Anthologies Fantasy Fiction Sci-fi Steampunk

Steampunk’d

Name: Steampunk’d
Rating: 3.49 (274 reviews)
Author: Jean Rabe

Jean Rabe

3.49 274 Ratings

Ongoing Status

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Synopsis

Steampunk can be defined as a subgenre of science fiction that is typically set in an anachronistic Victorian or quasi-Victorian setting, where steam power is prevalent. Consider the slogan: “What the past would look like if the future had come along earlier.” The stories in this all-original anthology explore alternate timelines and have been set all over the world, running the gamut from science fiction to mystery to horror to a melding of these genres.

Books similar to Steampunk’d

Steampunk

★ 3.53

Ann VanderMeer

Replete with whimsical mechanical wonders and charmingly anachronistic settings, this pioneering anthology gathers a brilliant blend of fantastical stories. Steampunk originates in the romantic elegance of the Victorian era and blends in modern scientific advances—synthesizing imaginative technologies such as steam-driven robots, analog supercomputers, and ultramodern dirigibles. The elegant allure of this popular new genre is represented in this rich collection by distinctively talented authors, including:

Content

"Introduction: The 19th Century Roots of Steampunk" by Jess Nevins

"Benediction: Excerpt from The Warlord of the Air" by Michael Moorcock
"Lord Kelvin's Machine" by James P. Blaylock
"The Giving Mouth" by Ian R. MacLeod
"A Sun in the Attic" by Mary Gentle
"The God-Clown is Near" by Jay Lake
"The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider Get Down: A Dime Novel" by Joe R. Lansdale
"The Selene Gardening Society" by Molly Brown
"Seventy-Two Letters" by Ted Chiang
"The Martian Agent, A Planetary Romance" by Michael Chabon
"Victoria" by Paul Di Filippo
"Reflected Light" by Rachel E. Pollock
"Minutes of the Last Meeting" by Stepan Chapman
"Excerpt from the Third and Last Volume of Tribes of the Pacific Coast" by Neal Stephenson
"The Steam-Driven Time Machine: A Pop Culture Survey" by Rick Klaw
"The Essential Sequential Steampunk: A Modest Survey of the Genre within the Comic Book Medium" by Bill Baker

Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded

★ 3.65

Ann VanderMeer

Blending the romantic elegance of the Victorian era with modern scientific advances, the popular Steampunk genre spotlighted in this collection is innovative and stimulates the imagination. This artfully assembled anthology of original fiction, nonfiction, and art can serve as an introduction to the Steampunk culture or provide dedicated fans with more fuel. Stories of outlandishly imaginative technologies, clockwork contraptions, eccentric heroines, and mad scientists are complemented by canon-defining nonfiction and an array of original illustrations. This collection showcases the most sensational Steampunk talents of the last decade, including Daniel Abraham, John Coulthart, William Gibson, and Margo Lanagan, and demonstrates exactly why the future of the past is so excitingly new.

Contents

Introduction: “What Is Steampunk?” by Jeff and Ann VanderMeer

“The Cast Iron Kid” by Andrew Knighton
“The Steam Dancer (1896)” by Caitlín R. Kiernan
“The Anachronist’s Cookbook” by Catherynne M. Valente
“Tanglefoot” by Cherie Priest
“O One” by Chris Roberson
“Balfour and Meriwether in the Adventure of the Emperor’s Vengeance” by Daniel Abraham
“The Bold Explorer in the Place Beyond” by David Erik Nelson
“The Strange Case of Mr. Salad Monday” by Geoffery D. Falksen
“At the Intersection of Technology and Romance” by Jake von Slatt
“The Future of Steampunk: A Roundtable Interview” by Jeff and Ann VanderMeer
“Dr. Lash Remembers” by Jeffrey Ford
“Lost Pages From The Encyclopdia of Victoriana” by Jess Nevins
“As Recorded on Brass Cylinders: Adagio for Two Dancers” by Lisa Mantchev
“A Serpent in the Gears” by Margaret Ronald
“Machine Maid” by Margo Lanagan
“Which Is Mightier, the Pen or the Parasol?” by Gail Carriger
“The Unbecoming of Virgil Smythe” by Ramsey Shehadeh
“Wild Copper” by Samantha Henderson
“The Mechanical Aviary of Emperor Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar” by Shweta Narayan
“The Unblinking Eye” by Stephen Baxter
“Lovelace & Babbage” by Sydney Padua
“The Persecution Machine” by Tanith Lee
“Flying Fish (Prometheus)” by Vilhelm Bergsøe
“The Gernsback Continuum” by William Gibson

