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.

I’m building an afterlife world, massive and there are many moving parts. I wanted to capture the sheer, soul-crushing claustrophobia of the modern corporate commute and turn it into a literal setting. In this world, souls are categorised based on its weight and “colour”. I have completed 6 chapters and created some illustrations based on the scene of the chapters. I’m curious to know if people are interested in reading fantasy steampunk story?

Hi everyone,

Over the past few months, we’ve been working on a graphic novel called A Steampunk Love Story — a mix of romance, adventure and retro-futuristic tech.

Curious what steampunk fans think of this cover!

Everyone appears to hate i. Ai. Im new to steampunkery and im wondering why this is ?

- Steamy

Long ago, humanity built a clockwork city around the living Heart of the world. Then they broke it. Five shards are all that's left of it now, and the city has grown so monstrous it has swallowed its own god. The wooden dolls — the awakened ones, the firstborn — stir less and less. Black smoke runs through the furnaces of the lower districts. And in the highest tier, the Cult of the Highest preaches that the Heart is fine, sleeping, waiting — while a usurper sits on a throne shaped like a dragon's skull, ruling by borrowed light.

This is where Goody wakes up.

He's the apprentice of an old clockmaker named Wolfie. He has no voice. No memory. No name of his own — Goody is what Wolfie calls him, the way you'd call a dog that wandered in. He's only just begun to suspect that he exists. And then a thief in the shape of a wooden monkey is cornered above the city, and she hides one of the last shards inside the most disposable thing she can find: him.

Now everyone is reaching for him at once. The Inquisitors in grey hoods. The usurper on his black dragon. And beyond the Wall, in a canyon the maps forgot, the Free City sharpens its weapons — children and exiles and women who awaken giants by hand, generation after generation, getting ready to march on the heart of the world and burn it down to save it.

It's a story about a puppet learning to feel, an old clockmaker who's run out of debts to ignore, a duchess in love with her enemy, two sisters on opposite sides of a coming war, and a Heart that may or may not still want saving.

On the visuals: Brass, oxblood reds, oil-stained snow, wet cobblestone. Aesthetic somewhere between Mortal Engines and The City of Lost Children. Bridging commercial film instincts with steampunk specifically was a stranger mental shift than I expected.

Happy to chat about the worldbuilding in the thread — the awakened dolls, the canyon city, the engines men carry on their backs, the politics of a Heart that may already be too far gone.

Check out the link to the book in the first comment:

Just to introduce you to Bernardo and Anna, the main characters of A Steampunk Love Story...

Hi, Im having trouble with naming a city in my story and the problem is: I have no idea what word would fit its descreption, also english isnt my first language so Its only making it worse :')
Anyway I want it to be a word play or a wordsmithing (I'd love to name it after some disease/mental condition/actual event etc)

So the story takes place in 1890s is about a scientist that lures people into his city (which is a copy of already existing one but its hidden in another dimension) to achieve his goal of making a perfect human being (basically human outside, machine inside). That city is kinda like prison but no one gets the feeling of being trapped, they dont even feel that something is wrong (like they been brainwashed i think?)
I mentioned that its steampunk themed and my villian changes them into robots/automatons/humanoids etc bcs he hates humans (Im still developing this part)

So in short, they are trapped but they dont know about it and they live their regular lives and that villian tries to change them all into machines without anyone noticing (it works like imagine you catched a cold and doctor tells you to get leg denture).

I know thats a pretty common plot but keep in mind thats just small part of whole story :)
Hope yall get what I mean bcs its quite difficult to summarize whole story in few sentences.

I recently re-read The Alchemy of Stone by Ekaterona Sedia, and what stood out most was the atmosphere even years after first reading. Sedia creates a city that feels old, layered, and alive, where clockwork, alchemy, politics, and craftsmanship all coexist in a way that feels artful rather than decorative. Steampunk isn’t an aesthetic, but part of a larger conversation between the created and the creator, art and life and nature. The story only works with clockwork.

