Resurrection Engines: Fifteen Extraordinary Tales of Scientific Romance

by Scott Harrison (Editor), Rachel E. Pollock (Contibutor)

Resurrection Engines is an anthology of Steampunk and Alternate Timeline 'retellings' and 'reimagining's' of classic fiction tales (Edgar Allen Poe, Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythology, Moby Dick, Charles Dickens, Swift's Gulliver's Travels, etc) from some of today's finest Steampunk writers. 01 - Brian Herbert & Bruce Taylor (The Time Machine) 02 - Alan Baker (Journey to the Centre of the Earth ) 03 - Philip Palmer (Wilkie Collins) 04 - Adam Roberts (Rime of the Ancient Mariner) 05 - Juliet E. McKenna (H. Rider Haggard) 06 - Jonathan Green (Moby Dick) 07 - Paul Magrs (Wuthering Heights) 08 - Roland Moore 09 - Scott Harrison (Jekyll & Hyde) 10 - Kim Lakin-Smith (Peter Pan / The Island of Doctor Moreau) 11 - Cavan Scott (Snow White) 12 - Jim Mortimore (Robin Hood) 13 - Simon Bucher-Jones (A Christmas Carol) 14 - Alison Littlewood (Silas Marner) 15 - Rachel E. Pollack (Treasure Island)

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Short Stories, Anthologies, Steampunk, Retellings, Books About Books

534 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2012

Reviews

[Elentarri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Resurrection Engines is an anthology of steampunk and alternate timeline short stories inspired by classic fiction tales.  I was familiar with some of the tales this anthology is inspired by, but other tales I was only vaguely aware of.  So, if nothing else, this anthology has encourage me to read those other original tales.  Usually in anthologies, there are stories that appeal to the reader, and ones that don't.  However, in this anthology I liked all the stories (or at least thought was clever), except one (the writing style didn't appeal to me). This collection of stories were well written, had fascinating world building, provided something to think about, or had an interesting twist.

01 - The Soul-Eaters of Raveloe by Alison Littlewood  ★★★★☆
A mechanical steampunk flavoured, heart-wrenching and tragic tale beautifully told.
Story inspired by: Silas Marner written by George Eliot.

02 - A Journey to the Centre of the Moon by Alan Baker   ★★★★★
This sequel to Journey to the Centre of the Earth is a Verne flavoured journey to the centre of the moon with Axel and Professor Otto Lidenbrock who make an astounding discovery. Loved this one.
Story inspired by: Journey to the Centre of the Earth written by Jules Verne.

03 - She-Who-Thinks-for-Herself by Juliet E. McKenna   ★★★★☆
A feminist twist to an adventure story in search of a relative who disappeared somewhere in Africa while searching for lost civilizations.
Story inspired by: She written by H. Rider Haggard

04 - The Great Steam Time Machine by Brian Herbert & Bruce Taylor   ★★★☆☆
This story featuring a meeting, contrived by Nikola Tesla, between astronomer Percival Lowell, Albert Einstein, Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, and Hugo Gernsback (publisher of the first science fiction magazine) Nikola Tesla. A bit to much philosophy, metaphysics and technobabble for my liking, but the concept was interesting.
Story inspired by: The Time Machine written by H.G Wells

05 - Silver Selene by Philip Palmer  ★★★⯪☆
An evocative mystery story in which a denizen of the Moon is accused of murder. The ending is wicked! I found the story interesting, but I suspect it would have more meaning if I had previously read the Wilkie Collins novel that it alludes to.
Story based on the characters created by: Wilkie Collins in The Woman in White

06 - White Fangoria by Roland Moore  ★★★⯪☆
A rather dark and grim story that alternates between a funeral and a courier mission in the icy wastes of New Arizona. I particularly liked the clockwork sled and the concept of biomechanical wolves was novel. I need to know more about those wolves!
Story inspired by: White Fang written by Jack London. P.S.: It's about as dog friendly as the original novel.

07 - The God of All Machines by Scott Harrison ★★★★⯪
An interesting story that merges elements of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde with an alien invasion and high-tech weapons development that doesn't go as planned. This story could very well be expanded into a decent SF/post-apocalypse novel.
Story inspired by: The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde written by Robert Louis Stevenson.

