The Great Steampunk Novel

[OSJ]

Don't know how many people here dig Powers, Blaylock, Jeter, DiFillipo, et al., but there's some great news! After two decades K.W. Jeter has finally written a sequel to Infernal Devices; a novel that may have been (barring The Anubis Gates), the best steampunk novel of all-time. Anyway, Fiendish Schemes is available now, I just got my copy from Ziesing Books and would suggest not waiting for the paperback, when Jeter is on his game he's as good as anyone in the business.

[Jingus]

As a guy who's long been interested in the general concept of steampunk, but finds the massive stack of random steampunk novels to be pretty intimidating (not to mention the notorious arrogant shittiness of many steampunk fans), would you say Infernal Devices (or The Anubis Gates) is the best place for a neophyte to start?  

 

(...okay, honestly this is mostly cuz I'm fooling around with some fantasy ideas which have some pseudo-steampunk background material, and really just need to get a good feel for the state of the genre.)  

 

And, how do you really define "steampunk", anyway?  Other than "everyone wears more accessories and belts and pockets and useless doo-dads than any X-man from the 1990s", anyway.  Does it simply boil down to being any pre-electrical society that doesn't quite match what happened in the real world, mostly by having cooler gadgets?  

[OSJ]

Okay, "steampunk" has been co-opted as a genre when it was originally a joke. (I was there when the phrase was coined at a World Fantasy Con. as a joking alternative  to "cyber-punk") The original stuff was written in the 1980s and basically centered around the work of Tim Powers, James P. Blaylock, and K.W. Jeter and could just as accurately be called "historical fantasy". What was different was the Victorian and pre-Victorian settings, a time-period that really hadn't been utilized by many fantasists. There was Fletcher Pratt's The Blue Star, but that was about it. Powers novels then and now are characterized by meticulous research so that you're never sure what is historical fact and what he's making up to drive the narrative. Blaylock has a lighter hand and his Langdon St. Ives tales are funny as well as being suspenseful. Jeter's Infernal Devices seemed to combine the best of Powers and Blaylock and I'm really jazzed to see how the new book is. If you want to start at the beginning of the genre, read The Anubis Gates, if you like that, you'll probably dig everything else. A modern practitioner who is simply excellent is China Mieville. Also, Centipede Press has just done a fancy limited edition of The Anubis Gates, which is one of the most beautiful books ever produced by anyone. Somehow the publisher wound up with like three-dozen extra copies that are lacking the autograph page and he's blowing them out at like $45! The signed edition was $300+, so that's a tremendous bargain if you aren't concerned about the autographs (and for that matter, Powers goes to tons of conventions, so it's not like it would be hard to get the thing signed...)

 

http://www.centipedepress.com/sf/anubisgates.html

[Jingus]

Thanks for the advice.  

 

And... well... thanks for keep pointing out "You can get This rare book for only $40" in multiple threads, but, uh, I don't have forty bucks.  I mean, seriously, in the entire world.  (There's apparently not a single employer in the entire world who's willing to hire me for anything but backbreaking minimum-wage bullshit.)  Tonight I'm sleeping in my car because I don't have gas money to drive to school and back two days in a row.  Hope that 20-degree temperature won't be a problem!  And I recently sold off the vast majority of the books I've spent the last 30 years collecting, because once again, flat fuckin' broke.  My bookshelf looks like a gutted skyscraper, all wind whistling through empty space.  

[OSJ]

Jingus: Sorry to hear about the finances, I forget that a lot of the shit I have I get for free and would not be able to afford otherwise... abebooks.com is your friend. You can get The Anubis Gates for $4.00 with free shipping. I didn't check for Infernal Devices, but suspect that you could find an equally cheap copy. If you don't mind paperbacks (and there was a time that was all I could afford), abebooks.com has some great deals available. It's a co-op of thousands of booksellers and the company does a great job of kicking out the ripoff artists. I probably do over 300 transactions a year through the site and have done so for twenty years and had only one problem and that was an issue of condition (the seller didn't tell me that the book had a bookplate from some schmoe in it and I was rightly a bit pissed off), ended up getting a partial refund and that's been the only hiccup in twenty years.

