Steampunk

Steampunk is everywhere. A subgenre of science fiction, it typically (but not always) employs a Victorian setting where steam power and advanced technologies like computers coexist and often features themes, such as secret societies, found in mystery novels.

Classic Steampunk Novels

The Prophecy Machine by Barrett, Neal, Jr.

If this was published today, it would be heralded as a major steampunk work.

Current steampunk fans will revel in Barrett�s world of transformed animal Newlies, mechanized lizards, and the opposing religions of the Hatters and Hooters. The Hatters rule the day and run amuck, jabbing people with pointy sticks.

Night is the arena of the Hooters, who set fire to things.

In the middle of this is Finn, a lizard maker, who is trying to protect his two most precious belongings: the love of the Newlie Letitia and the cranky mechanical lizard Julia Jessica Slagg.

Homunculus by Blaylock, James P.
Summarizing the plot is difficult to impossible, but events begin with a corpse-piloted dirigible that has been orbiting London for years and has finally caught the interest of the Royal Society.

From there, plots and characters spring forth like spawning salmon. This is one of the more difficult steampunk books to read owing to the complexity and absurdity of the plot.

Blaylock is not as successful here at pulling its parts together into a single thread as Tim Powers is with The Anubis Gates, but a patient reader will be rewarded by Blaylock�s sense of humor.

The Steampunk Trilogy by Di Filippo, Paul

The three novellas in this book capture the steampunk aesthetic of employing Victorian language and settings juxtaposed against modern sensibilities and moralities.

Di Filippo focuses more on social commentary than on technology, as some steampunk is wont to do, but the results are imminently readable.

But take note: here, Queen Victoria is replaced by an engineered newt clone while she engages in sexual escapades, Walt Whitman seduces Emily Dickinson, and a Swiss naturalist searches for the pickled genitalia of the Hottentot Venus. 

It may not be for everyone, but this is a core component of the steampunk movement.

The Difference Engine by William & Bruce Sterling
Unlike many steampunk novels, this has a dystopian feel to it, which isn�t surprising given that it was written by two of cyberpunk�s best-known authors.

The reader goes back in time to the Industrial Revolution, where Charles Babbage perfected his analytical engine. The mass-produced Babbage computers have lead to an explosion of technological creation.

The cyberpunk authors transform computer hackers into Babbage �clackers,� who create punch cards to run programs on the machines. The plot centers around a powerful set of punch cards�they are believed to be able assist someone in placing winning bets�and all the disparate groups trying to acquire them.

Infernal Devices by Jeter, K.W.

This canonical steampunk work is currently out of print, but Angry Robot Books is reprinting it and Jeter�s earlier steampunk Morlock Night in late 2010.

Infernal Devices features watch repairman George, who lives in the shadow of his father�s clockwork genius. Various sordid underground fraternities begin to request George�s services, with the assumption that he knows his father�s secrets.

The inquiries escalate into conflict and an unwitting George traveling through a London he no longer knows. A well-written novel that should be added to any collection.

The Warlord of the Air by Moorcock, Michael  

The first book in Moorcock�s �A Nomad of the Time Streams� trilogy predates the steampunk movement but is clearly an influence on it.

British army captain Oswald Bastable is transported to an alternate-universe version of the 20th century, where the world wars never occurred and technology moved in a different direction. Great airships patrol the sky, and Bastable works to protect them from a group of rebellious colonists.

The other novels in the trilogy take Bastable into different alternate time streams.

The Anubis Gates by Powers, Tim

After Jeter�s and Blaylock�s books, Powers�s stands as the other pillar upon which the current steampunk trend sits.

Essentially a time-travel story, the book�s plot centers around the titular gates, which are used by a group of modern-day Londoners to travel back in time to attend a lecture by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The trip goes awry, and one of the travelers, professor Brendan Doyle, is captured by Egyptian magicians.

Powers handles the paradox of time travel with incredible skill, weaving it seamlessly into the already complicated plot. He deserves to be better known, and this book will send patrons looking for more books by him.

Steampunk edited by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer

While most of the best steampunk is novel length, this anthology is an excellent introduction to the subgenre.

Incorporating work from the mid-1980s to today, this volume captures the movement from its beginnings on, collecting writers such as Michael Chabon, Neal Stephenson, Michael Moorcock, and Joe R. Lansdale, among others.

It also includes three essays about steampunk�s place in literature, film, and comic books. This is not only an engaging book to read but a great resource for anyone looking for information about steampunk.

Jack Faust by Swanwick, Michael
The medieval German setting marks this as unusual for a steampunk novel early on.

When Jack Faust bargains for total knowledge with an entity that calls itself Mephistopheles, it comes with a hefty price�humankind�s destruction�but he assumes that knowing everything will allow him to think of a way to avoid annihilation.

Faust uses his new immense knowledge to introduce technologies into medieval Europe long before they should be. But these advancements soon move beyond Faust�s control. The reader already knows the ending of the book, but it�s Swanwick�s skill that compels one to the end.

The Time Machine by Wells, H.G.

This may be cheating a little, given that steampunk as a subgenre didn�t exist for more than a century after Wells wrote this book.

However, the novel is a major influence on steampunk and is a starting point for many of its tropes�it has a Victorian setting and technology that didn�t exist but is described in enough detail to make it seem real.

Fantastical settings and creatures play a role when the narrator goes into the future.