Crime & Mystery
Steampunk gets treated as a costume shop far too easily. This book was useful for pushing past that, because it keeps pulling the genre back towards what it is doing culturally, not just what it looks like.
That tension matters. The brass goggles and corsets are the easy bit. The more interesting question is whether steampunk is only nostalgia with better accessories, or whether it can actually say something sharper about history, class and power. The answer, happily, seems to be that it can do both.
That tension matters. The brass goggles and corsets are the easy bit. The more interesting question is whether steampunk is only nostalgia with better accessories, or whether it can actually say something sharper about history, class and power. The answer, happily, seems to be that it can do both.
The costume bit is often the least interesting part, which is probably why it gets overused in covers and blurbs. Steampunk has always seemed more useful when it’s allowed to be a bit awkward and political, not just decorative. I’m more interested when the machinery and manners are doing something to the story’s class tensions, rather than sitting there looking polished on a shelf.