So, I really love Steampunk genera, but I know very little about books about it. I already played great games (Dishonored and Bioshock Infinite), a few movies (Steamboy) and the webcomic Girl Genius. Suggestions for other medias all more than welcome. If it has magic, even better.

 

I have a few books that should fit you description:

Sky Pirates, Tales of Ketty Jay, Death´s Angel, Steam Legion, Shadow campagins

Those are still fairly realistic... if I find the time over the holidays then I will add a few of the more outlandish ones.

---------- Post automerged at 11:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:00 PM ----------

You may also try Penny Dreadful, it is TV series.

 

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is a pretty terrible great steampunk movie. But it's 1900s futurism steampunk. Not victorian.

For novels, I think you'd really enjoy William Gibson's The Difference Engine. Victorian craziness mixed with punch card computers. It's one of his best works right up there with Zero History and Neuromancer.

The Heart of Veridon by Tim Akers is also pretty good. Mystery set in a Victorian steampunk parallel. Rife with fantasy elements.

Anime: Ghost in the Shell (albeit more cyberpunk than steampunk but has steampunk elements) is amazing.

 

I generally don't like anything with "punk" appended to it. In the case of steampunk it usually just seems to be Victorian upper-class twits with gears glued onto random objects. Also it seems like the opposite of "punk" when the genre tends to focus on rich explorers or scientists.

Sky Captain is more like dieselpunk. You can tell because they don't use steam. I don't know where you think there's steampunk in GitS...

 

Note that I clearly said 'elements of steampunk'. I fully acknowledge that Ghost is cyberpunk, but the design aesthetic reminds me of steampunk design. Lots of mechanical cybernetics rather than computerized stuff.

 

When I think of steampunk design I think of gears and big boilers everywhere, so you'll forgive me if I never drew a comparison like that. But if that's what you see then I'm hardly going to dispute it.

Anyway, I just remembered my brother buying a book called The Falling Machine, which he seemed to like and has a fairly good rating on Amazon, though I've never read it.

 

China Mieville's Bas-Lag books fall pretty solidly into...well, pretty much every different [insert relevant thing here]punk, but steam punk is absolutely a big part of them. Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and Iron Council: they're not sequels, but the latter two recall events and characters from the first book to some extent. Probably not so much that you would have to read them in order though. The Scar is the best, Perdido Street Station a close second. Iron Council I thought disappeared into its own arse a little, but it's still a good read.

Other than that...the Space Captain Smith series might apply (Toby Frost). They're parodies really, basically the British Empire IN SPACE!, but they're quite fun. There's also George Mann, who's written various different books, which based on the ones I've read vary from average at best to entertaining but forgettable.

 

Mainspring is technically clockpunk, but odds are if you like steampunk you'll like clockpunk too.

 

Obviously not a book, but if you like old school isometric RPGS, you'll probably enjoy Arcanum a lot. Its central theme is a fantasy world going through an industrial revolution. Features a lot of cities and while some of them have fully embraced technology, some cling to magic while a few catter to both. Very good game.

 

Why are there not more movies of this genre?

As for books, you should probably check out Jim Butcher's upcoming series.

 

Probably because it can't pull in the large number of fans who swim exclusively in either sci-fi, fantasy, or historical fiction. For example, my mum, who has probably read every science-fiction novel published in the last 100 years (sort-of but not really exaggerating), absolutely despises steampunk because it's too fantasyesque.

 

Hey Erandil, is this the Steam Legion you meant?

 

That's a damn shame, but it does explain a lot. And Zeelthor, of course I'm checking Butcher's new series. Even if I was blind, deaf and stuck in a cave I would check it out. Don't know what I'm more excited for, Kingkiller book 3 or this series.

 

Meh. Maybe I'm living in a crazy delusional world, but if you make a good enough movie shouldn't people come watch it?

 

What makes a film 'good' is totally subjective.

I'm not going to pay 13 bucks to see a boring ass documentary no matter how many academy awards it might be nominated for.

 

The fact that retarded tweens enjoy Twilight does not make it good. Just because you might not enjoy a highly rated documentary, does not mean others might not. Quality should generally draw viewers.

I just dislike the trend in movies, I guess, where they're safe but very uninteresting. Seriously, have there been any awesome horror movies along the stuff that John Carpenter once made lately?

Cos all I see if shit with hauntings.