Steampunk

by Ann VanderMeer (Editor), Jeff Vandermeer (Editor), Joe R. Lansdale (Contributor)

Replete with whimsical mechanical wonders and charmingly anachronistic settings, this pioneering anthology gathers a brilliant blend of fantastical stories. Steampunk originates in the romantic elegance of the Victorian era and blends in modern scientific advances—synthesizing imaginative technologies such as steam-driven robots, analog supercomputers, and ultramodern dirigibles. The elegant allure of this popular new genre is represented in this rich collection by distinctively talented authors, including:

Content

"Introduction: The 19th Century Roots of Steampunk" by Jess Nevins

"Benediction: Excerpt from The Warlord of the Air" by Michael Moorcock
"Lord Kelvin's Machine" by James P. Blaylock
"The Giving Mouth" by Ian R. MacLeod
"A Sun in the Attic" by Mary Gentle
"The God-Clown is Near" by Jay Lake
"The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider Get Down: A Dime Novel" by Joe R. Lansdale
"The Selene Gardening Society" by Molly Brown
"Seventy-Two Letters" by Ted Chiang
"The Martian Agent, A Planetary Romance" by Michael Chabon
"Victoria" by Paul Di Filippo
"Reflected Light" by Rachel E. Pollock
"Minutes of the Last Meeting" by Stepan Chapman
"Excerpt from the Third and Last Volume of Tribes of the Pacific Coast" by Neal Stephenson
"The Steam-Driven Time Machine: A Pop Culture Survey" by Rick Klaw
"The Essential Sequential Steampunk: A Modest Survey of the Genre within the Comic Book Medium" by Bill Baker

Genres: Steampunk, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Anthologies, Alternate History

373 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Ann VanderMeer is an American publisher and editor, and the second female editor of the horror magazine Weird Tales. She is the founder of Buzzcity Press.

Her work as Fiction Editor of Weird Tales won a Hugo Award. Work from her press and related periodicals has won the British Fantasy Award, the International Rhysling Award, and appeared in several year's best anthologies. Ann was also the founder of The Silver Web magazine, a periodical devoted to experimental and avant-garde fantasy literature.

In 2009 "Weird Tales edited by Ann VanderMeer and Stephen H. Segal" won a Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine. Though some of its individual contributors have been honored with Hugos, Nebula Awards, and even one Pulitzer Prize, the magazine itself had never before even been nominated for a Hugo. It was also nominated for a World Fantasy Award in 2009.

Reviews

[Benjamin Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like Steampunk. Unfortunately, if I didn't know that already, and had to base my judgement on this collection of short stories, then I would probably conclude that I really don't like Steampunk. I mean, I like the concepts of most of these stories, at least those I could figure out after getting past all of the "look how smart I am as a writer" entries. But the execution of those concepts was lacking in fine story-telling technique. This is something I'm finding with way too many of these science fiction anthologies being released in recent years. It seems the editors are all so intent upon showing how intelligent they are and forget to include some actual decent stories in their collections. The modern literatti are alive and well in the science fiction marketplace.

The only thing saving this collection, at least marginally, is the essay at the end of the book by Rick Law which covers the history of steampunk in print and on film. Although I disagree with his opinions on which are the best, particulary with his utter disdain for certain movies, at least he provides some thought provoking history.

Perhaps I should stick to the classics by Jules Verne, HG Wells, and continue to hunt down proper steampunk novelists such as Tim Powers and Mark Hodder.

[Bryan Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

The VanderMeers have assembled a fine anthology. It surveys the steampunk world through multiple approaches, genres, and voices. Short stories work through alternate history, American tall tale, mad science satire, Victorian labor politics, detective story, and New Weird, ranging tonally from whimsy to melancholy and horror.

Let me note a few standouts.

Mary Gentle's "A Sun in the Attic" offers splendidly economical world-building without sacrificing characterization and story arc. It sets up an intriguingly alternative gender politics, then upends its semi-medieval setting with a lunge towards technology critique... all in under 19 pages.

James Blaylock's "Lord Kelvin's Machine" takes me back to the 1980s, when I first encountered this writer and his friends, Tim Powers and KW Jeter, the latter who coined the steampunk term. "Machine" has all the signature Blaylock traits: gentle whimsy, a love of food, improbable science, and an ambling plot.

Rachel Pollock's "Reflected Light" casts itself as a historical document, transcribed wax cylinder recordings of a worker talking about her friend and activists. It's fragmentary, allusive, and nearly heartbreaking.

Joe Lansdale's "Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider" is a crazed remix of The Time Machine, 19th-century steam robot stories, the American tall tale tradition, flying saucers, Dracula, and a looping space shuttle plot. It's quite disgusting and funny.

Ted Chiang's "Seventy-Two Letters" offers a welcome steampunk turn to labor, using golems to get at a left politics all too often absent from this subgenre.

Paul Di Filippo's "Victoria" is a slightly insane riff on the steampunk monarch, working in newts (a la Capek), sex obsessions, and mad science.

Stepan Chapman's "Minutes of the Last Meeting" takes us away from the English-speaking world, imagining an alternative Russian empire.

Michael Chabon’s “The Martian Agent” is a full-tilt adventure, a boy's own ripping yarn set in an alternate, British dominated (former) America. Huge sentences string together leaps of time and description, always thundering forward. Naturally it leaves us wanting more.

So why steampunk? This collection gives us some clues.
First, it's a playground for alternate history. Like Gibson and Sterling's Difference Engine, these stories often assume a nineteenth-century past tweaked or otherwise strongly marked by scientific and technological advances. Like alternative WWIIs, steampunk provides the prebuilt concept, which authors can dive into.
Second, the Victorian period is at a fine remove. It's far away enough that mocking or using it risks offending nobody, but close enough that the cultural resonances still work.
Third, building on the second, Steampunk's authors can poke at contemporary issues through that not-so-distant mirror.

Unlike other steampunk works, this collection doesn't obsess over style. We get enough description of goggles, brass, long dresses, dirigibles, etc. to make the point, but without taking over tales. The anthology complements steampunk clothes makers.
Also different is the way these authors don't seem to be fleeing from their present. Their imagined alt.pasts are not refuges from the past couple of decades.

