Looking for the best reading line up for the April 28 Dewey 24 Hour Readathon?Thanks to library favorite author Gail Carriger, our Administrator team will be participating in this year’s goal to read 1million pages (submit your own page count here)! To help ourselves and others, we’ve created the following booklist of our TBR titles not previously mentioned here to keep you chugging along all day Saturday. Share your favorites and join the conversation on Twitter (#readathon) and on Goodreads.
Short stories or novellas:
“The Eradication of Vice: A Femdom Steampunk Story” by Salome Verdad — This grown-ups only short story is available in KindleUnlimited
“Rescue Or, Royer Goldhawk’s Remarkable Journal” by Amy Leigh Strickland — If you like your steam stories on this side of the pond, this one is for you.
Novels:
“The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter: The Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club #1” by Theodora Goss — This genderbending mashup of classic Victorian monster stories is sure to please fans of the Showtime “Penny Dreadful” series .
“The Dark Unwinding” by Sharon Cameron — This YA adventure offers up a little bit of everything; history, mystery, and romance.
Audiobooks:
“The Golden Spider: Elemental Web Chronicles Series, Book 1” by Anne Renwick and narrated by Henrietta Meire — Meire is a favorite on Audible with over 50 titles to her name.
“Beauty and the Clockwork Beast: The Steampunk Proper Romances, Book 1” by Nancy Campbell Allen and narrated by Saskia Maarleveld — In this old style romance the focus is more on seduction than sex.
Summary: When the most perplexing crimes are committed in London, Scotland Yard calls in their best man: Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective. The only one of his trade, Mr. Holmes’s most enticing cases are chronicled by his long time friend, a retired army doctor. This case is perhaps the most enticing of all. A member of the royal house has been slain in a seedy room in one of London’s least fashionable neighborhoods. However, in this detail rich and elegant alternate history retelling of A Study in Scarlet the Royal House is not Windsor: it isn’t even human.
Bottom Line: In a seamless blend of Doyle, Lovecraft, and his own signature dialog style Mr. Gaiman has created 45 minutes of pure joy. While you do not have to be familiar with Lovecraftian lore to follow the narrative, fans of the mythos will greatly appreciate the thoughtful inclusion of the Old Ones into this classic tale you think you know.
Title: The strange affair of Spring Heeled Jack (Burton & Swinburne #1)
Author: Mark Hodder
Age/Audience: 15+
Genre/Style: Alternative history, time travel
Read If You Like the idea of a Doctor Who and Sherlock Holmes cross-over.
Book Cover
Summary:
Sir Francis Burton, famous explorer, is all set to participate in a heated public debate with his former partner. The debate is intended to not only settle the question of where the Nile River originates, but also repair Burton’s tattered reputation. Instead, Burton is thrust into the search for a man he thought was only a myth: Spring Heeled Jack. Acting as an agent of the king in an alt-history London filled with motorized carriages, genetically modified parakeets who act as messengers, and on the brink of all out culture war between the Technologists (eugenicists) and the Libertines Burton runs into a plethora of Victorian characters including (but not limited to) Charles Darwin, Oscar Wilde, Florence Nightingale, and notorious boogeyman Spring Heeled Jack himself.
Bottom Line:
Personally, I rated this book a 2.5/5. The Audible narrator was spectacular and I loved the overall theme of the book. However, I am not a fan of time-travel. Placed right in the middle of the book is a semi-separate time-travel almost-short story explaining how SHJ came to be in Victorian London from the year 2202 which I felt really pulled too far from the Steampunk I came to the book for. I also felt the book could have used a better general editor. Meeting a few intentional historical personalities is fun, but meeting everyone and the kitchen sink becomes cumbersome.
Creator: Mathias Malzieu (original novella/composer of all music through his band Dionysos/voice of Jack in the original French tracks)
Media Type: Feature Film, 94 minutes
Audience: Tween to Adult (regardless of what Netflix says).
Note: there isn’t any gore/violence/overt sex that typically warrants a tweens and up suggestion. And yes, it is a musical, but not a Disney musical with fully orchestrated sing-alongs. Instead this CG film is very surreal and moves very quickly with operatic styled music, which would likely lead it to bore most small children.
