Fiction

First impressions are important. Not just in one’s initiation into the world of Steampunk literature, but in the initiation of reading in general. Young readers can become vulnerable when introduced to new ideas because of their trust in an author. Novelist Emilie P. Bush has successfully accepted this responsibility with Her Majesty’s Explorer: a Steampunk bedtime story. Inspired by the brilliant illustrations of William Kevin Petty, this book is an eye opener to the genre for both the young and old. St. John Murphy Alexander is an explorer robot who is sent out to survey the countryside and report...

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The March/April edition of Fantasy & Science Fiction bears a cover that is by itself worthy of mention to the Steampunk community. A screeching raven, an amber orb in which hovers a woman’s face, all against a backdrop of what could only be an inventor’s laboratory? Oh, this is going to be a delightful read. Yes, indeed it shall. The cover story is “Electrica,” by Sean McMullen. And it does not disappoint. Readers are swept back to the year 1811, into the turmoil of the Napoleonic Wars, where we don the role of a superior officer reading a letter...

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The Buntline Special by Mike Resnick is a Steampunk portal into the historic old West. As mechanical genius Ned Buntline assists famed inventor Thomas Edison on a secret mission, Doc Holliday and the Earp brothers prepare for their face off against the McLaury brothers and the Clanton gang in the famed Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. It is a crisp new take on some legendary characters. The Mississippi River separates the budding United States of America from the untamed riches that lie out West. Indian medicine men like Geronimo hold powerful magic over the land, preventing the expansion of...

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Agatha H and the Airship City is the first installment novelization of the Girl Genius comic series by Phil & Kaja Foglio. Largely based on the first three volumes of graphic novels, it examines a Victorian alternate history where the fine line between technological intelligence and madness has blurred into war. The character of Agatha Clay is a bumbling student at Transylvania Polygnostic University. What she doesn’t realize is that she has something called the “spark” in her, the element of Mad Science within one which gives them the ability to create fantastic things. Her character is fun to...

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Hot and Steamy: Tales of Steampunk Romance is edited by Jean Rabe and Martin H. Greenberg, the duo who brought us the anthology Steampunk’d, and contains stories by many of the authors whose tales graced the first anthology.  I’m not a fan of the romance genre, so it was with some trepidation that I picked up this book; however, my reluctance proved unwarranted. Not only are the stories in Hot and Steamy rife with romance, but they also feature strong characters, fascinating settings, and unpredictable plots. I daresay this collection is even better than Steampunk’d! A few of the characters featured...

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Christmas might be over, but those who found an e-reader under their brass tree can keep the joy going with Steampunk Santa by Marc Vun Kannon. In the early years of Santa working out of his elfish workshop, he cruised around the countryside in a horse drawn sleigh and used a ladder to enter houses from above to deliver his presents. But as business picks up, he envisions the need to go worldwide with his toy distribution. As 19th Century technology grows, Santa enlist the ingenuity of his workshop elves to come up with a new and better means...

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A lot of writers prefer to stay within their comfort zone and stick to a particular genre. Joe R. Lansdale is not one of them. Lansdale could probably create his own genre if he wanted, one embracing the extraordinary and bizarre. His book Flaming Zeppelins – The Adventures of Ned the Seal is cast firmly under the Steampunk category. After all, it has airships! But this expands to others forms of fiction as well, including noir, western, science fiction, fantasy, horror, and historic. Originally published as separate hardbacks, Zeppelins West in 2001 and Flaming London in 2005, Lansdale has...

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Steampunk’d is a collection of short stories edited by anthology veterans Jean Rabe and Martin H. Greenberg. With such prestigious editors, a beautiful cover design, and publisher DAW Books on the spine, I had high hopes for this anthology that promises “14 original stories of what might have been if steam tech took different paths in the Victorian era.” The book opens with a story by best-selling novelist Michael A Stackpole, “Chance Corrigan and the Tick-Tock King of the Nile.” The tale is fairly typical Steampunk fare about an American engineer persuaded by a Greek tycoon to speed the...

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