Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion

As the UF thread trickled over into this there were subgenres such as aetherpunk and others but for me Steampunk has one or several of the following defining characteristics.

1. Takes place during the time period of the industrial revolution. Specifically 1800's through early 1900's but not limited to that if it is the technological equivalent.

2. Pirates even if they're using more modern devices such as ships with thrusters or dirigibles.

3. Explorers using technology of that time frame.

4. Using technology such as clockwork time machines, hot air balloons, dirigibles.

5. Culture has a feeling of Victorian England of Edison's NY at the turn of the century.

Some of my favorites.

1. Empire of Storms Hope and Red book three of the trilogy comes out Nov 21st. Set in a different world this series combines pirates, an aristocratic artsy scene similar to NY turn of the century, a roughneck area that again would be NY turn of the century, the evil biomancers who are like biological alchemists. Terrific series.

2. Ketty Jay Retribution Falls - I'll finish this quartet early next month. Set in a futuristic and yet some how antiquated world different than our the pirate crew go on explorations, frequent taverns that are like outposts, have bounty hunters and travel in ships powered by thrusters and aether. I've loved this so much more than I thought I would.

3. Long Price Quartet A Shadow in Summer I fully expect to get arguments here because I'm pushing the boundaries, on purpose to partially prove a point and partially provoke discussion, but even with the Eastern culture of these novels we have flintlock weapons, horse and carriage transportation, agriculture being more of the economy than industry and it's one of my favorite series. :)

4. Book of Babel Senlin Ascends - I DNF'd this on book two however the use of hot air balloons used for transportation and by pirates, the Stanley and Livingston feel of his early exploration all have that era feel to me.

5. Mistborn Era two The Alloy of Law 1800th century NY aristocracy feel to it along with a frontier, balloons for transport.

6. Oversight The Oversight is a Victorian England group who guard against ghosts and the revenant. There's a lot of magical devices of the occult of that era. Mirrors, basements that lead to other world tunnels. Very HG Wells feel to it.

7. Dark Materials The Amber Spyglass is classic steampunk using analog meters, balloons. I loved this when I read it 25 years ago.

8. Cinder Spires The Aeronaut's Windlass A different world which is more advanced and yet has aether balloons powered by crystals, buildings and culture much like turn of the century England, fleets of the balloons with pirates and admirals.

I went for a good cross section to push the boundaries of the genre and discuss.

I don't really have strict definition on steampunk but the ones listed are sufficient enough.

Some faves:
Jules Verne Seven Novels
The Anubis Gates
Perdido Street Station
Those are must-read as they are considered essential in the (sub)genre.

The rest are:
Railsea
The Waking Fire
Ketty Jay series
Industrial Revolution arc from Discworld:
https://www.goodreads.com/series/1595...

I don't have a set of rules written down for steampunk either, but it tends to be pretty obvious, when you don't try to break it into all the subgenres we discussed in the UF thread...

I didn't really consider His Dark Materials very steampunk when I read it 10 years ago after the movie came out... but apparently 800 people agree with you... it did have them polar bears and the other worlds and the rolling creatures...

I always considered the Wax & Wayne Mistborn books to be Weird Westerns... I was made aware of the genre from the Incryptid short stories about Jonathan Healy and Frances Brown... with the talk of Waxilliam being a frontier sheriff and all... Weird West is pretty much UF-type stuff in the American Frontier with cowboys and stuff... Cowboys and Aliens... The Six-Gun Tarot

The steampunk series I've read:
Soulless
Etiquette & Espionage
Prudence
Poison or Protect
Romancing the Inventor
Phoenix Rising
Agatha H and the Airship City (Phil Foglio invented the term gaslamp fantasy to define this, but I'm not sure this meets what the term came to mean... I just say steampunk)
The Iron Duke
Firelight
Retribution Falls -- not sure I'm going to continue
The Affinity Bridge -- quit
Kiss of Steel

And for dieselpunk (1930s US with tommy guns):
Hard Magic

I would put Wax and Wayne under UF like Iain did. I have never heard of the Weird Western subgenre though. I might have to look more of those up.

To me UF is in the world we live in. Wax and Wayne are most definitely flintlock in my books

Flinklock is considered a subgenre of military fantasy. I can't fault people from calling Wax and Wayne UF but for me UF has to contain more technology not industrial revolution.

I didnt mean Wax and Wayne was UF... Weird West is more of a cousin to UF and steampunk than a subgenre of either... just like steampunk shares elements with UF, the difference is the setting...

Iain wrote: "steampunk shares elements with UF, the difference is the setting..."

YES. That's the difference for me

UF = Modern Urban
Steampunk = Timepiece Urban

I've generally looked at Steampunk as a sub-genre of Alt-History, of which Weird Western and a number of other listed genres would be subgenres as well...

Steampunk has steam win out over coal and gasoline in the Industrial Revolution... a number of series like Hard Magic and Burn for Me have an alien entity or something else show up and give people superpowers...

With this definition, UF is a subgenre as well... basically anything set in the real world before the present... but that allows old sci-fi set before 2017 in as well...

There are a number of UF series where Hurricane Katrina unlocked magic or breached The Veil

I always wanted to get into steampunk, since I've heard cool facts about it. So far, I have read Viola Carr's Electric Empire Series. Well, I only read two of the three books. I really need to read the third one ^^;

Iain wrote: "I didnt mean Wax and Wayne was UF... Weird West is more of a cousin to UF and steampunk than a subgenre of either... just like steampunk shares elements with UF, the difference is the setting..."

Ah ok.

I'm basic so to me:
-if there's guns then it's flintlock
-If there's trains and clockwork stuff and steam powered stuff then it's steampunk.
-if there's a modern setting it's UF
-if there's shifters and lots of login' then PNR

I've read the The Invisible Library. I think it has the elements of steampunk. Great book and it's part of a trilogy.

I guess I've never taken the time to really define steampunk. For me, if a book's not quite Fantasy or not quite Science Fiction, I usually just file it on my generic Speculative Fiction shelf. Examples of "don't overthink it, it's just speculative fiction" include Senlin Ascends, American Gods, and Joe Abercrombie's Shattered Sea Trilogy.

An author who I really have trouble defining though is Guy Gavriel Kay. If he didn't research history so thoroughly, I would easily just call his woks speculative fiction. But he does research it painstakingly and make his books fairly historically accurate, so I also want to file his stuff as Historical Fiction. Good, accurate historical fiction with traces of magic is really tough for me to put in a box. maybe that's why I love his works so much.

I think Speculative Fiction is the umbrella term I was looking for when I mentioned Alt-History...

@Andrew: These discussions are pretty open to just making up new genres by mashing up terms you know... you probably aren't the first to do it... so Historical Fantasy sounds like what you want (I proceeded to google it and was rewarded)