I haven't mentioned the collection's nonfiction essays, which are generally serviceable. (Kudos for celebrating Luther Awkwright) One useful thought comes from Jess Nevin's introduction:

The Edisonade is American. Steampunk, though written by writers of many nationalities, is English. (9)

I'm enjoying rethinking steampunk through that lens.

Overall, a solid collection for the topic, well worth reading for anyone with a steampunk interest.

[Olethros · Rating 3 out of 5]

-Dentro del Steampunk, platos variados en sus especias pero con el mismo ingrediente principal.-

Género. Relatos.

Lo que nos cuenta. El libro Steampunk (publicación original: Steampunk, 2008) es una antología de relatos de temática steampunk, seleccionados por Ann VanderMeer y Jeff VanderMeer (que también aportan a los contenidos) junto a unos ensayos sobre el subgénero. La edición española es sólida y de aspecto cuidado (gracias, señores de Edge).

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

[Stefan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Steampunk is an anthology of, well, steampunk stories, edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer. If you hurry, you can still get to this first anthology before the second one, Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded, appears in mid November. Based on the quality of the stories in this collection, I heartily recommend checking it out, especially if you’ve been a bit bemused (or possibly amused) by all the people wearing odd Victorian costumes at SFF conventions nowadays, or if you have at best a vague idea of what steampunk exactly entails. If you’re one of those people who’s interested in, but not entirely sure about, the new hot subgenre du jour (like me, prior to reading Steampunk), this anthology is here to take you by the hand and give you a quick, entertaining education. And oh, it also contains some truly excellent short stories.

After the preface by editors Ann and Jeff Vandermeer, Steampunk starts off with an excellent essay by Jess Nevins about the origins and history of steampunk, including interesting details about the American Edisonades, references to other predecessors such as H.G. Wells and Jules Verne and to “proto-steampunk” like Michael Moorcock’s The Warlord of the Air, an excerpt of which is used as the “Benediction” for the anthology. Most interestingly, the essay gives a partial explanation for the -punk suffix: “Steampunk, like all good punk, rebels against the system it portrays (Victorian London or something quite like it), critiquing its treatment of the underclass, its validation of the privileged at the cost of everyone else, its lack of mercy, its cutthroat capitalism. Like the punks, steampunk rarely offers a solution to the problems it decries — for steampunk, there is no solution — but for both punk and steampunk the criticism must be made before the change can come.” Nevins then goes on to explain that this may only apply to first generation steampunk, and that the politics have mostly disappeared from the current wave — which might explain why some have complained that there isn’t anything “punk” about steampunk and that it’s more about mannerisms and nostalgia. While that may apply to much of the more recent output in the subgenre, reading some of the older stories in this collection will definitely show that the -punk part of the subgenre’s name wasn’t just put there to make it sound like cyberpunk.

Be all of that as it may, after you’re done with all the scholarly debate, steampunk is like any other genre or subgenre or whatever you want to call it: some of it is seminal, some of it is excellent, some it is derivative but still good, and some of it is just people hitching their wagon to the latest fad. Whether you like steampunk or not, it’s hard to argue with the fact that The Vandermeers have done an outstanding job with this collection: most of these stories are simply excellent pieces of short-form speculative fiction.

The anthology starts off with a bang with “Lord Kelvin’s Machine” by James P. Blaylock, a wild and surreal story that displays steampunk working on the grandest of scales. It’s entertaining, wild and a bit silly — and a great way to kick off the collection.

“The Giving Mouth” by Ian R. MacLeod, slows things down considerably. I enjoyed and admired the author’s steampunk-ish novels The Light Ages and The House of Storms (“-ish” because they’re set in a version of Victorian England in which the economy is powered by magic rather than steam). This story is set in a different universe but shares the same melancholy atmosphere. However, it doesn’t work as well here and feels a bit out of place.

The collection then picks up steam (sorry) with the wonderful “A Sun in the Attic” by Mary Gentle, set in a matriarchal alternate universe that vaguely resembles the Victorian era. This little gem is one of those stories that make you wish for more material set in the same world.

Jay Lake’s “The God-Clown is Near” is the first story in the anthology working on the Golem myth. It’s a fun, dark, surreal story that, as I’ve come to expect from this author, is simply delightful.

Things get much darker with Joe R. Lansdale’s “The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider Get Down: A DIME NOVEL,” which puts a brusque twist on the Traveler from H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine. This story is dark and violent, full of rape and torture, and while its concept is unique, it may be a bit much for some readers.

“The Selene Gardening Society” by Molly Brown also builds on a steampunk predecessor (this time From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne) but in a much more whimsical and funny way.

Next up is Ted Chiang’s “Seventy-Two Letters,” which picks up the golem theme again and ties in a few other ideas, resulting in a memorable story — not that you’d expect anything less from Ted Chiang.

Michael Chabon’s “The Martian Agent” features some of the most gorgeous prose in the anthology, and thanks to its title, feels like the first chapter in a larger tale. Reading this story bumped the author much closer to the top of my endless “must-read-more-by” list.

Paul Di Filippo’s “Victoria” is one of the funniest and most inventive stories in the collection, featuring newt-based human life and a hilarious uber-villain. This irreverent story (which manages to call the entire royal succession into question) is so over the top that it’s sure to make you grin a few times.

The biggest surprise for me was “Reflected Light” by Rachel E. Pollock, an elegant and intricate short tale that implies much more than it states outright and almost begs to be reread. This story about illegal underground manufacturing hints at upcoming social changes in a fascinating society that hopefully will host more stories. It also displays the political side of steampunk in a very succinct way.

Another surprise is Stepan Chapman’s “Minutes of the Last Meeting”, set in Tzarist Russia. This brilliant story switches viewpoints frequently and somehow manages to introduce a new mind-bending layer of innovation every time, right up to the stunning ending.

Last but not least, the editors throw in a treat: a short story by Neal Stephenson set in the same universe as his post-cyberpunk/neo-Victorian novel The Diamond Age. Calling this steampunk is probably a bit of a stretch, but who cares — it’s a fun read that also reminds you, again, how unique Stephenson is as an author.

Closing out the collection are two more non-fiction pieces, including a look at steampunk in pop culture at large by Geek Curmudgeon Rick Claw, and a look at steampunk in the comic book medium by Bill Baker.

Unless you like your speculative fiction sans airships and steam engines, check out this excellent Steampunk anthology. In addition to offering a quick-shot education in the history and development of the genre, it also contains some truly excellent short fiction. Recommended.