08 - The Crime of the Ancient Mariner by Adam Roberts   ★★★⯪☆
An interesting version of time-travel: travelling the oceans of time on a steam-powered ship. Burnet is picked up by the Ancient Mariner and inadvertently becomes a time traveller... and therein lies the problem. Lots of evocative imagery in this exploration of temporal physics.
Story inspired by: Rime of the Ancient Mariner written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

09 - There Leviathan by Jonathan Green  ★★★★☆
This fast paced, thrilling, riff on Moby Dick imagines a world in which the Earth's atmosphere is ruined, dirigibles ply the air, and the titular leviathan in a bioengineered aerial beast originally designed to "eat" the poisonous clouds. Fun stuff.
Story inspired by: Moby Dick written by Herman Melville.

10 - The Island of Peter Pandora by Kim Lakin-Smith  ★★★★★
A dark, compelling, steampunk flavoured combination of Peter Pan and Doctor Moreau. Peter Pan is the talented son of scientists Wendy and James. When they die, Peter refuses to accept an invitation to live with the local tribe and vows to build his own friends. The Lost Boys are metal, but the first experiments were not... Creepy and horrifying.
Story inspired by: PJ. M. Barrie's Peter Pan & H.G. Wells' The Island of Doctor Moreau.

11 - The Ghost of Christmas Sideways by Simon Bucher-Jones   ★★★★⯪
This steampunk flavoured exploration of alternate universes begins with the third of four phantoms that Marley's spectre foretold - the Ghost of Christmas Sideways. "I come to show the Christmastide that neverwas, nor yet shall be: but rather died within the fertile womb of time when others of her children flourished."  The Ghost of Christmas Sideways carries around Shrodinger's Cat in a box tied with a ribbon - this made me smile. This thought provoking story imitates Dickens writing style, and would slot in almost seamlessly into the original novella.
Story inspired by: A Christmas Carol written by Charles Dickens.

12 - Talented Witches by Paul Magrs  ★☆☆☆☆
The writing style of this story didn't really appeal to me... and I'm not quite sure what I just read. Other than that the Brontë sisters were involved. I found the stream of conscious style and erratic narrative structure frustrating. I also suspect a Brontë sisters biography might have been helpful.
Story inspired by: Wuthering Heights written by Emily Brontë.>
NOTE: The internet says "Talented Witches was a short story in Resurrection Engines which tied into the Snowbooks Ltd series of Iris Wildthyme novels. Written by Paul Magrs, the story was partially a continuation of Magrs' story Entertaining Mr O from the 1998 Doctor Who charity anthology Perfect Timing. It also featured characters from several other of Magrs' Doctor Who works." Well, that explains why the story didn't make much sense to me. I'm unfamiliar with all those works.

13 - Fairest of Them All by Cavan Scott ★★★⯪☆
This story is twisty! The biomechanical men/machines make for a rather horrifying story element. Story inspired by: the classic fairy tale Snow White.

14 - Tidewrack Medusa by Rachel E. Pollack    ★★★★☆
A lyrically written love story involving witches of the sea, mothers and daughters, and hat-making. Story inspired by: Treasure Island written by Robert Louis Stevenson.

15 - Robin Hood and the Eater of Worlds by Jim Mortimore  ★★★★☆
This dark melding of Robin Hood and H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos is a mix between steampunk and existential horror. It tells the tale of a heroic outlaw fighting impossible odds and winning... in one way or another.
Story inspired by: the legend of Robin Hood & H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall rating: 2.8 stars, rounded up to 3.

Somewhat unfortunately coming into this collection, while I am aware of all the stories these authors are retelling, I am not necessarily closely acquainted with many of them. I decided to keep reading anyway, though, because there are plenty of retellings and reimaginings that can stand on their own. While I overall enjoyed this collection, I wouldn't necessarily say that all of these stories succeeded without foreknowledge and a few of them fell very short, despite my awareness of their basis text.

