Harold Flashman’s astonishing adventures begin in the early 1800s with his expulsion at age 17 from Rugby School (named after the town, not the sport) for drunkenness. It’s a bawdy, dark comedy that would never past muster in this politically correct era. The man is too much of a scoundrel, and his many sins include […]
Thomas Pynchon’s writing career has spanned half a century, earning him much critical acclaim. Believe it or not, Pynchon has written a novel in a steampunk vein, a weighty 2006 tome called Against the Day. Happily, it was available in audiobook, which these days is the only way I can find time for such a […]
I grew up watching James Bond movies and loved the outrageous tongue-in-cheek spy thrillers starring Ian Fleming’s iconic character. As our society has become more politically correct, the great Bond has been bowdlerized. He seduces fewer women, drinks less, and doesn’t smoke. Worse yet, the fanciful over-the-top plots that characterized Bond films from the 1960s […]
Imagine if you will that clock towers were built not to tell time but to control it? That a stopped clock could render a city frozen in time and forever inaccessible? That the clock mechanic was the world’s most important occupation? These are the intriguing premises behind Tara Sim’s 2016 young adult fantasy steampunk novel […]
Here’s an interesting variation on an epic fantasy series: a world that transitions from primitive to steampunk as it progresses. Brandon Sanderson’s “Mistborn” novels take place on Scadrial, a world settled by humans with strange powers. Centuries after some cataclysm, people are rediscovering steam power and electricity. This is the setting of The Alloy of […]
Much recently-published steampunk fiction could be described period romance with airships. I was seeking something different, which is why the blurb for this novel caught my eye: “A steampunk adventure with snark and sass.” It had a great title as well. I expected something unique, and it most certainly was. First of all, the story […]
The Powers of the Earth is not the first sci-fi novel about a war between the Earth and its colonies on the Moon. Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, is probably the most famous. Ursula Le Guin wrote her own version, The Dispossessed. Even if an idea is not truly original, a great author […]
