STEAMPUNK

Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction that usually features steam-powered machines, most often in an alternate history of the 19th century's Victorian England or American Wild West.  Sometimes, it will take place in a post-apocalyptic future in which steam power has regained mainstream use.  Steampunk utilizes prominent features of science fiction or fantasy such as fictional technological inventions or real technological inventions like the computer occurring at an earlier time.  Works of Steampunk are rooted in the era's perspective on fashion, culture, architecture, and art.

Other works of Steampunk contain alternate history plots of the path not taken of technology such as dirigibles, presented in an idealized light.  It may also incorporate elements from other genres: fantasy, horror, historical fiction, etc.  Thus, it is often a hybrid genre.

Here are some of the Steampunk works you can find at EFPL:

The Girl in the Clockwork Collar by Kady Cross follows Finley Jayne and her friends as they travel to America to rescue their friend Jasper.  However, Jasper is in the hands of a former friend who demands a trade: the device that Jasper stole from him for the life of the girl Jasper loves.  One mistake from Jasper, and the clockwork collar around Mei's neck will tighten...

Touch of Steel by Kate Cross: After her brother's death, Claire Brooks vows to gain revenge on the member of The Company who she believes killed her brother.  Claire follows him to London where she is captured and held by Alistair Payne.

Fever Crumb by Philip Reeve tells the story of a foundling, Fever Crumb.  She was raised as an engineer even though women are not believed to be capable of rational thought.  At fourteen, she leaves her home and begins to learn the truth about her past while facing dangers in the present.

Steampunk!: An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories is a collection of stories set in the world of steam engines featuring automatons, clockworks, and other machines that never existed.

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells: Although not exactly steampunk as it was written during the Victorian time period, The Time Machine is a novel that is a major influence on the steampunk genre as it is the starting point for many of its characteristics: a Victorian setting and technology that did not exist but that is described in enough detail to make it seem real.  The story begins with a scientist who claims that he has invented a time machine, and he tells his story to his unbelieving friends.

Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes is a story set in Victorian London that features a stage magician and detective along with his silent sidekick as they uncover a plot to bring London to ruin in order to create the prophecies of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his friend and fellow poet Robert Southey.

The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry follows Charles Unwin, a clerk at a detective agency, as he investigates the disappearance of the agency's best detective: Travis Sivart.  This is a dark fantasy that brings readers into a dream world that will change how they think about thinking.

The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson: John Percival Hackworth, a nanotech engineer, forges a copy of an interactive, computer-driven book entitled A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer.  This device has the power to single-handedly educate its reader; it is designed to shape the values and maintain the superiority of the dominant group.  However, during a mugging, Hackworth loses the copy to a thug.  The thug gives the device to his sister, Nell.  Nell learns secrets from the device, and her understanding of herself and her world grows in ways that the primer's designers never intended.  The destiny of the society as a whole is irrevocably changed.



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