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Steam punk research reading list
Bookstore Guy:
--- Quote from: Miyabi on January 26, 2011, 01:07:20 AM ---
So I've recently decided to pick up an old project of mine. Reading through it I found quite a few good elements and some atrocious ones. I realized I was very strong on the vampire mythos, but my world building sucked when I wrote it. This lead me to decide I need to do a lot of steam punk reading to find what people have done. So I can get some ideas on what to research specifically as well as make sure to not write something that has already been written. (Yes, I said vampires and steam punk referring to the same project.)
I picked up a book by Cherie Priest today called Boneshaker.
My question to yous guys is, what books should I add to my list of books to read for well built steam punk worlds and cultures.
--- End quote ---
It depends on what kind of steampunk you want to write. Boneshaker is one of the worst steampunk books I've ever read, because there isn't hardly any steampunk in it (most overrated Hugo nomination ever? maybe). Drop by my blog and read the review I wrote on it.
If you really want to read some good steampunk, and want to cover all your basis, Stephen Hunt is good, as is George Mann. Leviathan by Westerfeld focuses more on biological creations than steampunk, though the sequel Behemoth is better. Whitechapel Gods is fantastic. Carriger's work is OK, but it focuses more on the women's love-lives and their hats (and too much over-the-top wit in the dialogue). You could read classics like HG Wells and Jules Verne. Mike Resnick has a novel titled The Buntline Special that is steampunk western. Scar Night by Campbell has a little steampunk in it. Retribution Falls by Wooding has some as well.
However, the best of all of it might be Steampunk and Steampunk II edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. Not only are there good short stories in the anthologies, but also a ton of non-fiction essays about the sub-genre. Completely awesome. Steampunk is just a setting device. You take any type of story--vampire, detective, epic quest, romance, horror, fantasy, mystery, western--and put a steampunk skin over it and adjust all your tech to match.
Sigyn:
You could also try watching the movie Steam Boy.
Miyabi:
Bookstore Guy. . . . . you are my hero.
Miyabi:
@Bookstore Guy - I'm about 2/3 of the way through the book. (I'm reading quite slowly because I've been really busy. lol.) I decided to visit your blog to read your review on it. I find much of it very true. Maybe when I'm done with and think back to it I'll find the characters as boring as you describe. For now I kind of like the mystery of them and want to know what happens to them, but your review discourages me I won't learn much more than I already know.
Overall I'm enjoying the book, but it seems more of a leper-colony book to me than a steam punk novel. I have liked what steam punk elements have been talked about, but I wish there were more and they played a bigger part in the story.
EDIT - I forgot to mention something I was going to mention. In most steam punk I've seen it's all about just after the invention of steam punk technology and not too advanced. I want to try and write maybe a few short stories in that premise, but the novel itself I want to take it beyond. In way that asks, "What if steam kept going for a hundred years or two?" and "How would steam based technology evolve?" The short stories I'll write will focus on the advancements made in different parts of that 100 years or so, so that I can have some form of basis for the way things happened. Maybe I'll give up on this and write in a classic steam punk fashion. I don't know. I have a good basic storyline. (I think.) I need a few more side plots than what I have to give more insight to what's going on for a reader.
Hero of Ages:
You may want to try Mainspring, Escapement, and Pinion (all 3 are by Jay Lake). I have read the 1st 2 (but not Pinion yet) and like them both. They are set in the same world but don't have too many overlapping characters. I don't go out of my way to read steam-punk, but this series seemed like you couldn't get any more steam-punkier (is that a word, oh well).
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