(This review was also published on 11/11/2010 at www.fantasyliterature.com)

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jess Nevin's introduction clarifies Steampunk's development as a "-punk" reaction to the science-forward, lone inventor stories littering dime novels and later influences, and the original use of the Victorian era as a one-step-removed stand-in for the modern day, for the purposes of social commentary. Like with the Cyberpunk movement, Nevin asserts that his social commentary has been consumed by the trappings, in this case the Victoriana of brass goggles and, for some reason, impractical airships.

This collection shows the breadth of possibilities, not all of which fall into the conventional Exquisite Corpse of alt-history "Victorian Era, but..." Stephenson's "Excerpt...", set in his Diamond Age, features technologies of the highest sort, but the New Atlanteans affect Victorian styles and modes of behavior for their own purposes. Chapman's astonishing "Minutes of the Last Meeting", off-balance and paradoxical, is set in Tsarist Russia 1917, but the non-Russian world unaccountably possesses nanotechnology. "The Giving Mouth" is alt-history but more deeply, weirdly so, and I want to read The Light Ages. "The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider" is a weird amalgamation of broken time-space that emulates the episodic dime-novel but vulgar and graphic, a young adult adventure ripped inside out and graphically violated. Jay Lake's Dark Town stories, which includes "The God-Clown is Near", is sadly uncollected.

I keep thinking of Ted Chiang's "Seventy-two Letters", which replaces pretty much the entirety of physical science with a combination of alchemy, preformationism, and Hebrew Shemhamphorasch I'm going with about five minutes of Google and Wikipedia for reference, here. Bear with me. Essentially a 72-character 'name' used within golem or amulets. which upon explanation greatly resembles techniques of numerical analysis, cryptographic hashing, and code compilation/decompilation Software engineer, so on stronger ground. with attendant problems in "name-piracy" software piracy, reverse engineering, and intellectual property disputes and a plot that traverses all the issues of their 'technology' and into social class strife and eugenics and eventually in a surprise ending--this is a spoiler but you won't understand until you read the whole thing--genetics. Literally, genetics. If I were to name a story that encapsulates the possibility of Steampunk, this would be it.

[Rupert Breheny · Rating 5 out of 5]

As giddying and thought-provoking as any of the other stories in his thrilling anthology, this has a special place in my heart, having graduated in biology, so perhaps I derived more value from this compared to those scoring it lower.

Admittedly it lacked an impactful ending, something that could be said about a few of the author's other stories, the exhilaration of ever more elaborate thought experiments piled on top of each other, but when Chiang tires of the idea he often lacks the motivation to close the stories on a more dramatically satisfying ending.

As fantastical as the technology is it describes what actually happens in an embryo when you consider the expression of genes written in DNA, coding for specific attributes of the species. Not so far from reality, just an alternative way of explaining the process. And in this case even predating the ability of scientists to inject fertilized nuclei into gutted donor eggs via the technique of maternal spindle transfer.

As a zoology undergraduate I had to pass through the theology department gate into the shared quadrangle, above which was written the latin bible quotation; "in principio erat verbum".

John 1:1-3, The Word Became Flesh

"In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God."

Perhaps those mystical kabbalists were closer to the truth than even they knew. ACGT, the true letters of creation.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

This anthology was just what I wanted for summer reading!

Now I probably should preface this by saying I have never read any Verne or Wells, so perhaps there were references to past stories and characters of which I was/am unaware.

I found "The Selene Gardening Society" by Molly Brown delightful. "The Giving Mouth" by Ian R. MacLeod was riveting but the end was a thrown-together disappointment. "Victoria" by Paul Di Filippo was probably my favourite. "Reflected Light" (Rachel E Pollack) was intriging and made me want to read more of her vision of the society she created. "The Steam Man of the Prairie...." (Joe R. Lansdale) - I have never read a 'dime novel' but this story made me simultaneously laugh and cringe at the same time ( and because I have seen two versions of "The Time Machine", characters were a bit familiar though I don't think Lansdale had to explain so much). Lansdale seems very pleased with his audacity and is laughing along with us. I can picture it!

"Seventy-Two Letters" by Ted Chiang was another of my favourites. And "The Sun in the Attic" by Mary Gentle was another little delight.

Although not all the stories would be awarded 4 stars, I'm giving this anthology 4 because I'm truly glad I was exposed to some of these stories and writers.

Oh and I topped it off by watching the movie "Steamboy" yesterday! Now where are my goggles?

[Seizure Romero · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my first foray into the genre, and after the first three stories I can call it a moderate success. I've entertained a somewhat romanticized idea of what Steampunk should be since first becoming aware of it, and while quite different from each other, these stories haven't strayed too far afield from that idea.

Update/retraction: The above has to be one of the most fluffy, pointless and banal sentences I've written since high school. It takes up space, yet says nothing. I apologize to any who have suffered because of its existence. I'd blame drugs, but other than my long-time love affair with rum & a competition level sangria habit, I haven't done any lately.

[Fran · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of over a dozen short stories diverse and unique. Some I truly enjoyed while others left me confused. If you like the steampunk genre or are new to it, this anthology is a good place to start.

[Louis Skipper · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm hoping to incorporate literary steampunk into my next book, and this book has been quite helpful in that regard.

[Althea Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Average of 2.68 stars for all the items rounds up to 3, I suppose.
Overall, rather disappointing. There are two truly excellent stories; I'd read them both before.

*** Introduction - The 19th-Century Roots of Steampunk - Jess Nevins. Makes an interesting and informative connection between steampunk and 'Edisonades' - 19th-century boys' pulp fiction focusing on new technology.

** Benediction - Michael Moorcock. A quite random and inconclusive excerpt from the novel 'The Warlord of the Air.' Read the book instead. (or, possibly, the whole trilogy.)

** Lord Kelvin's Machine - James P. Blaylock. A stilted, faux-19th century writing style and a strange lack of tension make this tale strangely boring. Various characters are scheming to destroy and/or save the earth (by pushing us into the path of an asteroid, or not), but I could not bring myself to care about the planet's fate.

*** The Giving Mouth - Ian R. Macleod. Loved the setting and characters. The details were brilliantly, grotesquely original. The setup was great, working both as story and allegory, as an abused lord's son in a medieval-ish mining town seeks to come to terms with the empty, horrific world he sees around him and find meaning & beauty in life. However, the resolution didn't really come together for me.

