I met Saul Garnell at a sci-fi convention in Phoenix a few years ago. We had lunch and an interesting discussion. Shortly thereafter, I bought his newly published e-book Freedom Club, but as I had a lot on my reading list, I didn’t get to it until several years later. I should have gotten to […]
This is yet another entry I found in a “Best Steampunk Books” list that didn’t actually fit the genre. 14 , appropriately published in 2014, is a sci-fi mystery centered on a hundred-year-old apartment building in Los Angeles and the eccentric tenants that inhabit it. The main character is Nate, a thirty-something single guy who […]
I discovered Neal Stephenson’s novel The Diamond Age, or a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer shortly after it was published in 1995. I’d read his preceding book Snow Crash and loved its anarchic spirit. By contrast, Diamond Age seemed stodgy at first as it centered on the prim and proper Neo-Victorians. As I read on, however, […]
Never trust a “best of steampunk” list (unless it’s one of mine.) The genre is so eclectic and quirky that there are bound to be entries that aren’t steampunk at all. I found Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl in “10 Best Steampunk Novels 2019” on bookconsumers.com. The title sounds right and the cover hints at […]
One of my goals as a reviewer is to bring attention to original works by up-and-coming authors. I encountered The Atlantropa Articles through Cody Franklin’s a YouTube channel, “Alternative History Hub.” His videos are interesting speculations on how history could have gone differently if various different scenarios came to pass. This, his first novel (2018) […]
Studio Gonzo’s 2003 anime series Last Exile (written and directed by Koichi Chigira) is one of the few examples of Dieselpunk in popular culture. Dieselpunk is Steampunk’s lesser-known cousin, a genre that embraces the technologies and styles of the 1920’s through 1940’s. It’s also one of those rare instances of an anime which serves as […]
I have a confession to make: Steampunk has been my gateway drug to a wider world of literature. It has gotten me interested in the classics, starting with sci-fi pioneers like Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. Recently as I was browsing in Bookmans (an Arizona retail chain specializing in used books) I came across […]