Summary:
On the coldest day in history, on the edge of Edinburgh a young woman is desperate to make it to the midwife in time to give birth to her son. The time in the cold, though, has taken it’s toll and the boy is born with a heart made of ice. The midwife (a doctor/inventor named Madeleine who is rumored to be a witch) quickly replaces this ineffective heart with a cuckoo-clock and tells the baby that there are three rules he must follow to keep his cuckoo-heart running:
Never touch the hands of your heart
Keep your temper under control
Never, ever, fall in love.
Jack lives for ten uneventful years safely cooped up in the home he shares with Madeleine and several of her eccentric friends. For his tenth birthday he begs his adoptive mother to let him visit town, which he has never been allowed to do before. She agrees but implores him to abide by his three rules.
He doesn’t.
Instead he falls in love with a beautiful Spanish girl he hears singing at a fountain and decides he must chase the girl of his dreams all the way across Europe. But as time goes by, he begins to worry. Will she remember him? Will she love him the way he loves her? And if she does, can his fragile heart take it?
The Good:
This is an incredible film from a visual standpoint. The graphics are fabulously detailed and keep your attention throughout the film.
The steampunk elements are frequent (locomotives with bellows segments and horseless carriages to name a few) and intelligently used.
The music is emotionally resonant and unique; a breath of fresh air into the musical genre.
The Bad:
Tragically, this film suffers from terrible translation issues. The dialog is rushed and doesn’t allow you any time to reflect on what’s said before three more lines are spoken. The US Netflix version is only available in English, but if you can I suggest watching it in the original French with subtitles.
It’s weird.
Normally this isn’t a negative, but the surreal nature of the film made it sometimes hard to follow. For instance, Jack the Ripper makes an appearance during a traveling song, and it’s not explained or ever brought up again.
It’s the single from the Dionysos album called La Mécanique du Cœur was composed and recorded to accompany the novella which the film is adapted from. The above music video was created by the director of the film and in a similar (though not identical) style.
Read If You Like: Steampunk that reads like fantasy, Kenneth Oppel’s Airborn
Summary:
When an airship captain, a blind man, a girl child, and an adorable creature called Trill arrive at Firnis Eld to steal a corpse nothing seems amiss. The arrive in port via the airship Lamprey just in time of the big festival, the perfect distraction. They have tools, and they have a prophecy to guide them, they have a plan. That is until the find out that corpse isn’t dead. Perhaps things will go anything but according to plan.
The world in which Firnis Eld exists is full of steampunk universe, however that universe is not to my personal taste. While the technology is impressive, I found myself remembering all elements of the story except that technology. Each steampunk element or plot point always seems to be paired with (and often over shadowed by) a biological creation or cultural point that make a much bigger impact than the tech in the background. The cultural and biological pieces in Steel & Sky are creative and pleasantly complex, however that’s not what I look for when I read steampunk: I prefer science-fiction to science/fantasy.
Bottom Line:
While perhaps not my personal favorite item promoted on this website, it has inspired me to seek out Mr. Cummins’ other steampunk work, Chronicles of Aesirium, to see if those are written more to my taste. I do suggest this book for tween or HiLo teen readers who might find traditional steampunk in Victorian English too stuffy. It’s also a great suggestion to bring fantasy readers into the genre.
This is a display aimed at bridging the gap between fiction and non-fiction. Many Steampunk books are based on a historical reality, and then they alter and bend that reality to fit the author’s intentions. For many readers (myself included) part of the joy of steampunk is seeing the changes made and what stays true to history. For many teens, though, there may not be as much background understanding of the historical reality to fully appreciate the nuanced changes: this board is aimed at bridging that gap. Additionally, this board can be important for librarians working in communities with Common Core English classes where there is a high expectation for nonfiction reading by teens. By showing the connection between fiction and nonfiction librarians can tap into an expressed interest (steampunk or speculative fiction) and present nonfiction content in that same interest. Depending on the books pulled this can also be used for WWI and Civil War specific books.
Online Resources:
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld paired with The Assassination of the Archduke: Sarajevo 1914 and the Romance that Changed the World by Greg King, Sue Woolmans
Boneshaker by Cherie Priest paired with Seattle Underground by William Speidel
Wild, Wild West (film) with A Lady’s Experiences in the Wild West in 1883 by Rose Render
Author: Mary Shelley, Illustrations by Zdenko Bašić and Manuel Sumberac
Series: –
Age/Audience: Late teens
Genre/Style: Classic horror
Read If You Like: Frankenstein, Victorian Monsters, Classics
Summary:
The story – Victor Frankenstein is an up and coming scientist from a Geneva aristocratic family. After the death of his mother from scarlet fever, he is inspired to finish his studies so he can return to Geneva and marry his childhood sweetheart Elizabeth and complete his family once again. While at school Victor becomes obsessed with natural philosophy, and the notion that he could do the unthinkable, give life back to the dead. After months of study and midnight experiments he finally manages to create his masterpiece. But genius isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and soon things are far beyond Frankenstein’s control. As the death toll grows, is there anything that can be done to stop The Monster?