"The Soul Eaters of Raveloe" by Alison Littlewood - 2 stars

"A Journey to the Center of the Moon" by Alan K Baker - 2.5 stars

"She-Who-Thinks-For-Herself" by Juliet E. McKenna - 2 stars

"The Great Steam Time Machine" by Brian Herbert and Bruce Taylor - 3 stars
I was really intriguied and onboard with this story - alt history Tesla! And then they added Einstein and that was fine. But it really started to spiral when they introduced Jung and Freud...

"Silver Selene" by Philip Palmer - 3.5 stars
I actually have read a Wilkie Collins novel, so I really enjoyed the way Palmer worked to emulate his style and I thought it was well written. I'm not sure how I feel about that dual soul concept, though...

"White Fangoria" by Roland Moore - 3 stars

"The God of All Machines" by Scott Harrison - 3.5 stars

"The Crime of the Ancient Mariner" by Adam Roberts - 3.5 stars
This story featured some of the best writing in the whole collection, with somer really beautiful phrases at the beginning. Some of it was lost towards the end, though, and overall the story felt like it dragged a bit. Some of the humor was a touch dated as well.

"There Leviathan" by Jonathan Green - 3 stars
I'd read this over Moby Dick any day.

"The Island of Peter Pandora" by Kim Lakin-Smith - 4 stars
Having previously read Lakin-Smith's novel Autodrome, I was a bit nervous coming into this story. But it was really inventive and I found myself enjoying it very much as it went along.

"The Ghost of Christmas Sideways" by Simon Bucher-Jones - 2 stars

"Talented Witches" by Paul Magrs - 1 star
I was so disappointed. This was supposed to be a retelling of Wuthering Heights but it legitimately had very, very little to do with the actual plot of the book.

"Fairest of Them All" by Cavan Scott - 2 stars

"Tidewrack Medusa" by Rachel E. Pollock - DNF
I really couldn't get into this one, not sure why. I really love Treasure Island but this story just didn't do it for me.

"Robin Hood and the Eater of Worlds" by Jim Mortimore - 4.5 stars
Never in my LIFE did I ever think I would be requesting a full length novel retelling of "Robin Hood" myths in Lovecraftian style, but oh my god, here we are. This story was awesome. It had some old school mythos (hi Yog-Sothoth, how's it going? Long time no see.) and some really inventive use of text distortion for the Old God Truth Bombs™.
I really, really want to read more of Mortimore's work now.

I wish I had liked this collection overall much more, and I was really tempted to keep it just for the finale story. But, I'm going to be passing this along to another Lovecraft-loving friend who just owns way less books than I do!

[Kylie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Technically a 2.5 star rating.

I borrowed this from the local library catalogue without even seeing the cover, much less knowing what it was all about. It was a bit of a mistake, but then you never know how anthologies will turn out. Out of all the stories here, only two were based on a source I had actually read (though I knew the vague plot of many others), and I had read other work of three/four of the authors.

The story I was most looking forward to was Alan K Baker's, as I've enjoyed his Blackwood and Harrington novels (which must've been published later as they weren't mentioned in his biography bit). It was well plotted and decently done but I admit feeling somewhat cold towards it, as I did with many of the stories. The second was Kim Lakin-Smith's, which I did end up enjoying - which goes some way to forgiving her abandoning the Tourniquet series after one book to go write steampunk fiction. I think I might've read some of Butcher-Jones' Cthulhu mythos fiction but I'm not sure, and his story was also decent reading. Overall my favourites were Cavan's Scott's take on Snow White (dystopian indeed), and Jim Mortimore's Lovecraftian reworking of Robin Hood. Rachel E. Pollock's prequel to Treasure Island also deserves an honourable mention. Mostly though the anthology was filled with potential that failed to deliver for me.

The one exception to this was Paul Magrs' Wuthering Heights. I hated it. That is perhaps unsurprising considering that I also dislike his Brenda and Effie books (of what reality it appears this story was set). I like urban fantasy as much as anyone, but his brand strives to make the horrific and fantastical as mundane as real life. I don't understand why this was included because it's a big muddled mess with none of the themes of the anthology as far as I can make out. It's billed as being a treatment of Wuthering Heights but it's not. The Bronte sisters' ghosts feature a bit in the text, but the connection is almost entirely incidental.

[Stuart Douglas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great idea, well implimented.

