Could someone recommend a steampunk book to someone who has never read steampunk?

[Dchao]

I'm really want to try reading a steampunk book but I just don't know where to start.
Any ideas?

[Ian P. Johnson]

This isn't a book– it's a webcomic, but it's a great place to get introduced to steampunk and its basic tropes:

Girl Genius.

Have fun.

[ihatelife]

This isn't a book– it's a webcomic, but it's a great place to get introduced to steampunk and its basic tropes:

Girl Genius.

Have fun.

They also have novels too. Probably just what you're looking for.

[tnh]

Hi, Dchao.

Ian's recommendation is a good one. The overall Girl Genius sell line: "Mad scientists rule the world. Badly." I'd link to my favorite moment in it so far -- one page, seven panels, and a 163-word rant that's effectively one long sentence -- but it has too many spoilers.

If you want straight prose, try Boneshaker by Cherie Priest.

And for the seriously hardcore steampunk, there's Donald De Carle's classic Practical Watch Repairing. (Okay, that one's a joke.)

===

A useful thing to keep in mind about steampunk is that it has no theoretical basis and no clear starting point, and it's not the invention of any identifiable individual or group. Rather, it's something that's been percolating up out of the floorboards of the collective unconscious for some time now. It's entirely arguable that the TV show The Wild, Wild West, which was on the air from 1965 to 1969, was an early example of steampunk. I could show you an artifact I made in 1989 that anyone today would instantly identify as steampunk. I didn't think of it in those terms, of course; I just thought it looked cool with all those deconstructed watches and brass gears and stuff. There are literally hundreds (or possibly thousands) of other examples dating from the last several decades. We are collectively groping toward something we haven't fully identified yet.

Because steampunk is this nascent thing that's still formulating itself, it has generated more visual art and quirky artifacts than narrative fiction, and most of that fiction has been in visual media. That's actually normal for our genre. I'm going to semi-digress here. Like steampunk, early science fiction groped and muddled along as it slowly figured out what it was doing. This is why histories of science fiction often start with the proto-SF of Lucian of Samosata, Cyrano de Bergerac, Mary Shelley, Bulwer-Lytton, et cetera: there's no clear dividing line. You can almost hear their sigh of relief when they reach the point where Jules Verne (with help from Pierre-Jules Hetzel) sorted out the Science Romance as a literary form, and SF finally started perking along.

What's interesting is how early visual art started popping up that had a distinctly scientifictional cast to it:

1885, Flying machines
1887, Mystery Airship, Scientific American
1899, Jean-Marc Côté's visions of life in the year 2000, part 1
1899, Jean-Marc Côté's visions of life in the year 2000, part 2
1900, French prints showing life in the year 2000
1900, German prints showing life in the year 2000
1902, La Sortie de l'opéra en l'an 2000 by Alfred Robida
1908, Visionary City by William Robinson Leigh
1908, King's Dream of New York
1910, French prints showing scenes from life in 2000
1911, King's Dream of New York (revised version)
1914, City of the Future by Harvey Wiley Corbett

Bear in mind that all these images were published at a time when there was very little science fiction available to read. Those images are pure free-floating futurism in search of a storyline.

My guess is that that's right about where we are with steampunk: we're starting to get an idea of what it's about, and there's some steampunk fiction available, but mostly it's still just a general idea plus a set of visual tropes. Meanwhile, since there's all this art and all these tchotchkes on the market labeled "steampunk," someone who's just run into it for the first time is likely to figure that if there's all that tie-in merchandise available, there's got to be a substantial body of steampunk literature lying around here somewhere.

There isn't. We do have some. Later on, we'll have a whole lot more.

[ecsange]

I am new to Steampunk, too. It does seem like a totally fun genre, very creative. I love how the Sherlock Holmes movies are in vogue now, too.

Tell me why you Steampunk affectionadoes like it?

[Ian P. Johnson]

A lot of people seem to love steampunk for its aesthetic.

I can see why– dressing up in steampunk clothes looks like a lot of fun, and you look great doing it. I mean, how can you go wrong? You've got goggles, and corsets, and top hats… bullwhips, and baby oil, and a honeydew melon…

Wait. Sorry, that's not steampunk. That's something I saw in the Castro district once.

Oh well, moving on…

I don't consider myself a "steampunk aficionado" (I like it, but I like all kinds of SFF, and steampunk is another kind of SFF), but I'll tell you why I enjoy it: history. I really enjoy history, both actual and alternate, and steampunk falls under that category of "alternate history".

Although I'd like to see more non-European steampunk. Imagine: a steampunk novel set in Meiji Japan, at the exact point when Japan was transitioning from a feudal backwater to one of the most aggressively modern nations in the world… that'd be awesome.

[ecsange]

So is it intrigue with history dolloped with sci-fi, do you think? It does seem up my alley. What book would make a good Steampunk first?

[SkylarkThibedeau]

I was going to recommend Girl Genius too. Start from the beginning and Enjoy!

Alvays Remember: Any Plan vere you lose yur Hat? Is a Bad Plan!!!!

[rotor_bolt]

I just picked up The Rise of the Iron Moon by Stephen Hunt. It is the first in a series and I am really looking forward to reading it.

[Prof. Buchanan]

I would recommend the book I wrote! It's called In Defence of the Empire and you can read a sample here, [URL removed] or pick it up from Amazon. [URL removed]