Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Steampunk!
It's Steampunk Week! How fun is that?
Don't know what steampunk is? That's OK. I had to get one of my students to explain it to me because I had never heard of it either, till about a year and a half ago. But once explained, it makes sense. Almost. Because steampunk is a very narrow subgenre, but with vaguely distant boundaries.
I'm probably like a lot of Americans - my introduction to steampunk has been largely through movies (like Wild Wild West; or the airship in Stardust; I would even put League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in that category - remember Nemo's ship?). But I confess - for someone who really likes visually rich and inventive stories, I haven't read much in the way of steampunk. I took Airborn, by Kenneth Oppel, to read on the plane to Australia a few years ago, and thoroughly enjoyed it. (Just the thing for a long trans-Pacific flight!) It's the only true-blue steampunk book I've read to date; although I do intend to check out Beddor's The Looking Glass Wars at my earliest opportunity.
I'm sure my readers have their own favorites and opinions, so of course I'm curious: what steampunk novels do you recommend?
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Myst. It's a video game that they turned into a couple of books... which rarely goes well. But I like them. =)
ReplyDeleteyou know, you've mentioned that one to me before....i need to check them out.
ReplyDeleteI have them if you ever want to read them. =)
ReplyDeleteI have never known what I read to go NY the name steampunk, but I'm.fairly certain I have a couple of shelves worth perusing
ReplyDeleteBy. Not NY. I need to edit better.
ReplyDeleteIt's not a novel, but did you see Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow? It had some elements of steampunk I adore.
ReplyDeleteYes, I did! I love that movie, simply because of the steampunk ingenuity and the cinematic innovation that went into it (everything on a blue screen, all fake except the actors and the items they touch). Great bit of steampunkish creativity, that one.
ReplyDelete