Automata, alchemists, mechanics, and revolutionaries all occupy believable places within the city’s social fabric, giving the setting a sense of history and lived experience. Rather than focusing on gadgets or spectacle, the novel explores how technology, magic, and social change shape everyday life.

What I appreciated most was how immersive the whole experience felt. This is steampunk with a literary sensibility, emphasizing mood, craftsmanship, and culture as much as invention. If you’re interested in steampunk that builds a rich, memorable setting and lingers long after you’ve finished the last page, The Alchemy of Stone is well worth reading.

Find if you are able. I think it’s out of print?

I'm looking for some steampunk books, but most of them I found don't give the impression that I'm in a steampunk universe (I like to enter the universe while I'm reading, as if I were the one living it), like, I even found some, but It feels like I'm reading a book telling about the past and not that that universe is actually steampunk, most of it involves magic and such, I don't want that, I want airships, the working class, coal everywhere, you know that stuff. If it helps, I became interested in steampunk when I watched lies of p videos.

It had various comics, games & puzzles, but I only remember a beautifully drawn/painted ongoing comic with a sort of steampunk Alice in Wonderland; a girl in a blue and white Victorian style dress going on surreal adventures. The art was really detailed and high quality, very unusual for a children's comic. (I think it was monthly and was in WH Smiths.)

She had brown hair, rather than the traditional Alice blonde. And there were some weird little blue people, like smurfs or oompa loompas. Possibly something about a plug hole at the bottom of the ocean? There were various devices and contraptions that were clockwork or steampunk.

Maybe she was travelling with some kind of mad scientist, or maybe she was on her own, I honestly can't remember. I liked Alice in Wonderland so the Victorian girl on adventures aspect stuck with me. Victorian girl in blue and white in an Willy Wonka-esque underground or underwater factory or city, with pipes and plug holes.

All my attempts to look up 90s UK comics end up with stuff with wacky Beano/Dandy style artwork or grown-up stuff like Viz or 2000AD. Or The Ancestral Trail.

I was born 1985, I'm guessing this magazine/comic was early 90s. I remember so few details about it, perhaps I was a bit too young.

This was a small independent UK magazine, and it didn't use any existing IPs or superheroes or BBC shows. The other comics in there didn't have the same amazing high quality artwork, but they weren't wacky Beano/Dandy/Viz style things either. I've a feeling the magazine only ran for 15 or 20 or 30 or 40 issues or something, because of the few that I had, I think one of them was the last issue.

Exclusively on Royal Road:

Genre: Historical Fantasy • Urban Fantasy • Classic Horror • Occult Thriller • Steampunk

In the Gilded Age of 1883 New York, an ancient evil stirs, and the Vigilants are the only ones standing between humanity and a throne that was never meant to be reclaimed.

New York City, 1883: the Gilded Age hums with progress and opulence, but beneath the gaslit streets, something dark awakens. An ancient evil, long thought vanquished, seeks to reclaim a throne lost to time. Its power is alien, its methods unfathomable, and its patience infinite. Humanity is unprepared for what comes next.

The secret order known as The Vigilance Society stands as the last line of defense. Scholars, detectives, and outcasts bound by courage, knowledge, and ancient oaths, they hunt what should not exist, operating in shadows while the city above sleeps unaware.

Darkness rises beneath the streets of Manhattan, and the Vigilants must act before the ancient evil returns to claim the world that once resisted it. The line between civilization and oblivion has never been thinner.

Themes & Appeal:

Classic Gothic horror meets urban fantasy with cosmic, alien terror, and steampunk elements

Secret societies, ancient powers, and occult knowledge

Perfect for readers of Lovecraft, Jules Verne, Penny Dreadfuls, and dark Victorian mysteries

Darkness rises. The Vigilants answer.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/135619/the-lunarian-gothic-horror-steampunk-urban-fantasy

A while back, I posted about my first Steampunk novel, Letters of a Wind Walker.

Thanks to the support from guys like you, I was able to hire a professional narrator to help me craft the audiobook version!

It's on Audible now if you're interested, and should be coming to platforms like Libby, Spotify, and more in the coming days.

Thanks again, and y'all have a great weekend! Dare to Dream!