*****A Sun in the Attic - Mary Gentle. A re-read. (It's in the Gentle collection 'Cartomancy.')I love this story. Both heartbreaking and satisfying, it challenges social expectations, portrays emotional conflicts that ring true, and creates one of the best scenarios I've ever read about intentionally turning away from technology and what technology brings with it.

*** The God-Clown is Near - Jay Lake. A couple of thugs pressure a man to create a bio-engineered golem to their specifications. The world is effectively horrific and filled with grotesquerie and depravation... but the plot was slight, and I felt like it was just going out of its way to be gratuitously shocking.

* The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider Get Down - Joe R. Lansdale. I really don't have terribly delicate sensibilities. It's not the crudeness of this story I objected to, it was the lack of cleverness. There's no particular reason to make HG Wells' time traveler a blood sucking vampire obsessed with anal impalement. And what were those space shuttle people doing there? The story doesn't cohere, and says nothing.

*** The Selene Gardening Society - Molly Brown. A women's group decided to terraform the moon by sending our compostable garbage there. Mildly amusing.

*****Seventy-Two Letters - Ted Chiang. A re-read (included in his collection, Stories of Your Life and Others.) Ted Chiang is freakin' brilliant. However, this isn't steampunk at all, but idea-based, blow-your-mind science fiction. However, I have no objection to it being in this book, because the more people that read Chiang, the better. I'd be in favor of a proposal to add a Chiang story into every published anthology... romance, chicken-soup stories, sports fiction... you name it, stick in a Chiang. Fine, this does have a 19th-century setting and golems... but still.

*** The Martian Agent, A Planetary Romance - Michael Chabon. Like everything Michael Chabon puts out, this is brilliantly written, with spare, effective characterization and emotional drama that sucks you straight in... but this tale of two boys on an alt-history American Frontier, dragged into their parents' politics, cries out to be expanded into a novel. It doesn't feel like a complete work.

*** Victoria - Paul di Filippo. From the description I'd read of this story ("Queen Victoria is replaced by a newt.") I expected to hate it. However, it was actually fairly amusing.

*** Reflected Light - Rachel Pollock. Not bad. This story also has an 'unfinished' feel, but in this case, I think it works. Told in fragments, allegedly found on decaying wax cylinder recordings, it relates a factory worker's feelings of friendship and guilt regarding a missing co-worker. It speaks eloquently of the many 'lost voices' of history.

** Minutes of the Last Meeting - Stepan Chapman. An alternate history version of what happened to the last Tsar in 1918. Here, it wasn't just the end a family, but the end of much more. There are some good ideas here, but it gets a little muddled, as the author tries to jam a glut of elements into 30 pages.

*** Excerpt from the Third and Last Volume of Tribes of the Pacific Coast - Neal Stephenson. This one isn't actually an excerpt. (or steampunk, at all.) It's a story about future anthropologists being holed up in a glass elevator waiting for savage local tribes to attack. The story (written in 1995) presciently discussed the practical and ethical issues we're now facing regarding 3-D printers and their capabilities.

* The Steam Driven Time Machine: A Pop Culture Survey - Rick Klaw. This reads like it was written by someone with a very unclear idea of what steampunk actually is, who did a google search.

* The Essential Sequential Steampunk: A Modest Survey of the Genre Within the Comic Book Medium - Bill Baker. This author describes the plots of some comic books. I skimmed it - boring.

[Fefi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Non conoscendo assolutamente il genere steampunk, ho deciso di saperne un po' di più con dei racconti. Le antologie di autori vari non mi entusiasmano mai particolarmente, ma qui qualche raccontino godibile c'è.
13 storie,anche italiane, 2 estratti da altri libri e un po' di spiegazione iniziale su come sia cambiato il filone steampunk nei vari periodi, nei libri,nei fumetti e nei videogames.
Quello che decisamente mi è più saltato all'occhio mentre leggevo è la differenza nello stile tra autori uomini e donne, cruento il primo, più delicato e da comedy il secondo.
E poi c'è il racconto che non può non rimanere in testa, quello di Lansdale, una storia di torture che superano quelle che faceva il conte Vlad, detto l'impalatore (per stomaci davvero forti, viene detto anche nella spiegazione iniziale.Ho pensato"e che sarà mai..."mi sono ricreduta dopo poco, con un senso di nausea profondo).
Nel complesso, si fa leggere, ma penso che lo steampunk non sia solo così, quindi leggerò dell'altro, prima o poi.

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun look at this sub-genre of science fiction. Like any anthology it was uneven, some great reads, some okay a couple clunkers.
Very disappointed to discover that Joe Lansdale's story was one of the clunkers.
Victoria was fun and walked a fine line between amusing adventure and satire, the 'Selene Gardening society' was a great mini-sequel to the Jules Verne novel, the first story had a decent adventerous feel to it and the one featuring the woman with two husbands created an interesting alternate world.

Racheal Pollack's fell pretty flat. The one set in Russia had some interesting ideas, but was a dreary read and jumped around too much.

Liked the historical notes and suggestions for other Steampunk reads.

[Cactuar Tamer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't want to discourage others from reading this book. It was hit and miss, but that's just how anthologies are. In my case there was a little too much miss, and I've lost all enthusiasm for finishing the thing.

Some of the stories, like Ted Chiang's 'Seventy-Two Letters,' I loved, and some, like "The Martian Agent" and "Sun in the Attic," I liked quite a bit, but others were boring and one the worst was painful to finish. The latter being "The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider," which was gratuitously and extremely crude, in addition to containing a rather unwelcome take on one of my favorite books.

I'd recommend at least borrowing this from the library, as there are several good stories to be had.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

solid collection of steampunk stories along with a few articles on the relationship of the genre with pop culture.

[Artur Coelho · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excerto de Warlord of the Air: um texto clássico de Michael Moorcock, que antecede o surgimento do steampunk enquanto estilo literário assumido. Parte de um romance maior, deslumbra pela visão retro-tecnológica onde a estética mecanicista da primeira revolução industrial se alia ao utopismo tecnológico numa narrativa que, como muitas neste género, vive do conflito militar enquanto fio condutor.

Lord Kelvin's Machine: é dada a palavra a James Blaylock, um dos fundadores assumidos do género (ou, pelo menos, um dos que inteligentemente fundiram conceitos estéticos soltos no cinema, banda desenhada e ficção científica num sistema coerente). O conto é si é formulaico e levemente entediante. Contém a estética, remete para aquele ar neo-vitoriano reminiscente de Conan Doyle, Verne e Wells mas a história apocalítpica de dois cientistas arqui-inimigos não convence.

The Giving Mouth: uma das características intrigantes desta antologia é a forma como as histórias escolhidas raramente se conformam aos pressupostos da estética steampunk. Este conto de Ian R. MacLeod reserva-nos um convincente misto de fantasia e tecnologia num mundo medieval onde a tecnologia é indistinguível da magia.

A Sun in the Attic: no fundo, este conto de Mary Gentle é um aglomerado estético de elementos estéticos como dirigíveis, indumentárias de época e iconografia retro-industrial. É curioso notar como narrativas de puro steampunk são geralmente fáceis de esquecer apesar do enorme esforço dispendido no seu embelezamento.

The God-Clown is Near: no conto de Jay Lake a mitologia tradicional do Golem e o futurismo cyberpunk cruzam-se num resgisto surreal.

The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider Get Down: A DIME NOVEL: Joe R. Lansdale surpreende com uma assumida narrativa pulp visceral que mistura descaradamente elementos das edisonades do século XIX com um híbrido catastrófico de Wells com Stoker. As viagens do tempo do vianjante de The Time Machine de Wells provocam rupturas no tecido do tempo e o viajante acaba por se tornar um vampiro degenerado que solta hordes de morlocks sobre a humanidade indefesa. Apenas os operadores de um gigântico robot movido a vapor parecem ser capazes de travar a ameaça vampírica, mas o colapso inexorável das linhas temporais está a condenar o universo à destruição final.

The Selene Gardening Society Molly Brown deslumbra com uma bem humorada homenagem a Verne. Décadas após os acontecimentos da primeira viagem à lua, a esposa de um dos exploradores incentiva o regresso à aridez lunar porque está farta de ver o marido a dar-lhe cabo das plantas ornamentais. Perante a ausência de atmosfera na lua, o plano envolve disparar lixo orgânico cujo apodrecimento irá criar um solo capaz de suportar vegetação produtora de atmosfera. A impossibilidade de lançamento destas cargas nos canhões lunares é resolvida pela invenção atempada de meios de propulsão electromagnética. Um conto firmemente ancorado no cânone, que se destaca pelo sorriso que provoca.

Seventy-Two Letters: com a sua prosa austera e certeira Ted Chiang constrói meticulosamente um inventivo mundo neo-vitoriano em que magia e tecnologia convivem. Um criador de golems autómatos investiga a possibilidade de criar robots cada vez mais capazes, e vê-se envolvido no estudo do desenvolvimento dos homúnculos que habitam no esperma e cujo crescimento uterino gera as novas gerações. O prazo de vida da humanidade parece estar a esgotar-se, mas a invenção da impressão cabalística de informação células humanas que lhes dá a chave para desenvolvimento autónomo permite um novo fôlego à humanidade. Chiang é brilhante nesta fábula, em que as incantações cabalísticas são uma metáfora mal disfarçada para a engenharia genética. O conto é implacável, desenrolando-se com uma métrica rígida em que cada nova peça do puzzle narrativo cai atempadamente no seu lugar.

The Martian Agent, A Planetary Romance: no espírito trans-géneros que anima a ficção fantástica contemporânea, cabe a Michael Chabon um conto que mistura elegantemente a narrativa pulp juvenil com história alternativa e os elementos estéticos da cultura a vapor. Obrigatoriamente, conta com dirigíveis e andarilhos mecânicos de combate.

Victoria: outro toque trans-género, com o cyberpunk inspirado na genética de Paul di Filippo inserido numa narrativa de puro steampunk numa era vitoriana onde o progresso tecnológico traz perigosas maravilhas, intrigas palacianas conspiram para derrubar a jovem rainha Vitória e uma salamandra humanóide faz das delícias dos homens que com ela se cruzam.

Reflected Light: este conto curto de Rachel Pollock coloca-nos no outro lado da imaginação steampunk, com uma observação sobre as classes proletárias que sobrevivem das résteas tecnológicas de um mundo brilhante para o qual trabalham arduamente mas que raramente vislumbram.

Minutes of the Last Meeting: o conto de Stepan Chapman ganha o prémio de narrativa mais insana da colectânea. Na Rússia czarista retro-futurista de 1917 as mais mirabolantes invenções da tecnologia a vapor coexistem com nanotecnologia consciente. Todo o país é vigiado por um cérebro electrónico avançado que através de minúsculos robots omnipresentes vigia tudo e todos mas que graças a uma intriga bizantina é levado à depressão e ignora pequenos indícios do que se vem a tornar um atentado em que rebeldes socialistas conseguem assassinar o czar. Nos estertores da morte o czar ordena o lançamento do seu maior símbolo de poder: uma ogiva atómica lançada por um míssil semi-consciente que pede desculpa porque a ignição dos seus motores carboniza quem estiver por perto. A explosão atómica provoca uma temida reacção em cadeia em que o hidrogénio e oxigénio na atmosfera se incendeiam, reduzindo o planeta a uma bola de cinzas. Contado com um ritmo impecável em diferentes pontos de vista e um aceno estético muito profundo à belle époque.

Excerpt from the Third and Last Volume of Tribes of the Pacific Coast: cabe a Neal Stephenson encerrar a antologia com um conto que apesar de distante do estilismo steampunk partilha de alguns elementos do género. Num futuro pós-apocalíptico, algumas nações tradicionais unem-se para proteger o acesso à quase miraculosa nano-tecnologia. Exploradores das tribos semi-selvagens que herdaram o que foi o antigo território dos Estados Unidos são capturados por uma aliança de tribos libertárias que deseja capturar os segredos da nano-tecnologia e libertá-los para todos. Nanotecnologia e apocalipses singularitários têm pouco a ver com steampunk, mas Stephenson vai buscar as rígidas estruturas sociais e a veneração por sistemas políticos monárquicos que caracteriza o género.

Jess Nevins abre os ensaios da colectânea com uma erudita reflexão sobre as raízes do género nas narrativas pulp do século XIX. Vai mais longe do que o esperado, deixando de lado as óbvias influências de Wells, Verne e Conan Doyle para olhar para géneros esquecidos como a aventura juvenil tecnológica, as edisonades, o western e as narrativas onde a civilização ocidental é ameaçada por perigos orientalistas. Rick Klaw olha para as influências do género no cinema, televisão e culturas jogos enquanto Bill Baker faz uma breve introdução ao steampunk nos comics.

[Paul Genesse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review of the World Fantasy Award Nominated Anthology, Steampunk (Tachyon Publications, 2008) edited by Ann & Jeff Vandermeer

What is steampunk? Well, it’s a sub-genre of science-fiction and fantasy that is totally awesome. Imagine Victorian era elegance and modern technology with a dash of rebellion, mashed together into crazy tales about steam-driven robots, dirigibles, insane inventors, and lots of well-mannered chaps in waistcoats living in an alternate history Earth—or maybe not Earth . . .

Steampunk is also a modern fashion movement with tons of devotees who wear corsets, brass goggles, Victorian era-looking dresses, waistcoats, and lots of other elegantly fabulous items.

The movie, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is steampunk, and the Hellboy movies have a steampunk feel to them as well.

Honestly, I had little clue what steampunk was until very recently. I was asked to write a steampunk story for an upcoming DAW Books anthology called, Steampunked. My deadline is February 1, 2010. I’ve been doing research for a couple of months now, and am going to begin the story today—after I write this review.

The anthology edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer is a great place to begin reading about steampunk. The introduction and essay at the end give excellent information about the genre, and the stories are awesome. Here are some of my favorite stories in the anthology:

*****Preface: Steampunk: “It’s a Clockwork Universe, Victoria” by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer. What a great intro to the genre and the book. The introduction that follows by Jess Nevins is excellent and will ground any reader in what steampunk is now, and what it was in the past.

*****Introduction: The 19th Century Roots of Steampunk by Jess Nevins. This is a non-fiction essay that goes over a ton of the seminal works and gives a history of the genre. Essential reading.

****Benediction: Excerpt from The Warlord of the Air by Michael Moorcock. What a cool story from a grandmaster in the field. The story is short and impactful and describes how a war might unfold in an alternate history Earth. Very enjoyable and a perfect place to begin the anthology.

***Lord Kelvin’s Machine by James P. Blaylock. This story epitomizes the genre and the author tells a story about a mad inventor and men trying to stop him. I found the style distant, but it was very interesting to read and captured the Victorian era feel.

*****The Giving Mouth by Ian R. MacLeod. This author has won the World Fantasy Award and this is my favorite story in the anthology. The style and the utter coolness of the strange world is breathtaking. I had to read it in one sitting and you can see right from the start that this author is a master of this craft. In my opinion, The Giving Mouth is the most powerful narrative in the entire book. Here’s the first few lines of The Giving Mouth:

I was a child before I was your king. And even though the redbrick tower where I lived with my parents had many windows that gazed over the Pits, I was raised in what you think of as poverty. Each morning I woke on my pallet of stale straw to the scream of the shift whistle and the clang of the pit wheels. The sound was as familiar to me as birdsong, but the shock of grey light and mineral stench always came like a physical blow. Put simply, I was a dreamer.

I need to read more stories and novels by Ian R. Macleod.

*****The God-Clown is Near by Jay Lake. What a crazy and madly entertaining story. Jay Lake is one of the most prolific and interesting writers living today. This story was extremely disconcerting and I loved every word. This is one of his Dark Town stories and I’m excited to read more of them.

***Seventy-Two Letters by Ted Chiang. World Fantasy Award winning author Ted Chiang has done it all in the short story markets, and is a master of the craft. He is a fascinating writer and this story was shockingly deep, written about an obtuse subject that kept me guessing regarding what was going to happen at the end. It was amazing that my interest was kept up through most of the story. The idea of making inanimate objects live by putting special names on them is cool, but overall, this one was a bit too long for my tastes. The story is a literary achievement with a cool character in a situation I’ve never imagined before, but it suffered from being too long and a little too hard to understand.

*****The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider Get Down: A Dime Novel by Joe R. Lansdale. What an awesome story! This is in my top two in the antho. This tale pays homage from the old dime novel steampunk canon and makes it something fresh and new. You won’t see what’s coming, trust me. The Dark Rider is not who you expect. Oh my god is all I can say. Read this one for sure and it is not for the faint of heart. Though I’ve never met him, Joe R. Lansdale is a sick and twisted bastard, which makes him an awesome writer.

****The Martian Agent, A Planetary Romance by Michael Chabon. Pulitzer Prize winning author Michael Chabon’s story is not to be missed. He had me right from the start and I thoroughly enjoyed this alternate history tale about rebellion in an America that has never quite shrugged off the British Empire. The story is about the sons of a rebel leader and that is all I should say on the subject. Read it for sure.

*****Victoria by Paul Di Filippo is in my top three of the anthology. I saved this one for last and it was worth it. The story is big and pulls you in right from the start. The characters are well done and I had no idea where it was all going. In my opinion, this story epitomizes “steam,” and especially “punk.” There is a rebellion here on the highest levels and this story takes you to places that are extremely uncomfortable. I don’t want to ruin anything, so no spoilers here.

*****Minutes of the Last Meeting by Stepan Chapman. An alternate history tale about Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia. I loved this story. It sucked me in and the ideas are amazing. Nanotechnology, massive mechanized cavalry, steam driven computer minds, and much more make this one of the most imaginative stories in the antho.

There are several more stories in the book that I haven’t reviewed. Maybe you’ll find them to be even better than the ones I described? This is one of those anthologies that has taken some of the best and brightest writers in the field and packaged them up in a must read book. If you’re at all interested in steampunk, this is a wonderful place to start.

Paul Genesse Author of The Dragon Hunters www.paulgenesse.com

[Christopher Mocella · Rating 4 out of 5]

If it wasn't obvious from the outset, this is a collection of short stories and excerpts (and, in my humble opinion, a few vignettes) from the "steampunk" genre of fiction, across several variations. Some of the stories fit neatly into the clockwork-machines-with-Victorian-manners archetype, but many stray from that, expanding what "steampunk" defines itself as. In any case, it's good stuff.

Warlord Of The Air - forgettable. I hear that the full novel is pretty good?

Lord Kelvin's Machine - The concept was okay, but too much of it was crammed into too few pages. This seemed very pure steampunk: some sort of industrial-revolution-badassery widget to accomplish some goal.

The Giving Mouth - Fascinating. While not heavy on the steam or the punk, aside fron allutions to "liveiron," this created a very interesting world wrapping around a mesmerizing narrative. I'm still not sure what the subtext really is, I'd have to read it again, but the dreariness is so apparent, that when the resolution spews forth, it hammers home succinctly. This story is one of the best of the set.

A Sun In The Attic - I liked the world that was conjured up here, and I'd be interested to read more about that. The story was ok, another brief one, but the world itself is 100% steampunk, only this time matriarchial arche-feminist, which the author works nicely.

The God-Clown Is Near - Vignette, but I do enjoy it when authors create new natural sciences in worlds similar to ours. The idea here, about biological creations not unlike designing and creating a clock from metal scraps, was cool to read about. No idea what the God-Clown actually meant, but I'm not sure that the end result was the real focus.

The Steam Man Of The Prairie And The Dark Rider Get Down - When the editors say "not for the squeamish," they should have included "or anyone who wants to read some rather sick stuff." I liked the short-story idea, but the author must have just come off of a marathon set of grindhouse snuff-films, because some of it was just over the top. There was a little need for how gross some of the descriptions were, or what the Dark Rider does and how. I mean, honestly, none of it advanced the plot to a measurable degree. It really ruined the story. Maybe that was the point?

The Selene Gardening Society - Great dialogue, so-so story.

Seventy-Two Letters - Loved it. Another narrative where a new natural science is created, in this case a nigh-theological lexical natural science, which was very cool. The author takes the new science, that a specific set of letters, imparting a name, can impart character to an inanimate object, to many steps ahead: social implications, theological implications, and even philosophical ones. The author writes as though the science, nomenclature, is matter-of-fact and that the reader takes it at face value, which I like. Not only did this get into the science of it (steam), but also very much into debate over the uses (punk). One of the best of the bunch.

The Martian Agent - Skipped it. Read the first page, lost interest.

Victoria - Read the first 10 pages, skipped it.

Reflected Light - Well written, but a true vignette: brief, nothing really happened, and no resolution to the one point of interest in the last few sentences. Strange to include this piece.

Minutes Of The Last Meeting - Interesting, the IIE system reminds me some of the Eagle Eye in the eponymous movie, more or less. This falls heavily into the nano-steam-punk genre.

Excerpt Of The Third And Last Volume Of Tribes Of The Pacific Coast - Neal Stephenson, Yes! Great way to cap off the anthology, even though this one is brief. It follows in the same universe as The Diamond Age (which is a future-post-cyber-nano-steam-punk), although taking place some time later than the events of Diamond Age. Colonel Napier and PhyrePhox both make appearances, though, which is of note. This may be one of the Top Three of the set, although I am heavily biased.

[Joyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unbeknownst to myself, I am a longtime steampunk fan. The Wild, Wild West and The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. were favorite TV shows of mine and my son Peter introduced me to anime and Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky and Spirited Away which, according to an essay by Rick Klaw in Steampunk a short story anthology edited by Ann & Jeff Vandermeer, are all variations of the steampunk genre.

If readers have never heard the term "steampunk," as I hadn't until recently, steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction that either features settings based in the Victorian era or uses 19th century steam technology in stories that range from medieval times to the 22nd century. This definition includes a broad variety of fiction such as fantasy, space, cyber, romance, historical et al. The fathers of steampunk, Jules Verne and H.G. Welles, would be surprised and undoubtedly thrilled to know the longstanding influence of their characters and stories-that they not only survived the 20th century but also continue to thrive at the end of the first decade of the 21st.

This collection includes stories by the most prominent practitioners of steampunk, authors such as Michael Moorcock and James P. Blaylock and includes a story by Neal Stephenson, whose novels are particular favorites of mine. There is a story about what happened to Welles' time traveller in "The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider Get Down: A Dime Novel" by Joe R. Lansadale, which was not one of my favorites but made an indelible impression. Molly Brown's story "The Selene Gardening Society" brings back Verne's Michael Ardan a character based on Verne's close friend and fellow lighter than air fanatic, the photographer Nadar (Gaspar-Felix Tournachon, 1820-1910). The humorous tale features a turn of the century ladies' club in Baltimore and their quest to resolve a dispute and thus get a husband back to work and out of his wife's garden.

Running the gamut from odious and regpugnant (Dark Rider) to laugh out loud funny, "Victoria" by Paul DiFilippo, in which young Queen Victoria is replaced by a salamander, the stories keep the reader's attention. "The Giving Mouth" by Ian R. MacLeod, with its medieval setting is particularly memorable. 'The Martian Agent, A Planetary Romance" by Michael Chabon is surprisingly pedestrian. "A Sun in the Attic" by Mary Gentle is a good example of stories that take place in an extraterrestrial environment while others create an alternative history or alternative biological system on our planet.

Even if you don't think of yourself as a sci-fi fan, reading the essays by Jess Nevins, Rick Klaw and Bill Baker about the history and influence of steampunk may disabuse of that belief. Now that we've learned the language, we should be able to recognize steampunk. I wager that if you like the new Sherlock Holmes movie, you'll like steampunk.

[Elise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad for a collection of Steampunk short stories and other excerpts and a couple of surveys. It's only fitting that the latter came at the end, more as recommendations of further reading than anything else.

I think I've come to realize Steampunk is a genre that is much more broad than I once thought. A couple of these stories seem to fall more along the lines of the New Weird territory, which probably has everything to do with Jeff Vandermeer being co-editor. His picks for Steampunk show that, and they probably wouldn't be my first choice to demonstrate the genre, especially to a newbie. Then again his wife Ann Vandermeer was probably involved in the choices too, but I don't know how much.

The collection starts off well in the beginning, muddles off in the middle, and comes to a more stronger close, like the beginning. That is usually par the course for these anthologies. I've never read one short story collection which I thought was amazing.

Here are the stories I feel like making a comment on (so not all of them) Good and bad, or stood out in some way:

Excerpt from The Warlord of Air by Michael Moorcock - Just a short excerpt, but it was good for what it was.