 

I'm at the point now in collecting that something comes in, something else has to go out... That seems to keep everything somewhat affordable. For instance, I have a ton of signed mystery novels (Vacchs, Healy, Leonard, etc.) that I know I'm never going to re-read, so off to eBay they go to raise money for the Haffner Press Edmond Hamilton books (which are of course, $40 each).  I should also dig out all the signed paperbacks (I have hundreds) and sell off anything that I also have in hardcover. That would certainly make some room in the storage unit. (From the early 80s until my health took a hit last year, I went to hundreds of conventions and averaged getting twenty to fifty books signed at each one.)

[Jingus]

Yeah, sorry, I'm also a broke-ass Creative Writing major and thus have an unfortunate penchant for constantly describing my not-that-bad life as if it were the events of a Palahniuk novel.  Fortunately, another side effect is the inevitable big-ass college library, so they probably have like half the stuff you're mentioning anyway.  

[Traditional Babyface]

Don't know how many people here dig Powers, Blaylock, Jeter, DiFillipo, et al., but there's some great news! After two decades K.W. Jeter has finally written a sequel to Infernal Devices; a novel that may have been (barring The Anubis Gates), the best steampunk novel of all-time. Anyway, Fiendish Schemes is available now, I just got my copy from Ziesing Books and would suggest not waiting for the paperback, when Jeter is on his game he's as good as anyone in the business.

 

Wow, there's a name that takes me back.  I stopped reading sci-fi/fantasy some years ago, but, back in the late 80's/90's., Mark got an awful lot of money from me.  Haven't heard his name in years.  Kinda interested in a sequel to Infernal Devices, though.

[OSJ]

 

Don't know how many people here dig Powers, Blaylock, Jeter, DiFillipo, et al., but there's some great news! After two decades K.W. Jeter has finally written a sequel to Infernal Devices; a novel that may have been (barring The Anubis Gates), the best steampunk novel of all-time. Anyway, Fiendish Schemes is available now, I just got my copy from Ziesing Books and would suggest not waiting for the paperback, when Jeter is on his game he's as good as anyone in the business.

 

Wow, there's a name that takes me back.  I stopped reading sci-fi/fantasy some years ago, but, back in the late 80's/90's., Mark got an awful lot of money from me.  Haven't heard his name in years.  Kinda interested in a sequel to Infernal Devices, though.

 

 

Mark and Cindy Ziesing are two of the coolest people in the world. We've been friends as couples for over twenty years (Kathy and I are coming up on thirty years, I think Mark and Cindy are coming up on twenty-seven years). I don't give a shit how much money I can save on Amazon, if I can help support an indy bookseller who is as cool as are the Ziesings, I don't mind spending a bit extra. The neat thing about the Ziesings is that they aren't just genre lit. My last order did indeed include Jeter and GRRM, but it also had two volumes of Wodehouse and a critical study of Henry Darger (whom I never would have heard of, were it not for the Ziesing's informative catalog.) There, commercial over. But seriously, the ZIesings are good folks, check out their website and find something cool to read.

 

BTW: Started the Jeter last night, almost did an all-nighter with it, it rocks.

[J.T.]

The Difference Engine was my jump-off steampunk novel.  Also loved Lord Kelvin's Machine.  I will seek out Fiendish Schemes.

[Jingus]

Fortunately, another side effect is the inevitable big-ass college library, so they probably have like half the stuff you're mentioning anyway.  

 

HAH, that's a lie.  They did not have one single book that you mentioned in this entire thread.  In fact, they usually don't have anything at all by ANY of those authors.  They've got one random Mieville book, and one random non-steampunk Jeter book, and that is IT.  As a literary professional, doesn't that sound, well, shitty to you?  (I despise my university more and more with each passing day, for a sad variety of all-too-good reasons.)

