h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Can anyone recommend some?

Im not normally an SF reader so I dont really know whats out there. I read ~A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!~ by Harry Harrison yearsandyears ago. That had some neat counterfactual elements such as what if the American Revolution had failed.

The definitive text would surely be "The Difference Engine", by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling.

Not sure if it's steampunk but you might also like "The Ragged Astronauts" by Bob Shaw...

There's one by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling that's supposed to be good. The Difference Engine, I think. The Engine definitely - not absolutely sure of the middle word.


Geggs

I might also recommend "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", by Alan Moore, if you don't mind your story with pictures.

Thanks all.

I shall try the Gibson - although to be honest Ive found his Neuromancer et al a bit meh. (Is that heresy?) Although I like the idea of Radio Zion.

I remember Shaw as an editor.


And although Im not an SF reader, I shall repeat my top tip once again (which I originally got from KB:

Red/Blue/Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson.

And last year I rather liker Oryx and Crake and After The Flood by Margaret Atwood (although she hates to be called SF).

"(Is that heresy?)"

Yes.

Next question.

"The Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson, perhaps.

From 1976, before Steampunk was invented, "The Space Machine" by Christopher Priest, a HG Wells pastiche, but very well done, like a lot of Priest's books.

And yes, it is heresy.

HGWells is the great grand daddy of Steampunk!

He didnt mean to be, but to read his novels today
is as steampunked as it gets.
He was that far ahead!
(Hollywood takes all the good out of him.)

I strongly suspect most steampunk fans haven't
actually read HGWells. If they did they would be
satisfied and no one would ever have to twist their
knickers into anachronisms again.


~jwf~

If you're at all into well-written comics, I can heartily recommend Girl Genius. http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20021104 is the beginning of the story. Volume 10 is in the midst of printing as we speak.

I also enjoyed Mainspring by Jay Lake (and I later found out that he had been to our little local library doing a talk/book signing--that's how the library got its copy. I also learned that he's one of my LJ friends LJ friend. He's got absolutely gorgeous hair, not that that's here nor there...)

I haven't read much steampunk, but that's mostly because I haven't had much time to read since I found the genre, and the library doesn't hold much.

Stephen Baxter wrote The Time Ships, which is the official sequel to H. G. Wells book The Time Machine. He also wrote Anti-Ice, but that one is not as good.

There´s a comic called Ruse by the incomparable Mark Waid. It´s a steampunk detective story, but you might have problems finding the issues. It´s brilliant though.

You could describe some parts on His Dark Materials as steampunk.

TRiG.

jules verene?????

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The book, that is, not the thing with Sssshawwn Connery.

Full disclosure - I'm fascinated by "old" scientific instruments like telescopes, sextants, or clocks. But the steampunk aesthetic is getting a bit too stale to be interesting. "Find a modern thing and stick cogs on it".

Then you'll enjoy HGWells.
He took cogs and gave them a future.

~jwf~

One could of course indulge in some Steampunk Chap hop:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iRTB-FTMdk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eELH0ivexKA&feature=related ...oooo, love a cup...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6t28COxEp2k&feature=related

I have to second the recommendations for Wells and Verne, classics are classic for a reason. Girl Genuis is also pretty awesome.
Steamboy is the definitive steam punk anime and well worth a watch.
The Astonishing excursions of Hellen Narbon and Co. is a pretty good webcomics example. It helps, but isn't really necessary to simultaneously read the main Narbonic comic(set circa its publication in the early to mid noughties). http://www.webcomicsnation.com/shaenongarrity/narbonic_plus/series.php?view=archive&chapter=16755&mpe=1&step=1
Modern novel wise the Jackelian verse and the Matt Cruse Series are pretty good, especially for the airship fans. I should warn you that the Jackelian verse also includes some pretty strong fantasy elements in addition to the science fiction stuff.
The official website is pretty use full for the Jackels stuff: http://www.sfcrowsnest.com/author/index.php
I might thing of some more later.

Almost forgot, Atlantis The Lost Empire. You also might want to look at the brass goggles website.

Steamboy has problems, one of which is a common anime problem (and I speak as a big anime fan): it doesn't know when and how to end.
To an extent, looking for steampunk novels is slightly missing the point, since it's mainly a visual genre/style.

In regard to the inclusion of Jules Verne
alongside HGWells as a steampunk foundational
writer, I have to agree it's easy to look back from
here and see them both in the same fog of steam.

But in the introduction to a 1934 collection of his
greatest works MR WELLS had this to say:

"These tales have been compared with the work
of Jules Verne and there was a disposition on
the part of literary journalists at one time
to call me the English Jules Verne. As a matter
of fact there is no literary resemblance what-
ever between the anticipatory inventions of the
great Frenchman and these fantasies. ...they do
not aim to project a serious possibility; they
aim indeed only at the same amount of conviction
as one gets in a good gripping dream. They have
to hold the reader to the end by art and illusion
and not by proof and argument, and the moment he
(the reader) closes the cover and reflects he wakes
up to their impossibility."



~jwf~