The Adaptation – I had a hard time deciding how I felt about this particular edition of Frankenstein. Given the heft of the book, and the obvious intention for it to be a steampunk adaptation through the inclusion of new illustration, not modification of the text I expected a lot more. Shelley’s original story is presented in half filled pages paired with too small illustrations too far in between. The kicker, though, is the illustrations are barely steampunk. They are filled with gears and goggles, but nothing functional and nothing in detail. I had very high hopes and this simply didn’t meet them. The cover, however, is fantastic to look at. If only the insides were as intriguing.
Bottom Line:
Not worth the weight. If you want a fantastically steampunk illustrated Frankenstein look into Gris Grimly’s Frankenstein.
Author: Joe Benitez
Series: Comic series, 3 volumes to date
Age/Audience: Teens and Adults equally
Genre/Style: Comic serial, mystery, supernatural
Read If You Like: Mechanics mixed with demonology, strong females, dark edgy comic styles
Summary:
The tabloids call her Lady Mechanika, but she doesn’t know what to call herself. Part female serial killer survivor, part mechanical-body-parts experiment Mechanika roams the streets of Victorian London hoping that solving unusual cases might give her insight to her previous life. When a mechanic-demon is found roaming the streets, Mechanika hopes he can answer her questions. But when weapons manufacturer Blackpool gets involved in the hunt, things get much more complicated, and Mechanika will have to do what she does best: kick some ass.
Bottom Line: An action filled comic with creative, pure Steampunk art hosted online with a great in-browser reader.
Author: Ann & Jeff Vandermeer, Editors
Series: Followed by Steampunk II
Age/Audience: Adults
Genre/Style: Varies by story
Read If You Like: Short stories, a lot of variety, light-steampunk, or introductions to authors
Summary:
This collection of stories is, eclectic, to say the least. Styles range from Western Mysteries, excerpts from larger adventure stories, short sci-fi, and some non-fiction essays. However, it’s blessing is also it’s curse. While the stories range offers a lot to readers who are wholly unfamiliar with the genre, tried and true steampunk fans may be frustrated at the lack of flying machines, automatons, altered costuming, and general “can do” spirit steampunk is known for. With the exception of a few stories, most pieces in the collection are very steampunk light, meaning they have very few steam elements, or those elements aren’t spot lighted in the story over all.
Bottom Line: While the stories are interesting and well written, with the exception of Lansdale’s piece that reads as if it was written by a prepubescent boy, they aren’t focused enough for me to recommend this as a preferred steampunk collection.
Read If You Like: Frankenstein, Victorian Monsters, supernatural with a little bit of horror, graphic novels
Summary:
The story – Victor Frankenstein is an up and coming scientist from a Geneva aristocratic family. After the death of his mother from scarlet fever, he is inspired to finish his studies so he can return to Geneva and marry his childhood sweetheart Elizabeth and complete his family once again. While at school Victor becomes obsessed with natural philosophy, and the notion that he could do the unthinkable, give life back to the dead. After months of study and midnight experiments he finally manages to create his masterpiece. But genius isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and soon things are far beyond Frankenstein’s control. As the death toll grows, is there anything that can be done to stop The Monster?
Gris Grimly’s Adaptation – This is one of the purest adaptations I have ever seen. Instead of altering Mary Shelley’s original text, Grimly streamlines it. By pairing Shelley’s scenes with his own Steampunk/Gothic cross over style makes the text accessible to a whole new audience. Readers aren’t confronted with huge blocks of early Victorian language, instead they see bright red script letters, comic-style block image dialog, and a touching rendition of the Creature’s story – a piece of the novel often excluded in adaptations. Five stars, highly recommended for Frankenstein lovers, comic lovers, Steampunk fans, or anyone who will appreciate Shelley’s classic text with streamlined approachability.
Bottom Line: Five stars, a beautiful book filled with the original text that made Frankenstein a cultural staple.
Steampunk Library 
You must be logged in to post a comment.