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Seeking recommendations for Steampunk fiction.

XX55XXXX55XX Registered User regular
edited December 2011 in Social Entropy++
I've been re-reading A Series of Unfortunate Events recently (a childhood favorite), and I am hungry for more Steampunk fiction, be it intended for children or adults. Any suggestions?

And yes, I am aware of the works of Jules Verne, but I do seek more contemporary stuff.

XX55XX on
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  • FeriluceFeriluce Adrift on the morning star. Aberdeen, WARegistered User regular
    While I haven't had a chance to read it yet, The Alloy of Law by Brian Sanderson is right up that alley. I live everything else I've read by that author so far.

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  • WassermeloneWassermelone Registered User regular
    Most of its crap.

    Boneshaker by Cherie Priest is pretty ok.

    I suppose China Mieville's New Crobuzon books have steampunk elements. Regardless of what you classify those books as, they are excellent. Perdido Street Station, The Scar (my favorite), and the Iron Council (the weakest and the most obviously steampunkish).

  • WassermeloneWassermelone Registered User regular
    Oh

    If you do take a look at China Meiville's books... don't expect much from the endings of them. Hes a great writer, and an absolutely fantastic world builder... but writing a satisfying ending is not his forte.

  • QuothQuoth the Raven Miami, FL FOR REALRegistered User regular
    Perdido street station is so damn grimdark though

  • Raijin QuickfootRaijin Quickfoot I'm your Huckleberry YOU'RE NO DAISYRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    I liked Perdido Street Station but I found it hard to really get into. Just something about the way he writes doesn't gel well with me.

  • QuothQuoth the Raven Miami, FL FOR REALRegistered User regular
    It's like trying to eat a pound of fudge in one bite, his prose is so dark and dense

  • captainkcaptaink TexasRegistered User regular
    Neal Stephenson's 'The Diamond Age' is more nano-punk, but it might hit the spot. Features Victorians, China, naked Drummers, and more nanotechnology than you can shake a stick at.

  • Raijin QuickfootRaijin Quickfoot I'm your Huckleberry YOU'RE NO DAISYRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    Quoth wrote:
    It's like trying to eat a pound of fudge in one bite, his prose is so dark and dense

    I can eat a pound of fudge in one bite.

  • StaleStale Registered User regular
    I suggest looking into a genre that isn't universally terrible.

    easysig2.jpg
  • FandyienFandyien But Otto, what about us? Registered User regular
    mortal engines by philip reeves

    i read it when i was a teenager

    it's about giant victorian cities on treads that wander a huge i guess postapocalyptic world looking for other cities to eat with the giant jaws on their tank-cities that traverse continents

    so it's like, a story of a guy who lives on one of the larger ones and stuff about it hunting towns and shit and the whole thing was weird but good

    it was steampunk i guess

    reposig.jpg
  • Donovan PuppyfuckerDonovan Puppyfucker A dagger in the dark is worth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered User regular
    Nemesis the Warlock? I read a single issue of this, so I can't speak for the quality of the whole series, but the setting was very 'steampunk', with steam-powered airships and robots and shit.

  • M.D.M.D. and then what happens? Registered User regular
    i tried reading steampunk once, after that i will never try again

  • Crimson KingCrimson King Registered User regular
    there isn't any

    thread over

  • Cilla BlackCilla Black Priscilla!!! Registered User regular
    All the good books I've read have had very light elements of steampunk and they've all been mentioned. Never read anything good where the steampunk was super heavy.

  • AnzekayAnzekay Registered User regular
    Steampunk is so good.

    People who tend to write steampunk are kinda bad.

    :(

  • ButtlordButtlord Fornicus Lord of Bondage and PainRegistered User regular
    XX55XX wrote:
    I've been re-reading A Series of Unfortunate Events recently (a childhood favorite), and I am hungry for more Steampunk fiction, be it intended for children or adults. Any suggestions?

    And yes, I am aware of the works of Jules Verne, but I do seek more contemporary stuff.

    Unfortunate Events wasn't really steampunk it was just weird

  • DruhimDruhim Registered User, ClubPA regular
    Stale wrote: »
    I suggest looking into a genre that isn't universally terrible.

    :^:

    belruelotterav-1.jpg
  • Airking850Airking850 Ottawa, ONRegistered User regular
    What about the Johannes Cabal books?

    I've never read the books but I once heard they were good, and they seem like a tongue-in-cheek faustian type of deal. There's a zeppelin on one of the covers, which makes them steampunk.

  • Cilla BlackCilla Black Priscilla!!! Registered User regular
    Really what you're probably looking for is some fiction with a good Victorian backdrop, as that seems to be the setting theme what every steampunk work relies on anyway. They just throw in some random, and I'm blanking on the word that means technology that shouldn't exist in a time period, out-of-place tech with the excuse of steam.

  • Airking850Airking850 Ottawa, ONRegistered User regular
    The Denver Post called the third book in the series "A swashbuckling mystery set in a steampunk world.” Jackpot.

  • Airking850Airking850 Ottawa, ONRegistered User regular
    Anachronism?

  • AnzekayAnzekay Registered User regular
    Sean McMullen has a fantasy series that has some steampunk elements in it, paticularly the most recent ones.

    Voyage of the Shadowmoon is the first one, I think.

  • Cilla BlackCilla Black Priscilla!!! Registered User regular
    yes anachronistic, that's the word

  • ButtlordButtlord Fornicus Lord of Bondage and PainRegistered User regular
    Really what you're probably looking for is some fiction with a good Victorian backdrop, as that seems to be the setting theme what every steampunk work relies on anyway. They just throw in some random, and I'm blanking on the word that means technology that shouldn't exist in a time period, out-of-place tech with the excuse of steam.

