Steampunk: the anthology

Last month, I mentioned Ann and Jeff Vandermeer's Steampunk anthology in passing, but the book deserves better than that. I've just spent several highly entertaining hours with my advance review copy and I'm knocked out. What a great piece of work this is, from the fascinating triumvirate of essays that recount the history of steampunk in literature and describe its contemporary appeal to the top-notch works of fiction inside, from forgotten proto-steampunk gems by Michael Moorcock and James Blaylock to contemporary pieces from Neal Stephenson, Jay Lake, Ted Chiang and Paul Di Filippo (among many others). Summer's almost here -- time to do some leisure reading, and what better place to start than here? Link

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: Book • Happy Mutants • Steampunk

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

Xenu

Steampunk is sooo over. It’s only a matter of time before cheap Chinese steampunk home decor is available at Target.
Agent 86

Woo, I actually needed this. I’ve read a novel (maybe two) in the genre, and the odd short story shows up in the anthologies I’ve read, but I don’t have a very firm grasp of steampunk as a genre (as opposed to an art form).
Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

Xenu: to quote an intermittently brilliant thinker, all ideas start out as gnosis and end up as wallpaper.
dhuff

Torrance @14, while Cory is certainly teh awesome, he didn’t invent the term “steampunk” by a longshot.

Check out some of the links on the excellent Brass Goggles blog for more info, or have a go at one of the seminal Steampunk novels – The Difference Engine.
John Markos O’Neill

I feel as though I’ve seen another picture that resembles that cover. I can’t quite place it.
Milarepa

I just can’t hear (read) it anymore! Steampunk here, steampunk there…. I mean the work is awesome, bt th wrd gvs m ysr!
mkl

The cover IS goatsed a little bit, isn’t it?
Antinous

#1,

CATFIC
artbot

Maybe we could start a conversation about the “Singularity” (rhymes with “hilarity”) for a change.
Jeff

I just bought a steam-punkish light fixture, it’s bronze pipes and stuff. I’m sure I only did so because I’ve been introduced to more of the style elements shown on Boingboing. I don’t think I want read about it, but it can look good. I think Jeff and Ann are doing stuff with io9 now.