Reading research progress: Four books down in just over a week. 

To get ready for my first round of edits on my novel, which I’ve been describing as steampunk adjacent in regards to genre, I felt I should read a bunch of steampunk books both to find pitfalls to avoid as well as potentially gain inspiration for new/revised content. Since my last post just over a week ago I finished The Lost Metal, The Brothers War, The Steampunk Trilogy, and The Aeronaut’s Windlass. The last two are proper steampunk. The first has qualities for sure, and the second was more of a filler book while I waited for the actual ones to arrive from the library. It too though had steampunk facets to it. Now, what was gained from over 1000 pages of genre-focused reading?

Observation 1: Transportation

Most readers know about the stereotypical airship trope in steampunk. Both The Lost Metal and Aeronaut’s Windlass had them, though the importance of each was drastically different. The Steampunk Trilogy had a nuclear powered train (for a page and a half), and even The Brothers War had flying ships of a sort.

Now I know transportation is integral to movement for most characters in most stories, but steampunk really integrates it into the story and the world itself. With such fantastical devices for their era, steampunk’s modes of transportation are a wonder and a backbone of the genre. And the fantastical thing about them? That’s observation 2.

Observation 2: Science! Or, magic. Or something…

I’m only four books in, so we’ll see how long this holds up, but it seems like in steampunk when you want something cool to exist/happen, just make up a reason for its existence. The Brothers War had powerstones and The Aeronaut’s Windlass had crystals. Both provided power and were essentially batteries in a world that didn’t have power otherwise. The Lost Metal, not strictly steampunk, used magic for their airships, and the most ridiculous of all, in the third story in the Steampunk Trilogy, a seeress’ lactation was used to transport a ship to purgatory (it’s a little more complication than that, but still very weird).

Excluding the trilogy, the science/magic/something that powered their technology was also intrinsically entwined in the culture and the world of the story. If a random thing just existed for the sake of coolness, it would seem like a cheat, but for these stories there is a function that not only allows the coolness to exist, but also colors the actions of the characters and the society.

My initial thought when starting my first draft was that I wanted to make everything theoretically possible. That somewhat went out the window in the prologue, but about halfway through I really pivoted from our reality to the reality of the world I was creating. These stories have definitely shown me how much that diversion is useful and needed in the genre.

Observation 3: Weirdness

The winner here for weirdness is The Steampunk Trilogy. When I was first looking up books to read the warning for this one was that it was weird. It is. So very, very weird. But it wasn’t the only one. Lost Metal has shapeshifting immortals. Brothers War has extradimensional techno-demons. Aeronaut’s Windlass has talking cats and hippo-sized spider-things. Weird.

While they were all weird, they were all enjoyable too. It seems that weird is just part of the genre. In my story I don’t have anything like that. At least not yet. Knowing the precedent is there allows for some creative storytelling. Or not. It’s not like these are exact standards to be followed.

Conclusion: 

Of the books, I felt the strongest were The Lost Metal and The Aeronaut’s Windlass. These not only had much better characterizations, but their technologies were integrated into their world in a grander and more seamless way. They presented not only compelling stories, something I believe to be paramount no matter the genre, but a world wholly unique and engaging.

My main takeaways from the readings revolved around technology integration as well as being able to distance myself from the realistic function of that technology. Of course there should still be rules for the technology, but those rules don’t have to obey the same laws of physics that we do. Already I’ve ideas for expanding current concepts as well as a few new ones.

What’s next?

More reading. I just today picked up from the library Infernal Devices, Boneshaker, The Anubis Gates, and The Difference Engine. Until next time, happy reading.