Hello.

[winterwood]

I've been interested in steampunk for a while now but have only really browsed through it on the internet and such. Any suggestions for good books and movies would be greatly appreciated (movies especially, since I don't really have the money or time to read much lately). Thanks~

Comments

[bliumchik]

Has your internet browsing included Girl Genius? IDK what you mean browse so I thought I'd check :P

There are not many good steampunk movies so I'm afraid you're gonna have to make do with reading :P although comics take up less time? League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic is wonderful - people tell me horrible things about the movie though :/

[jack_of_none]

For movies, I would name The Prestige, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, Laputa: Castle in the Sky, and The City of Lost Children. Van Helsing and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen are, to my mind, not as good, but they're plenty fun to look at.

For books, a lot of the old scientific romances are available for free online, since they're out of copyright. The Gutenberg Project has a lot of works by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, and H.G. Wells, just for starters, and Librivox has a lot of free audiobooks of similar stuff.

Other recommendations for books, well...I'd say China Mieville's Bas Lag series (Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and Iron Council) are at the top of the list, along with Phillip Reeve's Larklight (an absolutely delightful children's book in the style of a boy's own adventure novel, set in a Victorian idea of outer space). Or, at least those would be MY top choices. Other stuff I'd recommend would be Jay Lake's Mainspring, D.M. Cornish's Monster Blood Tattoo series, Gregory Keyes' Age of Unreason series (though it's a bit earlier than most steampunk is set), and Phillip Reeve's Hungry City Chronicles. Some of these are YA books...I read a lot of YA fantasy, sorry : /

[jack_of_none]

Oh, and it doesn't really contain fantastic technology or anything, but I can't help but mention Roger Zelazny's A Night in the Lonesome October, a fantasy set in the Victorian era told from the point of view of Jack the Ripper's faithful dog.

[v15u4l3rr0r]

Wild Wild West, whilst it's not the most taxing film ever, it's fun and has steam punkery in it. Also Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to a degree I feel.

[winterwood]

More along the lines of just checking out different communities and reading a bit about it. :) I actually wrote the first chapter of a story that I guess could be considered steampunk, but I haven't really worked on it more since then. :P

I've seen the movie, but I haven't read the comic. I'll be sure to check it out, thanks~

[winterwood]

Thanks so much for all of the suggestions. I read alot of YA books to, so it's no problem. n___n I've seen Hellboy and Laputa (one of my favorites). I remember reading about The City of Lost Children, but had forgotten all about it. I'm glad you reminded me of it.

[winterwood]

I love Wild Wild West! It helps that Will Smith is in it, of course. xD Thanks for the suggestions.

[bliumchik]

Well Girl Genius is a webcomic which is very awesome and full of steampunk :)

[winterwood]

Sounds interesting. You wouldn't happen to have a link by any chance, would you? Or can I find it pretty easy with Google?

[bliumchik]

Yeah it should be first result.