The Temp, The Actress and The Writer: books

Tuesday, October 02, 2012

Steampunk Tuesday - Intro To Steampunk

Hey all!

Having already a rather crazy week so this spawns . . .

LAZY BLOG POSTING *echo, echo echo*

But with the lazy can come something of use. I think. Or maybe it's just an excuse. I dunno.

At any rate, the other day a friend asked for some links etc to help her get a basic sense of what this whole Steampunk thing was and I sent her some. And then I realised . . . this might be a good list to compile officially here.

Now, to be fair, it's a bit of a biased list. Towards me. And previous Steampunk Tuesday posts I've made. But as I've already collected a lot of stuff to aid in the explanation of "What the heck is Steampunk", I feel like it's okay to be biased towards me. Especially as the content within said posts are courtesy of mostly . . . not . . . me.

Anyway, here's a nice list of links that I think will help any newcomer to Steampunk get a better sense of what it is:

Steampunk as Aesthetic - by The Steampunk Scholar aka Mike Perschon

A collection of videos made about Steampunk

A list of Steampunk Books - on my blog, but courtesy of The Steampunk Scholar

And list and some trailers of Hollywood movies with a Steampunk aesthetic

Tuesday, November 01, 2011

Steampunk Tuesday - Books!

So I skipped a week of blogging due to being generally overwhelmed with work etc, but I'm back baby!

And what a perfect day to come back on, it's Steampunk Tuesday! Sweet!

In a previous Steampunk Tuesday we did movies, and I thought it only right to do books this time around. Because books are awesome. And they also help us define further what Steampunk is.

(Because I still maintain, though others disagree [which is cool, man, it's cool] that Steampunk has not exploded onto the scene quite yet. My proof: my need to constantly define what it is.)

At any rate.

I gots a couple lists for you. But I gots to be upfront about them. They aren't created by me. Instead they are by the amazing Steampunk Scholar (interview with him coming soon): Mike Perschon.

If you ever felt that my attempts to define and dig into Steampunk were ever so slightly superficial, please check out his blog of awesome. The guy's doing his PhD on the subject: Steampunk Scholar.

I have mad respect for this guy, and I very much approve of his lists, so it felt a little silly recreating them when I could just give him the credit for them in the first place.

Now he has a top ten list of his favourite Steampunk books (which I'll be posting at the bottom of this post), but I like it when he divides up the categories - simply for educational purposes. If you want something more contemporary, or if you are looking for a classic, they are easier to find in this set of lists.

We begin with his Top Ten New Steampunk (2000 - 2009 <------ yes, this means the list is due for an update, but it's still a pretty great list):

Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by Gordon Dahlquist
Alchemy of Stone by Ekaterina Sedia
Fitzpatrick's War by Theodore Judson
Skybreaker by Kenneth Oppel
Boilerplate by Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett
Perdido Street Station by China Mieville
Soulless by Gail Carriger
Whitechapel Gods by S.M. Peters

I feel a need to add the following mention as this book was listed 5th in our Scholar's Top Ten (as well as his Top Five for 2010) list but was published in 2010 - thus after the above list was created. And that would be Cherie Priest's DREADNOUGHT: