The Sword and Laser discussion

This is a genre I've never tackled and I'm wondering where to start, recommendations?

Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve

There are four books in this series, and they progressively get better. It is YA, but it is one of my favorite series. The ideas in it are unique and bizarre, and the story is just all around fun. I highly recommend it.

Gail Carriger for starters. She's "Steampunk paranormal romance" so be ready for the romance aspect, but the books are fabulous. Start with Soulless and prepare to get hooked.

We read Boneshaker by Cherie Priest for the S&L book club back in 2013 (October).

I enjoyed it and it does have another 7 books in the series if you end up liking it.

Strongly recommend Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear.

My favorite is The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack by Mark Hodder which starts a 6 book series. It may be a bit much for a first foray though.

Agatha H and the Airship City by Kaja and Phil Foglio also starts a series (ongoing). These are a lot of fun, YA tones, with a bit of magic mixed in. They are also done first as a graphic novel series, if you like reading those.

I liked The Falling Machine. It's a superhero steampunk story, kind of an "Avengers in 1880" sort of thing. I believe there have been sequels.

This thread from last year includes many excellent selections.

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

The Leviathan Trilogy by Scott-Author of Uglies

Ginny*Have Courage and Be Kind* wrote: "The Leviathan Trilogy by Scott-Author of Uglies"

Scott Westerfeld. The series has many interesting ideas not explored in most other steampunk stories.

I second the first Leviathan book. It's YA though. Nice pictures. Not much else.

I'm fond of Stephen Hunt's Jackelian books, beginning with The Court of the Air -- they're not all the way to full-blown Mievilleian weirdness, but they do get a little closer to that end of the spectrum than most.

I quite like Leviathan and its sequels. The audiobooks are read by Alan Cumming (which is great if you like listening to Scottish men for hours on end).

If you don't mind romances Meljean Brook has the Iron Seas series. I absolutely love the worldbuilding in those books but they might not be to everyone's taste (zombie infested Europe in a steampunk world is very much to mine).

Our own co-member Andrew Knighton is midway through a series, the Epiphany Club starting with Guns and Guano: Epiphany Club Book 1. He tries to tackle some of the social issues that sometimes make steampunk problematic. In the interest of disclosure, I beta-read for this series.

Perdido Street Station & The Scar by China Miéville are two of my favourites

I'd recommend the 'The Lotus War' trilogy by Jay Kristoff. It's certainly not going to win any awards, but it's a very interesting take on steampunk (as it takes place in a very feudal Japan-esque world) and a ton of fun.