[OSJ]

Didja know that I published the first parts of Lord Kelvin's Machine way back in 1988? Axolotl Double A-2 (Two Views of a Cave Painting & The Idol's Eye by Blaylock bound with Escape from Kathmandu by Kim Stanley Robinson). BTW: Even though Fiendish Schemes stands very well on its own, don't miss Infernal Devices. I must be getting senile, I can't believe that I haven't mentioned Blaylock's Homunculus as one of the best. Seriously, one cannot go wrong with Jim Blaylock, if you like odd, offbeat stuff, he's the man. I think his most recent novel was Knights of the Cornerstone, calling it "modern fantasy" does it a tremendous disservice.

 

Just checked, Infernal Devices is a bit pricier than Anubis Gates, but can still be had for under ten bucks. If one really wants to go back to the beginning of steampunk, Jeter was really the first with Morlock Night: The Return of the Time Machine. Damn, just checked and there was a new edition from Angry Robot a couple of years back, but one can get either the new edition or the DAW original for under five bucks. Peeps need to be jumping all over that one.

[OSJ]

 

Fortunately, another side effect is the inevitable big-ass college library, so they probably have like half the stuff you're mentioning anyway.  

 

HAH, that's a lie.  They did not have one single book that you mentioned in this entire thread.  In fact, they usually don't have anything at all by ANY of those authors.  They've got one random Mieville book, and one random non-steampunk Jeter book, and that is IT.  As a literary professional, doesn't that sound, well, shitty to you?  (I despise my university more and more with each passing day, for a sad variety of all-too-good reasons.)

 

 

That sucks, but here's the good news. Universities have this deal called Inter-Library Loan. Basically you can get any damn thing you want from anywhere in the country just by asking for it. Public libraries have the same deal, but universities tend to be a lot more helpful when it comes to loaning out stuff.

[Jingus]

That sucks, but here's the good news. Universities have this deal called Inter-Library Loan. Basically you can get any damn thing you want from anywhere in the country just by asking for it. Public libraries have the same deal, but universities tend to be a lot more helpful when it comes to loaning out stuff.

 

 

I know (and I know I really shouldn't be complaining so much), but ILL here was broken and nonfunctioning the first few times I tried it and so I gave up in disgust, vowed to never attempt it again and scoffed at people who suggested it.  (Pretty much the same as how I treat online dating.)  

[OSJ]

 

That sucks, but here's the good news. Universities have this deal called Inter-Library Loan. Basically you can get any damn thing you want from anywhere in the country just by asking for it. Public libraries have the same deal, but universities tend to be a lot more helpful when it comes to loaning out stuff.

 

 

I know (and I know I really shouldn't be complaining so much), but ILL here was broken and nonfunctioning the first few times I tried it and so I gave up in disgust, vowed to never attempt it again and scoffed at people who suggested it.  (Pretty much the same as how I treat online dating.)  

 

 

I dunno, my experience has been pretty much 50/50 (keep in mind that I'm usually asking for really obscure shit). YMMV, but the thirty seconds it takes to fill out the request seems pretty much worthwhile to get hands on something that you otherwise couldn't. I do know that for some reason ILL was down from the week before  Xmass until just a couple of weeks ago, but AFAIK it's up and running. It's certainly much better than on-line dating as once you send a book back it stays gone; you don't have to worry about it showing up again the next day or boiling your bunny.

[Dusty Finish]

Didja know that I published the first parts of Lord Kelvin's Machine way back in 1988? Axolotl Double A-2 (Two Views of a Cave Painting & The Idol's Eye by Blaylock bound with Escape from Kathmandu by Kim Stanley Robinson). BTW:

 

I didn't know that you were "that" John, but I used to own a copy of Axolotl Double A-2.  I may have bought it directly from you.  It's been a few decades and I don't have my collection any more, but I used to own a fair number of Axolotl editions.  I probably bought them directly from you or Mark Ziesing.  In '88, most of my less mainstream purchases (i.e., small press or British first editions) came from Mark.  I don't think I even had internet back then.  Probably not.

