"Dirigible on my Mind": Steampunk Deals/Freebies + Discussion

[crich70]

Steampunk III

Has anyone here read this collection of stories?
Kobo US

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by crich70

Steampunk III

Has anyone here read this collection of stories?
Kobo US

I've read three of those authors, but not those stories. Valente and Vandemeer tend to be a bit on the literary side of things (as in not fun and light). Priest can go either way and of those three I just mentioned I like her stuff best. Valente second and honestly haven't read anything by Vandemeer that I liked. Those are some big names in some circles of sci/fi and Priest wrote some stuff that could be considered UF but it leans horror. (Four and Twenty Blackbirds or something like that was the first series title). I don't like those authors enough to try that volume, but they are all very solid storytellers.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

I've read three of those authors, but not those stories. Valente and Vandemeer tend to be a bit on the literary side of things (as in not fun and light). Priest can go either way and of those three I just mentioned I like her stuff best. Valente second and honestly haven't read anything by Vandemeer that I liked. Those are some big names in some circles of sci/fi and Priest wrote some stuff that could be considered UF but it leans horror. (Four and Twenty Blackbirds or something like that was the first series title). I don't like those authors enough to try that volume, but they are all very solid storytellers.

Thanks for the information BearMountainBooks.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by hubertphava

Crich: are you sure they are the same book?

Amazon says:

Mammoth Book Of Steampunk Adventures

Publisher: Robinson (September 18, 2014)

while on Kobo website i can read:


The Mammoth Book of Steampunk
published in 2012 that matches wit amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Mammoth-Bo...1PX6X4XGSRJCDN

Publisher: Robinson (April 5, 2012)

HP

Also covers not match.

I just got the Steampunk book that was released today (the 18th) and it is a totally different book. I had thought at first that it might just be a difference in covers as some books do have somewhat different covers depending on who is publishing them, but the contents are also different.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by crich70

I just got the Steampunk book that was released today (the 18th) and it is a totally different book. I had thought at first that it might just be a difference in covers as some books do have somewhat different covers depending on who is publishing them, but the contents are also different.

A full book report is expected, young man, or there's detention for you!

[ATDrake]

Free from the author via KDP Select @ Amazon:

Tooth and Claw by Robert Appleton (ISFDB), a follow-up short story in his The Steam Clock Legacy series to his Prehistoric Clock novella out from Carina Press. With dinosaurs in it!

NB: Appleton writes both plain science fiction and sci-fi romance for Carina, so this one may be more on the romance-y side. Or not.

The age of steam meets the time of the dinosaurs in this rip-roaring short story set in the aftermath of the award-nominated* Prehistoric Clock.

With everything she owns packed onto her steam-powered penny farthing, nineteen-year-old Beth Rawtenstall is determined to leave the county she grew up in. Her father recently died, leaving her with a struggling farm and no prospects. Even the boy she loves is unattainable—his relatives, the aristocratic Allenbys, have shunned Beth all her life, and she’s finally given up on him.

But she’s picked the wrong day to say goodbye. A giant creature no one in Victorian England has ever seen before is terrorizing the quiet countryside. Her countryside. It’s a predator from another age—one of the deadliest animals that ever lived. But if Papa taught her anything, it’s to never back down from a fight. Especially when the prize is the life of the boy she loves.

[Dr. Drib]

Has anyone else noticed a (perhaps?) tendency in steampunk fiction to favor female characters? (And, of course, there's nothing wrong with that.)

Too, there appears to be a kind of crossover genre-mixing between Romance and Steampunk, which makes me wonder if there's 'newer' genre in the making.

As well, I've noticed quite a lot of young adult steampunk on the market.

Any thoughts on any of this?

[ATDrake]

Well, for one thing, steampunk is trendy, and YA and romance tend to follow trends for crossover works.

(TBH, there's so much variety in romance that a lot of titles need something to distinguish themselves from the others, and that usually tends to be the setting, which is often just a decorative backdrop for the romance. E.g. the notion of "wallpaper historicals" where the author doesn't do any research at all, but just does this imitative fake regency to jump on the bandwagon of more popular authors, much like the cargo cult science described by Richard P. Feynman.)

As for the proliferation of female protagonists, I would guess that a steampunk setting tends to allow for more opportunities to showcase female characters in an otherwise retro-historical setting without having to work around a bunch of potential restrictions, as the tech could act as more of a societal leveler by opening up additional occupational roles for women (such as mechanic, difference engine programmer, airship pilot, etc.) which are less dependent on muscle strength for hard labour* which was otherwise kind of predominant at the time and the AH aspect wouldn't restrict the educational or societal acceptance as much.

So if you were an author who really liked your Holmesian Victoriana, but deplored the period-accurate sexism/racism/whatever, then with steampunk you can eat your cake and have it too with your clockwork detective-bot and his feisty inventor/literary agent who records the success/failure rate of the little steel-gray cogitating mechanisms† of her automaton for the penny dreadfuls.