The Steampunk Trilogy

★ 3.36

Paul Di Filippo

Steampunk is the twisted offspring of science fiction and postmodernism, a sassy, unpredictable tongue-in-cheek style of which the incomparable Paul Di Filippo is master. The three short novels in The Steampunk Trilogy are all set in a very alternative nineteenth century, and feature a mixture of historical and imaginary figures. In "Victoria," a young and lissome Queen Victoria disappears from her throne and is replaced by a sexy human/newt clone. The race is on to find the original Victoria and to hide the terrible secret from the nation. In "Hottentots," Massachusetts is threatened by monsters from the deep; in "Walt and Emily," Emily Dickinson hooks up with a robust and lusty Walt Whitman, loses her virginity, and travels to a dimension beyond time where she meets the future Allen Ginsberg.

The Casebook of Newbury & Hobbes

★ 3.78

George Mann

A collection of short stories detailing the supernatural steampunk adventures of detective duo, Sir Maurice Newbury and Miss Veronica Hobbes in dark and dangerous Victorian London. Along with Chief Inspector Bainbridge, Newbury & Hobbes will face plague revenants, murderous peers, mechanical beasts, tentacled leviathans, reanimated pygmies, and an encounter with Sherlock Holmes.

From Here to Timbuktu

★ 4.16

Milton J. Davis

The year is 1870. As the young country of Freedonia prepares to celebrate fifty years of existence, a young bounty hunter by the name of Zeke Culpepper is hired by a wealthy businessman to find a valuable book. In the kingdom of Mali on the continent of Africa, veteran warrior Famara Keita has been assigned to find that same book and bring it back to its rightful owner. And in the newly formed nation of Germany, an ambitious Prussian officer seeks the book as well for its secrets that could make Germany the most powerful nation in the world. The result is an action adventure like no other!

The Black God’s Drums

★ 4.00

P. Djèlí Clark

Rising SFF star P. Djèlí Clark brings an alternate New Orleans of orisha, airships, and adventure to life in his immersive debut novella The Black God's Drums

In an alternate New Orleans caught in the tangle of the American Civil War, the wall-scaling girl named Creeper yearns to escape the streets for the air – in particular, by earning a spot on-board the airship Midnight Robber. Creeper plans to earn Captain Ann-Marie’s trust with information she discovers about a Haitian scientist and a mysterious weapon he calls The Black God’s Drums.

But Creeper also has a secret Oya, the African orisha of the wind and storms, speaks inside her head, and may have her own ulterior motivations.

Soon, Creeper, Oya, and the crew of the Midnight Robber are pulled into a perilous mission aimed to stop the Black God’s Drums from being unleashed and wiping out the entirety of New Orleans.

“Asinewy mosaic of Haitian sky pirates, wily street urchins, and orisha magic.Beguiling and bombastic!” —Scott Westerfeld, New York Times bestselling author

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Goliath

★ 4.22

Scott Westerfeld

Alek and Deryn are abroad the Leviathan when the ship is ordered to pick up an unusual passenger. This brilliant/maniacal inventor claims to have a weapon called Goliath that can end the war. But whose side is he really on?

While on their top-secret mission, Alek finally discovers Deryn's deeply kept secret. Two, actually. Not only is Deryn a girl disguised as a guy...she has feelings for Alek.

The crown, true love with a commoner, and the destruction of a great city all hang on Alek's next--and final--move.

The thunderous conclusion to Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan series, which was called "sure to become a classic" (SLJ).

Boneshaker

★ 3.52

Cherie Priest

In the early days of the Civil War, rumors of gold in the frozen Klondike brought hordes of newcomers to the Pacific Northwest. Anxious to compete, Russian prospectors commissioned inventor Leviticus Blue to create a great machine that could mine through Alaska’s ice. Thus was Dr. Blue’s Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine born.

But on its first test run the Boneshaker went terribly awry, destroying several blocks of downtown Seattle and unearthing a subterranean vein of blight gas that turned anyone who breathed it into the living dead.

Now it is sixteen years later, and a wall has been built to enclose the devastated and toxic city. Just beyond it lives Blue’s widow, Briar Wilkes. Life is hard with a ruined reputation and a teenaged boy to support, but she and Ezekiel are managing. Until Ezekiel undertakes a secret crusade to rewrite history.

His quest will take him under the wall and into a city teeming with ravenous undead, air pirates, criminal overlords, and heavily armed refugees. And only Briar can bring him out alive.