[OSJ]

 

Didja know that I published the first parts of Lord Kelvin's Machine way back in 1988? Axolotl Double A-2 (Two Views of a Cave Painting & The Idol's Eye by Blaylock bound with Escape from Kathmandu by Kim Stanley Robinson). BTW:

 

I didn't know that you were "that" John, but I used to own a copy of Axolotl Double A-2.  I may have bought it directly from you.  It's been a few decades and I don't have my collection any more, but I used to own a fair number of Axolotl editions.  I probably bought them directly from you or Mark Ziesing.  In '88, most of my less mainstream purchases (i.e., small press or British first editions) came from Mark.  I don't think I even had internet back then.  Probably not.

 

 

A belated thanks for the support! I didn't use a computer until 1988, so the hard copy catalogs from Mark, Bob Weinberg, and L.W. Currey were like the most important items to arrive in the mailbox. I'd always go through Mark's catalog with a highlighter, selecting about twenty items and winding up having to settle for four or five. Somehow, I stumbled on to Andy Richards (ColdTonnage Books) back then and he became my hook-up for UK stuff... Sort of a risky venture as Andy would get my orders, wait until he had what he figured was a full box and then run my credit card, much hilarity would often ensue... (I'd be expecting a charge for a couple of books and wind up with a charge for a dozen, always at the most inconvenient of times.) Still, nothing has ever beat getting those huge packages from England and never being totally sure what was going to be inside.

[Dusty Finish]

This thread makes me want to run out and read some Jonathan Carroll.  I don't read sci-fi/fantasy/horror any more, aside from the odd Tim Powers novel - but I still vividly remember discovering Jonathan Carroll and ordering import editions of his new books.  Back then, I was basically a fan boy, not a collector.  Much later, I would start collecting first editions and buying import editions to own the legitimate first edition (instead of first US edition or whatever), but back then, I simply didn't want to wait until Carroll's novels were published in the US.

 

I'm sure I discovered other authors that way, but Carroll is the one that stands out.

 

As for Axolotl Press, I'm sure I bought directly from you a few times.  It's been more than 20 years and I don't have the book any more, so it's hard to remember what was purchased from whom.   Ziesing was probably my main hookup for stuff I couldn't order through my local bookstore.  I'm really kinda surprised he and Cindy are still around.  I remember calling in orders and talking to Cindy before she put Mark on for us to discuss an order.  No internet.  You actually had to talk to people if you wanted to get something done fast.

 

Someone mentioned James Blaylock earlier.  I liked Digging Leviathan and Homonculus well enough, as well as his other steampunk/St. Ives books, but Land of Dreams was/is one of my 10 favorite fantasy novels.

 

Edit: Just realized I still have the Ziesing Books 1st hardcover edition of The Anubis Gates.  Also still do have the 1st edition of a couple early Carroll novels (Child Across the Sky, Bones of the Moon). 

[OSJ]

Haven't read Carroll in years and sold off almost everything except Land of Laughs. This had a lot more to do with an increasing dislike of the man rather than the work. (Every time I've seen him over the years he's become progressively ruder to fans and for me the last straw was when I asked for "signature only is fine" as opposed to a personal inscription because there was a bigass line behind me and that seemed the polite thing to do. His response was "Oh, I suppose you'll get more on eBay if it isn't personalized."  Well, fuck you very much, sir. If it's really that much of a chore to sign books and meet your fans just don't do it.

 

Jerk or not, he's a remarkably talented author.

 

DF: Sure brings back some memories... A-2 was the third book that we actually had bound by the printer. The first three books (Night Moves,Paper Dragons, and Double A-1 were all put together by Kathy and myself by hand in our apartment. By the time of A-2 we had done well enough to buy a house! I still remember booksellers telling me not to publish Ascian in Rose because Charles de Lint was "a mid-list paperback author that no one will collect." Yeah, right... Too bad we never got to do A-3, it would have been Jeter/Koontz with intros by Powers and Blaylock. I think that one might have done okay. ;-)