Putting a steampunk spin on a dozen or so traditional fairy-tales is a more than decent basis for an anthology, and Scott Harrison does an exemplary job in keeping a tight rein on an excellent range of authors.

There's not a weak story in the collection, but particular highlights for me were Alison Littlewood's take on Silas Marner (a great choice for the opening story, with something of the feel of a Pixar cartoon, for some reason I can't put my finger on), Jim Mortimore's Robin Hood (which takes multiple Hoods and plays narrative games with them) and - most of all - Paul Magrs' cut up version of 'Wuthering Heights' which I read several times in a row, once out loud, just because the language is so delightful.

[cowy]

took me six months to complete three short stories
says enough, I guess. just isn't for me

[Otherwyrld · Rating 3 out of 5]

Resurrection engines is a collection of 15 short stories of scientific romance, each one based on a classic story re imagined as steam-punk fantasy. As short stories, the quality varies widely, with no one story being a stand out. Of the stories, perhaps my favourite was The Crime of the Ancient Mariner by Adam Roberts, which is odd because I have always been frustrated by his novels in the past. I also enjoyed the story that followed, There Leviathan by Jonathan Green ( a reworking of Moby Dick), and Robin Hood and the Eater of Worlds by Jim Mortimore.

Some of the other stories were less successful, a couple because they tried to hew too closely to the sentiments of the original story they were based on. One was totally incomprehensible and I skipped over it. Otherwise a good enough read but not one I would particularly recommended unless you like short stories or steam-punk.

[Elise · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's something about the steampunk I've read that I find a bit icky...if you remember the movie 'Wild Wild West' you'll know what I mean.
There were some good stories in this collection, some middling ones and a few I wish I hadn't read.
The good ones:
'She who Thinks for Herself' based on Rider Haggards 'she'
'The Crime of the Ancient Mariner'
'Tidewrack Medusa' which tells how Long John Silver lost his leg.
'Ghost of Christmas Sideways' where Scrooge sees various alternate timelines.
Middling ones were based on Snow White, Silas Marner, Moby Dick and Robin Hood.
My least favorite was a really icky Peter Pan and an incomprehensible Wuthering Heights.

Side note...because of the relatively thick paper and large margins the book appears more substantial than it is.

[Rachel Pollock · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full disclosure: i wrote one of the stories in this anthology, "Tidewrack Medusa." So, discounting my own story, i think my favorite was "The Ghost of Christmas Sideways," written as a lost chapter of the Dickens Christmas Carol which purportedly only appears in one odd apocryphal edition, in which a fourth spirit appears to Scrooge to show him Christmases from alternative time-streams in which he made other choice in the past, or in which events went differently.

Lots of interesting interpretations of the theme of taking classic works and putting them into a steampunk crucible, so to speak.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent collection of short stories, not so much inspired by, but more of a retelling of some well-known classics. I will not reveal which classic tales are reworked as it may ruin the enjoyment of the book for other readers; the titles in particular give too much away. Although the stories are also steampunk themed, they are not blatantly so, some in fact may not be considered steampunk at all, so you don’t need to be a fan of the genre to enjoy this collection. The quality of each tale is consistently high throughout, which only added to my enjoyment of course.

[Kevinjwoods · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like most anthologies some parts of this are good and some parts are terrible, and there is a decided leap in quality whenever a professional writer of original fiction takes over against those short stories written by a professional writer of tvadaptions and non fiction.
Best Stories:
Tidewrack Medusa
The great steam time machine
The crime of the ancient mariner
Worst Stories:
The island of peter Pandora
The god of all machines
There Leviathan.

[Rae · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a collection of steampunk and alternate reality short stories based on classic novels and/or classic authors. It. Is. Amazing. The writing is top-notch. The stories, in some cases, reimagined classics, are very unique. If you are unsure about fantasy or science fiction, but like classic fiction, this is a great "gateway." :-) There were two that didn't resonate with me, but it was completely worth it.

[Pers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of these stories worked much better than others for me. An interesting collection, however...

[Henk · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's 15 stories and they vary a lot in quality.

[Bethnoir · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't read all of these stories, but there was an enjoyable mix in the ones I did.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my cup of tea.