    Anachronistic FUCK I GOT BEATEN

  • Crimson KingCrimson King Registered User regular
    the problem with steampunk is that it is a visual aesthetic with no ideological content

    so in a visual medium, steampunk can work, because it does look rather good

    but in writing, you can't see it, and there is no more to steampunk than how it looks. so it falls flat.

    this is also why so many things that use steampunk have to hybridize it with something else. skyrim gives us steampunk dwarves, arkham city gives us steampunk gotham, mieville gives us steampunk socialism and steampunk body horror, pratchett gives us steampunk parables of modernization

    (and that's probably the best use of steampunk, as a way to talk about technology and history and the industrial revelation)

    but most steampunk literature is devoid of any real purpose other than to get robots and corsets in the same book

  • Cilla BlackCilla Black Priscilla!!! Registered User regular
    I think it's kind of a stretch to classify most of those things as steampunk anyway. The skyrim stuff is probably closest.

  • ButtlordButtlord Fornicus Lord of Bondage and PainRegistered User regular
    I mean I guess the next three Mistborn books are gonna be steampunk

  • SnorkSnork word Jamaica Plain, MARegistered User regular
    i've only read perdido street station, but i feel like china mieville's ideas are a lot better than his ability to structure or even his prose is. i really enjoy his aesthetic, and as was said he's a fantastic world-builder, but the writing just got incredibly repetitive about halfway through the book (and it's long, and the ending is bad). i definitely want to read embassytown and possibly the scar, but i'm not particularly motivated to do so at the moment

  • Crimson KingCrimson King Registered User regular
    edited December 2011
    I think it's kind of a stretch to classify most of those things as steampunk anyway. The skyrim stuff is probably closest.

    exactly

    the closer you get to pure steampunk the less interesting it is

    also mieville can't plot for shit which was the one thing standing between the city and the city and book of the year

    Crimson King on
  • OlivawOlivaw good name, isn't it? the foot of mt fujiRegistered User regular
    the problem with steampunk is that it is a visual aesthetic with no ideological content

    so in a visual medium, steampunk can work, because it does look rather good

    but in writing, you can't see it, and there is no more to steampunk than how it looks. so it falls flat.

    this is also why so many things that use steampunk have to hybridize it with something else. skyrim gives us steampunk dwarves, arkham city gives us steampunk gotham, mieville gives us steampunk socialism and steampunk body horror, pratchett gives us steampunk parables of modernization

    (and that's probably the best use of steampunk, as a way to talk about technology and history and the industrial revelation)

    but most steampunk literature is devoid of any real purpose other than to get robots and corsets in the same book

    Pretty much

    Hell, a lot of steampunk stuff covers the same themes and ideas as cyberpunk, just with goggles and moustaches and top hats as opposed to burning chrome and augmentation

    It's still a very striking look, though

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  • ButtlordButtlord Fornicus Lord of Bondage and PainRegistered User regular
    If by striking you mean dumb

    This is what I think of every time someone says steampunk:

    uBFyO.jpg

  • Centipede DamascusCentipede Damascus Registered User regular
    Olivaw wrote:
    the problem with steampunk is that it is a visual aesthetic with no ideological content

    so in a visual medium, steampunk can work, because it does look rather good

    but in writing, you can't see it, and there is no more to steampunk than how it looks. so it falls flat.

    this is also why so many things that use steampunk have to hybridize it with something else. skyrim gives us steampunk dwarves, arkham city gives us steampunk gotham, mieville gives us steampunk socialism and steampunk body horror, pratchett gives us steampunk parables of modernization

    (and that's probably the best use of steampunk, as a way to talk about technology and history and the industrial revelation)

    but most steampunk literature is devoid of any real purpose other than to get robots and corsets in the same book

    Pretty much

    Hell, a lot of steampunk stuff covers the same themes and ideas as cyberpunk, just with goggles and moustaches and top hats as opposed to burning chrome and augmentation

    It's still a very striking look, though

    I don't know about that, doesn't most cyberpunk deal with things like transhumanism and identity? Does steampunk even have any themes like that?

  • AnzekayAnzekay Registered User regular
    I've always though that this short is a good example of steampunk done well. Too bad it isn't a book.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vORsKyopHyM

  • QuothQuoth the Raven Miami, FL FOR REALRegistered User regular
    What's that terrible comic that keeps winning stuff

    Girl Genius?

  • GoatmonGoatmon Companion of Kess Registered User regular
    Wait, Unfortunate Events is steampunk?

    I remember reading like, ten novels or so of it and I don't remember any steampunk.

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  • QuothQuoth the Raven Miami, FL FOR REALRegistered User regular
    Yeah it's Girl Genius

    You might like that

  • DoobhDoobh She/Her, Ace Pan/Bisexual 8-) What's up, bootlickers?Registered User regular
    Steampunk is something I'd like to see disappear for awhile

    so farking overused

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  • DepressperadoDepressperado I just wanted to see you laughing in the pizza rainRegistered User regular
    edited December 2011
    the thing about Girl Genius is that it looks awful

    it's not even particularly poorly written, it's just drawn by people who apparently think everyone is as doughy and awful looking as they are.

    did you just say farking

    Depressperado on
  • OrikaeshigitaeOrikaeshigitae Registered User, ClubPA regular
    Airking850 wrote:
    There's a zeppelin on one of the covers, which makes them steampunk.

    what

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