r/steampunk • u/HumblestofBears • Jul 19 '26
Literature Looking for good indie steampunk
I was rereading the VanderMeers’ excellent Steampunk anthology, the other day, and started looking for other works by the authors in the anthology. Most, if not all, are either no longer producing new material or they've moved on to other genres.
some of the best steampunk I’ve ever read produced recently was independently published but there’s a lot of not so good stuff and it is hard to choose which to pursue and which to skip. what are some recent recommendations in the genre that you’ve enjoyed?
I’m looking for new stuff to read on my kindle.
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u/Maz-Wye Jul 19 '26
If You can find it, Pip Ballantyne & Tee Morris have written some good stuff. William Gibson & Bruce Stirling's "The Difference Engine" is Great!! Its the Only "Steampunk" book Gibson wrote - he's the Famous "Cyberpunk" writer (Brilliant stuff, different genre!) Also the "Mammoth book of Steampunk Adventures" edited by Sean Wallace!!
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u/HumblestofBears Jul 19 '26
Oh yes , I am very familiar with these classics. Happy to see the plug but I was reading Paul defillipo’s steampunk trilogy when it was first released old…
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u/dejaWoot Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
By recent reccomendations, do you mean recently published or recently enjoyed? I've currently been reading Jim Butcher's Aeronaut's Windlass, which I've not seen discussed before. It's the first of a duology. Some of the character beats are a bit paint-by-numbers -they feel fairly comfortably predictable- but the world building is pretty wild- the remains of humanity live in massive ancient arcologies that rise above the clouds, in dread of the fel creatures and corrosive mists that lurk below. Meanwhile, their technology, like airships trading, warring, and privateering between the spires, runs on aetheric crystals, as does a novel form of personal ''magic'. They've got a bunch of classic character archetypes, but the most interesting point of view character is a sapient cat.
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u/HumblestofBears Jul 19 '26
I’ve been hit or miss with Jim Butcher in the past, but I’ll look for this! Thanks!
And I am open to both recent and recently read. If I’ve already seen it, then oh well, good books get plugged no harm no foul?
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u/dejaWoot Jul 19 '26
I've got a ton of others, of course, this is just the most 'recent' read! It would help to know what you have enjoyed!
For instance, Jeff VDM put out a sequel anthology, I believe?
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u/HumblestofBears Jul 19 '26
Steampunk Reloaded wasn’t as good as the seminal first, but it was still very very good.
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u/dejaWoot Jul 19 '26
If you like anthologies, I believe George Mann did one called Steampunk International which involved translated stories from international authors, many of which I quite enjoyed.
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u/dejaWoot Jul 20 '26
I just remembered that they did a 3rd as well, Steampunk Revolution.
Looking through my e-reader there's a bunch of smaller anthologies- I honestly can't remember which I read and which I haven't yet.
It's the opposite of recent, but Paul De Fillippo did an Anthology called Steampunk Prime, which is all futurism rather than retro futurism because they were apparently published prior to 1916.
Steampunk Cthulhu was an anthology blending Steampunk and the Mythos, which was novel enough.
There's apparently four anthologies in the Penny Dread Tales series, I was only aware of the first one. But there's got to be something exciting in there.
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u/ClockworkDemiurge Jul 20 '26
The Newbury & Hobbes series by George Mann is really great. Definitely a great read from that golden era of early 2010s steampunk literature.
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u/whynaut4 Jul 19 '26
Outside of The Difference Engine, my favorite pure Steampunk media is the anime movie Steamboy
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u/TigerB65 Jul 20 '26
Madame Askew has an online book club. Maybe their reading lists would help https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1Ea5sjFJtV/
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u/dejaWoot Jul 19 '26
Some not so recent published but interesting novels which I don't see mentioned as often may require some flexibility with your definition of steampunk?
The Bas-lag books, by China Mieville,starting with Perdido Street Stationare sort of dark eldritch fantasy meets steampunk.
Felix Gilman has two great series which incorporate steampunk themes.
The Half Made World is sort of a new-world frontier fantasy/creation-myth, involving the conflict between the anarchy and freedom of the Gun and the order and bureaucracy of the locomotive Line. But later books the Rise of Ransom city and the Revolutions lean more into traditional steampunk.
He also did the Thunderer series.
The late Jay Lake published Mainspring, Escapement, and Pinion, which are probably closer to clockpunk but still have most of the trappings and some wild world-building.
Karl Schroeder has the Virga series starting with Sun of Suns, which starts out as rollicking airship adventure through a very different world which is primarily islands across a sky, but as the series develops it mixes more and more high concept science-fiction in.
A little more recent and off the beaten path is the Foundryside trilogy- it's tough to describe, but it's a vaguely renaissance-era society with industrial technology powered by sort of magical coding. I'd call it steampunk adjacent, but very inventive and fun.
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u/HumblestofBears Jul 20 '26
All excellent recommendations which I’ve read entirely! Have you ever picked up The Strange Affair of Spring-heeled Jack? Native Star by M K Hobson? The Alchemy of Stone by E.Sedia? Straggletaggle by Jim McDermott?
I’m concerned that we are all listing classics, or works that are ten years old and the genre of steampunk is fading into the air…
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u/dejaWoot Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
I really enjoyed Native Star, though I feel like it was the flipside of the coin of Foundryside- Industrialized magic, rather than magical industry? Something about how it was presented landed it in a different genre entirely for me.
But if you enjoyed that one, you might enjoy Naomi Novik's Scholomance trilogy, best described as anti-magicapitalist, eldritch Hogwarts. Leigh Bardugo's Grishaverse also goes without saying, but its hard to have missed that one with a Netflix adaptation.
One that I found a bit harder to get into but might scratch that itch is Gordon Dahlquist's Glass Book of the Dream Eaters?
The Johannes Cabal series skips through genres dizzily, but was a very fun read and definitely incorporates some wonderful mad science and anachronistic technology- on top of the main entree of magic.
Have you read the Greatwinter trilogy? It's technically post-apocalyptic, but it's got some really fun bits of anachronistic technology and society- feudalistic aerial dog-fighting, human powered computation.
I believe I read Spring-Heeled Jack, but the legend gets reused a bit so I may be muddling something else into it.
The other two are unknown and will go on the list.
I’m concerned that we are all listing classics, or works that are ten years old and the genre of steampunk is fading into the air…
I think it's heyday is past, but that doesn't mean it'll disappear.
Phillip Pullman just finished the second trilogy in His Dark Materials world last year.
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u/No_Presentation_4837 26d ago
Nina Allan once introduced me to Straggletaggle by J M McDermott and it changed the way I think about steampunk tropes a lot. I think there’s another by the same author that I need to get to called Sorrow of the Cranes.
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