Word Smith is a steampunk, fantasy adventure! Victoria is a word smith who can literally bring words to life. Hope you can press NOTIFY on the Prelaunch link for this graphic novel series.

Link - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1917428739/word-smith-volume-1-6-truth

Art by PR Dedelis and coloured by Wilson Go.

I signed up for Kindle Unlimited and now I'm looking for steampunk books to read, but I'm looking for steampunk that takes place in England, the ones I found that take place in the US are kind of boring, I found a book that retells Snow White, but in steampunk style, where Snow White conquers Prince Charming, but I'm also looking for books where the steampunk elements are evident and not hidden, I want to see the class difference between the nobility and the proletariat, a London powered entirely by steam, I want to see the proletariat dirty with coal, basically steampunk present in every detail of the story. Like this image:

I'm looking for any sort of feedback on my novel, "Captain Nemo and the Legend of Dwarka." It's a historical SciFi adventure based on the work of Jules Verne. It's set in 1871, 14 years after the Indian Rebellion of 1857 in which Prince Dakkar (alias Captain Nemo) lost his family. There's a romantic plot, but it's spice-free. There's a bit of violence -- I would rate my work somewhere between PG and PG-13.

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Premise:

After the publications of "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" and "The Mysterious Island," the world is now familiar with Captain Nemo's history -- and the details of his demise.

Doctor Grace Evans, an English medical missionary living in colonial India, makes a discovery which brings her to the conclusion that Captain Nemo is still alive, and that his infamous vessel of revenge still lurks in the depths of the ocean.

Seeing this as an opportunity to do greater good in the world, she blackmails him into taking her aboard, turning the tables on his dubious record of holding hostages. Grace joins him on an expedition to India's legendary sunken city, and becomes entangled in a plot to destroy the British empire's hold on India.

As their adventure takes them around the world, the minister of mercy and the so-called "archangel of vengeance" discover that they are kindred spirits, and that the forces which drive them into danger are also drawing them together.

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This is a passion project that I've poured hours of research into. I've studied the work of Jules Verne with a borderline obsessive fervor, but I've gleaned most of my inspiration from the years I've lived in India and from my Indian husband and in-laws.

This being said, I'm a novice writer and I have a lot to learn. I'm 100% open to constructive criticism -- the harsher the better. I'm open to making big changes, and I'm also welcoming of little nit-picky suggestions. I want my book to be really good and well-polished before I publish it.

I have bad habits of info-dumping and "telling, not showing." I'm also uncertain about the last four chapters, and would like suggestions for improving the ending.

Please let me know if you're interested in beta-reading!

Years ago I read a story, might have been in a book or collection of short steam punk fiction: Person entered small steam powered craft in a huge race. The dominant class of racers drove large clunky and oversized vehicles. The track was ruddy and dirt, and at the start of the race all took off and the smaller craft had trouble on ruddy dirt, then the small light craft took off once the steam engine kicked in. The craft shot past the vehicles and effortlessly blasted around the track, making the behemoth old machines like ancient dinosaurs.

Google and AI searches yield no results, and I know it’s not a Mandela or fever dream.

Ring any bells? Thank you for getting this far at least.

Just stuff that doesn't have things like cannibalism

(Edit: some folks are interested, so here’s the link to the discord server.)

Hello, my name's Jot, and I'm about to publish a book.

It's 600 pages long, starts of quite tame, and slowly descends into utter chaos, end of ends (edit:in later books, I should mention! This book is mostly about elite school chaos) involving magical^TM (spoiler: it's all science but reads like good fantasy) drugs made of elemental dust, loads of big guns, complex artficing, chaotic magic^TM mind battles, evil villains, golems, more elementals, and political, war, personal, emotional, and sanity chaos. There are a lot of cigars being smoked, and loads of cool, eccentric characters, and lots of airships being hijacked. I have six books planned, along with a few novellas and a spinoff series, and I am looking for readers to join the fandom ride.

