Steam Punk Books Make For A Great Read

Posted by Brett Slansky | 6:04 PM | 0 comments »

By Celia Hall


Steam punk books come in various styles, with many different themes and plots. This literary sub-genre is hard to classify as the definition is often more to do with aesthetics than the actual plot or atmosphere of an individual novel. K. W. Jeter introduced the term "steampunk" in 1987 as a tongue-in-cheek variation in the cyberpunk movement. The steam part of this genre comes from the fact that most of these tales are based in pseudo-Victorian societies where steam power is the technological norm.

Victorian texts by such novelists as Jules Verne and H. G. Wells preempted many aspects and ideas that comprise a typical steampunk story. Real and imaginary eccentric lone inventors like Brunel and Babbage are illustrations of real-life innovative individuals to materialize in the dark fantasies and offbeat sci-fi of this kind. Fantastic Victoriana is a common thread running through many steampunk tapestries.

Cherie Priest bears the mantle of "the high priestess of steampunk". Her 2009 novel "Boneshaker" is based in a plausible alternate Civil war-era America. The story focuses on the association between Briar Weekes and her son Zeke and the typical dynamics of a parent/teenager relationship. It is a fast-paced adventure full of intense action, imaginative gadgets, sinister scientists and zombies. Priest combines facets of horror, science fiction, history and fantasy. Her quirky characters make for a playful but exciting narrative. "Boneshaker" is part of this "Clockwork Century" series.

Diana Wynne Jones 1986 novel; "Howl's Moving Castle" is a charming tale of the young Sophie Hatter transformed into an old woman by a witch. This master story-teller writes of Sophie's travels trying to find a way of changing back. Demons, wizards and a bizarre moving castle create the steampunk environment.

In 1971, Michael Moorcock wrote the yarn of "The Warlord of the Air", the first in the Oswald Bastable trilogy (followed by "The Land Leviathan" and "The Steel Tsar"). The hero is transported from the turn of the twentieth century into an imaginary adaptation of 1973. Here he finds that technology has evolved into many diverse forms. World War has never happened. These "Nomad of the Time Streams" volumes are classic time-travelling steampunk adventures ahead of their time.

J. W. Jeter's significant "Infernal Devices" and his allusion to H. G. Wells' "The Time Machine" in the equally important "Morlock Night", in addition to Gibson and Sterling's "The Difference Engine" make use of the backcloth of unconventional editions of London in the 1880s. Jeter was the person responsible for first using the idiom "steampunk" in 1987. He crafts an environment where androids and fish people use time travel in a story inter-twined with sexual conspiracies. "The Difference Engine" depicts a world distorted by Charles Babbage's pioneering analytic contrivance. It is deemed as a key example of this unique sub-genre.

The influences of Lovecraft, Stoker and Shelley are readily identifiable in these works. Jeter's "Morlock Night" pays direct homage to "The Time Machine". Subdivisions of this genus include steampunk-romance and steampunk-mystery.

Stoker, Shelley, R. L. Stephenson and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle have all played major roles in the development of the fashionable field of steam punk books. The best of these works are ready to become contemporary classics. There are all kinds of plots and themes to create debates of philosophy and meta-physics.




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