the Steampunk elements are in the first book. With zepplins/airships and just a very Victorian feel to the world. There are some bits in the other two books as well.
I don't know if any of it carries over to the movie adapatation, I tend to avoid those as most books never translate well to film.
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Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 9:40 am
This probably goes without saying, but the book that defined the genre (and also pretty much coined the term) "The Difference Engine" by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling.
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Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 11:20 pm
Kiryu the Steel Dragon The wiki steampunk article labelled H.G. Wells's The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds as being of the steampunk genre, although the stories were really intended as political statements.
Well, that's a funny thing, because whilst if they were written today they would be steampunk, because they were written in the Victorian Age they are not an anachronism. They were merely "scientific romances" (his words). They are steamounk in their nature yes, but being written in that time they are not in genre, if that makes sense.
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Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 9:29 pm
I would recommend the works of Jules Verne. As Imber said, they were written in the Victorian era, so they're not anachronistic, but they do apply and are usually considered steampunk as the works of the above, as well as H.G. Wells kind of set the foundation for steampunk to exist at all.
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and, to a lesser degree, Bram Stoker's Dracula can also be good for Victorian fiction, though their content doesn't feature a lot of steam powered contraptions or anything of that nature.
Frank Herbert's Dune saga shares some qualities with steampunk and its subgenres, in that advanced computer technology has been destroyed and forbidden (See: Butlerian Jihad and the edict against creating computers in the likeness of the human mind) and a lot of the technology is stagnant and not well understood. The aesthetics are almost Victorian as well at times.
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Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 12:27 am
The first series that comes to mind is the Bas-Lag trilogy by China Miéville, and includes, in order, Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and Iron Council. All of those are extremely steampunk. I would also recommend any and all H. G. Wells and Jules Verne. Finally (for now) the first book of the League of Extraordinary Gentleman is very good. I personally would not recommend the second, but thats more personal preference than anything.
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