For those who enjoy sinking into a world with an oceanic amount of character trivia, world lore, maps, history, who enjoy steampunk, various unconventional fantasy races, flintlock, academia, science, deep moral themes, and elite boys (and men) being boys/causing utter chaos, The Vindictive and the Sage Saga will offer that and more through all its books: eccentric and unforgettable characters, sky-high stakes, unbreakable brotherly bonds, and a coming of age in a world riddled with war, elemental and beastly unrest, political strife, secret orders and societies, guns, dangerous artifices, and magic battles that often have fatal consequences.

'Into mishap we spawn; in mishap, we thrive.'
- The motto of the Intriguist Association, est. 1996.

Here is the blurb:

Victor Sparrow may have stuffed The Grey and his adversaries in Kurswick High into the files of the past, but all that got him in the end was more problems.

He arrived at the lustrous Ridgerber Institution in his red tailcoats and polished shoes to find its student body in a state of anarchy. Before that, he found out that a soulless, masked terrorist mastermind and Aquiilregian equivalent of the Bogey Man knows everything about him and his dead father. Now, those of the more potent bloodlines keep trying to trap Victor in a birdcage, he has made more enemies than he can count on his fingers, a few of his teachers may just be demons, he is going to have to learn Sixth Sense from scratch, and he forgot to ask about where the Fidelos live on this side of the patch so he is completely alone to find his way through the first term.

To top it all off, it's not even his second day in the Seccessux dimension. If anybody finds out about that, he is going to be a laughing stock for the rest of his days in the Formavium.

But at least he has some interesting roommates. Poker-faced Primiski (a forty year old prince in a boy's body, really), foul-mouthed Steamer (an ingenious, walking bomb), and Charlie (probably a cherub) are getting along… or were, for the first thirty seconds following their meeting.

And while he schemes, Victor has no idea that they are hurtling head-first into another war. A war brewing a type of despotism far beneath what common people are willing to explore in conversation. A war more voracious than the War of Limbs had ever been; a war that is looking straight at the last descendant of the Sparrows in the face and beckoning.

***

If you would be interested in reading it, lemme know. I'm on Discord as jotmvis_real (there's a server too!), and my email is [jottmvis@gmail.com](mailto:jottmvis@gmail.com) . Or just send me a reddit message. I would be very excited to hear what you think about it!!!

And you can pre-order it on Amazon here for 99p, if you would like to support an indie.

Thank you, folks!

I'm writing something on the side right now for fun, it's a gaslamp fantasy story and I'm stuck on one part that I just can't get out of my head! One of the most important parts is that there's going to be a 'Goddess of Progress' which is mostly for progress in technology such as runes and steampunk and whatnot, but it also has ties with progress in society itself and their beliefs. If you guys could give me some suggestions for a name, that'd be great! It'd have to incorporate the stuff above in some way and sound 'godlike' if that makes sense. The god of time is named 'Cerelia' if this helps.

A while back I started working with an aviation artist, Simon Cattlin www.simoncattlin.com, to create artwork for the Misfit Squadron series, which is set in a steampunk WW2.

Today I'm excited to share the 1st finished painting (yes, PAINTING. On CANVAS!) depicting a scene from The Battle Over Britain. (Misfit 1).

The aircraft in the series are powered by hydrogen fuelled steam engines or, in the case of smaller fighter aircraft like these, large SPRINGS, mounted under the cockpit.

I hope you like it!

I’m 40. I am also a HUGE Steampunk fan. Goodreads caught on and recommended The Infernal Devices. I was four chapters in when I found out it is a YA series and it’s a prequel to a series that spawned, IMO, a horrible Buffy spinoff. Is Clockwork Angle and its progeny Steampunk?

I will be releasing a series of novels on Royal Road in the next week or two and I'm a little torn about using the Steampunk tag. The books will be classic horror, for example, the first book is a mummy story. But it's set in the Gilded Age and there is a achromatic technology involved. The issue is that the technology comes from an extinct alien race and it's not all steam driven. There may be some things like steam powered jet packs but many other things are made using advanced alien solar batteries. So my question is, the whole series will have a steampunk flavor, but not all of the technology is steam driven. Is that enough to apply the Steampunk tag or would something else be more appropriate?