Steampunk 101: Recommended Reading 💖⚙️📚

Books to read if you're new to steampunk or looking for more than cogs and gears

May 15, 2024

Hello!

I hope your May is off to a good start! I’m very much in the depths of revision this week. I finished draft one of my new WIP right before leaving for the Chicago Steampunk Expo and I had two more events since then. I’m still getting back into routine, but I’m so excited about this story!

(On a related note, if you’ve tagged me or messaged me on social media within the last few weeks and I missed it, I’m so sorry. Between traveling and revisions, I’m behind on emails and notifications. I’ll get back to everyone as soon as I get my bearings. 💖)

For those of you who attended the DemiCon Steampunk 101 panel I co-hosted with the BrassGears Adventurers Society last weekend and wanted my list of books to read, I decided to include it in this week’s newsletter. I can't take credit for part of the list because several of these are on the reading list for Temporal Textual Talks (also known as steampunk book club. It’s really fun!)

Steampunk 101 Books

📚 Soulless by Gail Carriger: This was my gateway to steampunk! The rest of the series and her other books are fantastic. It's an alternate Victorian London with werewolves and vampires done in a clever way.

📚 The Hexologists by Josiah Bancroft: I don't want to oversell it but this has been my favorite book of the year so far. Josiah Bancroft is brilliant. I loved how he blended steampunk elements with magic and mystery, but even more than that, Isolde and Warren might be my favorite fictional married couple. The way they care for each other while bantering makes me think of the Thin Man movies in the best way. (Their dynamic is different, but the feeling is there.)

📚 The Art of Fantasy, Sci-fi and Steampunk by Hiroshi Unno: One of my favorite art books. It's a tricky read because it's in French, Japanese, and English, but it's fascinating. It makes the case for relating the punk movement of the 70s and Romanticism to the eventual evolution of steampunk.

📚 Boneshaker by Cherrie Priest: Zombies in a reimagined Seattle. Loved her take on zombies!

📚 Clockwork Lives by Kevin J. Anderson and the late Neil Peart: This is actually the second book in a series but can be read alone. It's one of my favorite books ever. The main character has to fill a book that uses special alchemy about people's lives in order to fulfill the conditions of her father's will. It's a neat collection of those stories weaved in with her own tale.

📚 Adventures of Bodacious Creed trilogy by Jonathan Fesmire: where the wild west meets steampunk and zombies! Features a resurrected lawman turned cyborg.

📚 Andújar: The Robot Gentleman of San Juan by Carolina Cardona: dark gothic romance and steampunk adventure set in 1898 Puerto Rico. Features love, war, and robots.

📚 A Cry of Hounds (Forgotten Lore) edited by Danielle Ackley-McPhail: 11 tales inspired by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

My Books

📚 Forsaken Beauty and the Etherbeast: A steampunk fairy tale retelling of Beauty and the Beast. This standalone is set in a world with airships, automatons, and alchemy.

📚 Monsters and Machines: This collection of short stories told episodically is set in an alternate reality around the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. In this universe, Nikola Tesla’s technology is commonly used. Features an all-female cast and my favorite monster.

Temporal Textual Talks Recommendations

📚 Babel by R.F. Kuang: Steampunk adjacent alternate reality with word magic. The footnotes are filled with fascinating and sometimes tragic notes about our actual history.

📚 Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear: Steampunk in the old West. Fantastic characters with an appearance of Bass Reeves!

📚 Buffalo Solider by Maurice Broaddus: Alternate history in which Jamaica is a world power. His world building is so immersive, especially for a short book! I need to check out his other steampunk book set in the same world, Pimp My Airship.

📚 The Sea is Ours: Tales of Steampunk in Southeast Asia edited by Jaymee Goh and Joyce Chng: This month's book club read! The virtual meeting is on Sunday, May 19th.

Please check out Temporal Textual Talks: A Book Club for more reading suggestions and join in online for book club! Madame Askew and Bill Bodden, who co-host the group, are wonderful.

If you’re a fan of romantasy, Lamplight and Steam is a fantastic new resource for finding romance books in steampunk and gaslamp fantasy. (Forsaken Beauty and the Etherbeast is one of the books featured on the home page. 💖) There are even collections to group books together based on different themes, such as detectives, steampunk outside of the UK, steampunk mixed with magic, and more.

This reading list is by no means meant to be definitive. There are plenty of other books that would be fantastic additions. What would you add to the list? Let me know in the comments! 💖⚙️📚

Happy reading!

Kelsey