The Next Best Book Club discussion

I've been introduced to a new (to me) genre, having just read Soulless by Gail Carriger. Is anyone familiar with this (sub)genre? Can you make any recommendations?

Katie MacAlister is branching into this genre... her website has a nice little write up about it/what it is. She has her first book of this genre coming out sometime soon and the cover art for it, i think, is a great visual for steampunk. Steamed

What is this genre? I have never heard of it.

Lori,

I haven't read anything from this genre, but it seems to be a melding of Victorian with fantasy/alternate history/speculative fiction. Kind of Wells and Verne by authors influenced by the 1980's and 1990's.

Hmmm.. Interesting. I also checked out Katie MacAlisters blog to see what she termed it as....
Seems like it's a new genre to fit those books that try to be all genre's at once :)

I enjoyed Whitechapel Gods by S. M. Peters and Perdido Street Station by China Mieville.

Also, there is a short story anthology that has submissions from a lot of the authors that are currently doing steampunk called Extraordinary Engines that I own but have not yet started.

Steampunk is a sub-genre of cyberpunk. It's futuristic sci-fi set in the steam engine era. (It makes me think of Back to the Future III.)

The Diamond Age Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson is one that a lot of steampunk fans in my sci-fi club recommend.

I've also heard Perdido Street is good.

I just ordered the newest of China Mieville's novels, "The City and The City', after I saw him speak on Amazon.
This novel was on Amazon's Editors' Top Ten of 2009 list.
It is not 'Steampunk', but he mentioned that he likes to write a novel in each genre.

Thanks for recs. I found The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker and it sounded like something I would like. I've been looking at Perdido Street Station.

I wonder if these two David Mitchell books would fit this genre.
Cloud Atlas
Number 9 Dream

The Diamond Age was awesome

I love steampunk, man.

Good example: The comics, Steampunk 1 & 2 by Joe Kelly and Chris Bachalo.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15...

Alan Moore's League of the Extraordinary Gentlemen, the TV series, Avatar: The Last Airbender...And of course the anime film, Steamboy.

It's usually set in the 18th or 19th century and the technology is very, very advanced. Sometimes there'd be computers or tanks. The story doesn't really have to feature steam-powered technology but the purists, methinks, will disagree.

Just imagine Robin Hood and his merry men escaping on his steam-powered hoverbikes after robbing from the rich not with bows and arrows but with their steamguns
:)

His Dark Materials is also considered to be steampunk. and Howls Moving Castle.

Number9Dream was a really interesting novel,and while not directly steampunk, it definitely contained elements of steampunk/cyberpunk. To a lot of people though, it's a love it or hate it kind of book. I'd definitely suggest it to anyone looking into books of this genre.

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld is the only steampunk book I've heard of thus far. I haven't read it, but I've heard good things about his writing in general...

Here's a link to the goodreads "steampunk" bookshelf: http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/steampunk

EDIT: Oh, hey! I've totally read Airborn by Kenneth Oppel! Now that I think about it, it IS an alternate history, but with blimps (think Hindenburg) instead of steam engines... It's definitely YA, but I really enjoyed it!

The Difference Engine by William Gibson is good.

And I haven't read it, but you should try The Steampunk Trilogy, because it's the only book I've ever seen that just says it right out in the title like that!

This is a great blog if you want to know mored about steasmpunk http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com/. The writer is an academic studying this genre of fiction. You can also follow him on twitter http://twitter.com/SteamScholar

Scar Night by Alan Campbell is the BEST.

Boneshaker by Cherie Priest is a steampunk/zombie novel set during the early days of the Civil War in the Pacific Northwest.