"Appendix N" for Steampunk & Weird West?

[Cordwainer Fish]

Stephenson's The Diamond Age is set in Da Future, but it has a very steampunky vibe.

 

[Cadence]

Gunsmoke & Dragonfire is a good anthology of Weird West tales, but my first introduction to the genre was "Mister Hadj's Sunset Ride", by Saladin Ahmed.

Steampunk and Steampunk 2: Steampunk Reloaded anthologies edited by Jeff and Ann VanderMeer.

Dead Man's Hand: An Anthology of Weird West, Edited by John Joseph Adams

I've been on an Anthology kick lately, and so particularly appreciate these!

 

[Umbran]

I've been on an Anthology kick lately, and so particularly appreciate these!

Especially for these purposes - anthologies are a great way to get the feel of a genre, as you get a larger number of takes on it in the same number of pages.

 

[Committed Hero]

Mark Sumner wrote two Weird West books, Devil's Tower & Devil's Engine. They are magical rather than steampunk, however.

If you want to go back a bit further, there is Card's Alvin Maker series.

 

[Baron Opal II]

I concur with Leviathan and Soulless (which is at least a six book series by now. I've only gotten to the first as of yet.) Also The Half Made World by Felix Gilman. That's a bit more fantasy + steampunk, but fits the vibe.

 

[humble minion]

Useful thread, thank you. I’ve read most of these, but I’ll have to look up.

As far as I can tell though, steampunk is a bit unusual in that it’s centred around an aesthetic rather than born from a seminal narrative. There’s no steampunk Lord of the Rings that kicked the he whole thing off.

I do have an informal rule though - books with a classic faux-Victorian steampunk setting are much, much more likely to be any good if they have a female protagonist. Dunno why, it just seems that’s the way it works.

 

[bedir than]

Shadow and Bone

 

[humble minion]

Also:

The Baskerville Affair by Emma Jane Holloway
The Alchemy Wars by Ian Tregillis
Angels of Music by Kim Newman
The Guns Above by Robyn Bennie
The Iron Dragon's Daughter by Michael Swanwick

I've heard good things about the Clocktaur War by T Kingfisher and Gunpowder Alchemy by Jeannie Lin, but haven't read them yet.

 

[babi_gog]

There is also the Pax Britannia series (mainly by Jonathan Green), published by Abaddon Books

 

[Parmandur]

The term steampunk was coined by Tim Powers for his novel Anubis' Gate...so that's a must here.