Lord Kelvin's Machine by James P. Blaylock - A fun caper story

The Giving Mouth by Ian R. MacLeod - Weirdly bizarre, but well written

The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider Get Down: A Dime Novel by Joe R. Landsdale - I probably never thought I would say this, but I thought it was likely the best of the collection. At least the one that made the strongest impression on me. I'm not a fan of torture porn at all, and this story was really grotesque and sadistic. They weren't kidding when they put a warning blurb first for the squeamish. But it's an interesting take on The Time Machine and the Traveler, and how he devolved into this Vlad the Impaler type of persona. I just really wanted to see how it would end and how the characters would escape their situation.

The Selene Gardening Society by Molly Brown - Humorous tale about an attempt to create an atmosphere on the moon

Seventy-Two Letters by Ted Chiang - Complex and technical stuff about nomenclature. It was dull and I ended up skipping this one.

Reflected Light by Rachel E. Pollock - Enjoyed the voice of the narrative, but it was too short.

Minutes of the Last Meeting by Stepan Chapman - An alternate history story about the Russian Tsars. It's full of spies, espionage, and nanotechnology and cultural mythos. Intriguing and enjoyable.

[Bogdan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mai rar mi se intampla (cel putin in ultmii ani) sa cumpar o carte in engleza fara sa o probez electronic inainte.

Recunosc ca nu sunt un fan neparat al genului, insa numele lui VanderMeer m-a convins sa o cumpar fara o testare prealabila.

Si am constat ca nu am facut o alegere rea.

Desi nu m-au incantat prea tare numele grele restul au compensat cu varf si indesat.

M-au lasat cam "rece" lucrarile urmatorilor scriitori:

Moorcock (desi e doar un fragment), Blaylock (nu imi place de nicio culoare ce scrie nenea asta, desi e considerat unul dintre cei ce au pus bazele genului), Ted Chiang (da, chiar el e- cam prea complex si greu de urmarit textul lui- are imaginatie...dar...nu tot timpul e de ajuns), Michael Chabon (e momentul sa sforaim un pic), Paul Di Fillipo ("surpriza" si in cazul lui), Neal Stephenson (cred ca trebuie sa-i fii fan ca sa-ti placa).

Surprize :

Ian R. MacLeod (un text intunecat, un melanj reusit intre weird si steampunk),
Jay Lake (cred ca e un text situat in aceeasi lume cu cel din antologia New Weird - pacat ca nu mai e printre noi),
Joe R. Lansdale (cea mai singeroasa si macabra povestire a antologiei, dar si una dintre cele mai reusite),
Rachel E Pollock(un text scurt de vreo 4 pagini, dar care demonstreaza ca imaginatia si rezultatul finit conteaza),
Stephan Chapman(prezinta o istorie alternativa cu o Rusie steampunk foarte, foarte apetisanta, bravo).

Mary Gentle si Molly Brown au avut povestiri asa si asa.

Intre timp a aparut si un volum 2 al Antologiei, dar de data asta intai o sa studiez varianta electro ( :)) si apoi vad daca o cumpar sau nu. Asta chiar daca textele celor de mai sus au fost suficiente sa consider ca am facut o achizitie buna.

[Michael Haydel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first foray into both steampunk and anthologies.

I've always loved the idea and execution of steampunk, and wanted a good gateway drug into the literary form of it, and this anthology seemed like the way to go. Turns out I was more or less right.

Like any collection of works, there were some that were better than others, but overall, this was a great introduction into the world of dirigibles, steam powered technology, greatcoats, and general Victorian-era goodness.

One of the highlights for me was the short story entitled "The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider Get Down: A Dime Novel", by Joe R. Lansdale. It was extremely violent, and at many points I had to quite literally stop reading and almost look away, but, it was enthralling.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who's looking for a good collection of short stories dealing in all things steampunk.

[Fantasy Literature · Rating 4 out of 5]

Steampunk is an anthology of, well, steampunk stories, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. If you hurry, you can still get to this first anthology before the second one, Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded, appears in mid November. Based on the quality of the stories in this collection, I heartily recommend checking it out, especially if you’ve been a bit bemused (or possibly amused) by all the people wearing odd Victorian costumes at SFF conventions nowadays, or if you have at best a vague idea of what steampunk exactly entails. If you’re one of those people who’s interested in, but not entirely sure about, the new hot subgenre du jour (like me, prior to reading Steampunk), this anthology is here to take you by the hand and give you a quick, entertaining education. And oh, it also contains some truly... Read More:

[Seth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok, I just checked this out of the library, mostly so I could say I'm reading something with Moorcock in it. But if you see me wearing a trenchcoat, goggles, and an iPhone covered in brass gears and typewriter keys, please shoot me in the face. Preferably with a derringer shaped like a ray gun.

And it was about as good as I expected, a couple of good stories, some nonstarters, and some unreadable pap. I liked the one about Russia.

[Ellen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I picked this book up out of curiousity. I've seen some steampunk costumes and paraphenalia and was really intrigued. I'd also been told that Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series was part of this genre. Unfortunately, I was not as impressed with the stories in this collection as I was with the costumes or the Pullman series. The book started off with an adventure story or two but the later stories got bogged down in their own pretentiousness.

[Craig Leimkuehler]

Despite being around for more the twenty years its easy to see why its largely ignored after reading the drivel in this collection of Steampunk stories. As often is the case, there are some mediocre stories, some tolerable tales and a couple that are strong vote for illiteracy. I have not the time or the inclanation to berate each author but rest assured I will not be seeking out their work. You would be better off scrubbing floors than reading this book.

[PJ Trenton · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting and eclectic mix of short stories from a who's who of the Steampunk genre. I have actually read almost nothing in this realm so this was an great way to learn a little more about a literary genre that I am becoming more and more familiar with while working on Primgraph magazine and hanging with friends.

[Eli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome, awesome, awesome. A good introduction for people who don't really know what steampunk's all about, a tasty buffet for those who do. The "further reading" lists at the end is a goldmine.

[Jonathan Jacobs · Rating 5 out of 5]

For some reason - a lot of people don't like this book, but for me this is has become the defacto genre setting anthology. Short stories by the masters - a must read in my opinion.

[Leigh · Rating 1 out of 5]

I got somewhat bored with it and started skipping around. Read a paragraph depicting torture that made me physically ill. I think I'll find something else to read.