Also, aviatrixes are awesome, especially when combined with airships. (My favourite episode ever of Star Trek: Voyager is the one where they found Amelia Earhart, having been kidnapped by aliens. I always wondered what those aliens did with Elvis.)

* You kind of saw the same thing in a more negative manner IRL with the employment of children in factory work once the Industrial Revolution really got underway. And later, most of the wireless telegraph operators of what people like to call the Victorian Internet were indeed women.

† Okay, this is more like Poirotian Georgiana. But the point still holds.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

Has anyone else noticed a (perhaps?) tendency in steampunk fiction to favor female characters? (And, of course, there's nothing wrong with that.)

Too, there appears to be a kind of crossover genre-mixing between Romance and Steampunk, which makes me wonder if there's 'newer' genre in the making.

As well, I've noticed quite a lot of young adult steampunk on the market.

Any thoughts on any of this?

I think it's actually been around in a romance crossover for a while (perhaps even started there?) Although some of the first steampunk I read was probably UF from TOR, romance wasn't far behind.

There is male oriented steampunk out there (Blood Riders by Michael something) Link: http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Riders-M...s=blood+riders

many of those in the also read (well, okay one of them on my screen for sure) qualifies. I've tried the Tuck--it's more UF, but was not my thing. Blood Riders was okay, but I think it missed some opportunities and failed, failed, failed on the "romance" front. Oh, if only the author had left that part out. But I digress. I don't know that there are "more" female leads; it may depend on where you look. I haven't actually investigated very much. I know there is a sub genre that is quite popular in the romance arena that is steampunk.

It could just be that there are more woman buyers so publishing is catering to that area.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

Has anyone else noticed a (perhaps?) tendency in steampunk fiction to favor female characters? (And, of course, there's nothing wrong with that.)

Too, there appears to be a kind of crossover genre-mixing between Romance and Steampunk, which makes me wonder if there's 'newer' genre in the making.

As well, I've noticed quite a lot of young adult steampunk on the market.

Any thoughts on any of this?

Well I think the focus on female characters is in part due to the time period in which much Steampunk is set. Back in Victorian days women weren't supposed to be out having adventures etc. that was something men did So what better way to show things that are different than to have a female lead.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by crich70

Well I think the focus on female characters is in part due to the time period in which much Steampunk is set. Back in Victorian days women weren't supposed to be out having adventures etc. that was something men did So what better way to show things that are different than to have a female lead.

Yes, but a lot of steampunk takes place in western settings (emma bull, the one I liked to in the previous post and I can probably think of a couple of others if put on the spot). And in the old West, guys were out having adventures anyway (or at least getting shot at...)

On the Victorian front you could be right, but I don't see why there couldn't be a guy adventure in that time period. I know there are cozy mysteries with guy leads in that same kind of setting (just mundane though--no steampunk elements).

Interestingly enough, when Frank Tuttle wrote All the Paths of Shadow (steampunk) he did go with a female lead. Everything prior to that (generally speaking his Markhat series) is very much male lead (and more noir-ish as well). I wonder why he chose to go with a female lead.

Interesting thoughts to ponder on the subject.

[murg]

Look, it's simple: Guys are boring, girls not so much...

[crich70]

Originally Posted by murg

Look, it's simple: Guys are boring, girls not so much...

Maybe, but Steampunk takes the traditional ideas of what happened in that time period and sets it on its ear so I figure they can also flip the idea of who the hero is on its ear as well. I mean if you can have a clockwork robot running round why not a heroine instead of a hero?

[oldcharliebrown]

The Mammoth Book of Steampunk Adventures is actually a sequel to The Mammoth Book of Steampunk. I had wanted it clearer that it was such, numbered MBO Steampunk II, but the publishers didn't want to do that, for a number of reasons. I have no clue what will happen if this one is popular, too, and they ask for a third volume. Though The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk could be seen as a loose sequel in that same series.

The publication history is a bit complicated, if only because it seems like the British edition comes out first (by Constable & Robinson), along with the ebook, soon followed by the US edition (by Running Press). It all works out, somehow.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by oldcharliebrown

The Mammoth Book of Steampunk Adventures is actually a sequel to The Mammoth Book of Steampunk. I had wanted it clearer that it was such, numbered MBO Steampunk II, but the publishers didn't want to do that, for a number of reasons. I have no clue what will happen if this one is popular, too, and they ask for a third volume. Though The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk could be seen as a loose sequel in that same series.

The publication history is a bit complicated, if only because it seems like the British edition comes out first (by Constable & Robinson), along with the ebook, soon followed by the US edition (by Running Press). It all works out, somehow.

Are you the editor of the book oldcharliebrown?