What book are you reading right now? (2010)

[Guzzlecrank]

move on to The Lives and Times of Jerry Cornelius!

Excelsior! Last night, I bought my first copy of The Cornelius Chronicles, Vol. II, which contains both "Lives and Times" and "The Entropy Tango". An odd circumstance...I'm on a business trip and found a used bookstore open at quarter to ten, and it wasn't a porn shop (or connected to a porn shop), either!

[In_Loos_Ptokai]

Just opened "the best of Albert Wendt's short stories", by Albert Wendt, of course. I've jst finished "Declaration of Independence" - it reminds me of "Leaves of the Banyan Tree" in part, and "Sons for the Return Home", as well. Sadly I haven't read any Albert Wendt for over twenty years, so I though it was about time to open him up again.

A Maori elder I met in 1989, met him and liked him at Teachers College. He's a brilliant writer, a must-read. Though he isn't as slap-stick funny as Epeli Hau'ofa - if you've never read "Kisses in the Netherends", or "Tales of the Tikongs", you don't know what you're missing!

[thingfish]

move on to The Lives and Times of Jerry Cornelius!

Excelsior! Last night, I bought my first copy of The Cornelius Chronicles, Vol. II, which contains both "Lives and Times" and "The Entropy Tango". An odd circumstance...I'm on a business trip and found a used bookstore open at quarter to ten, and it wasn't a porn shop (or connected to a porn shop), either!

Thats what we need more of GC,late night bookshops!
That was a killer find btw.

[Governor of Rowe Island]

Finished Chatterton and loved it. Moved on now to Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds. Bit early yet to form too much of an opinion, but I get the feeling I may like this series of books.

[AllenBG]

I'm working through my Robert E Howard non-Conan books. I'm currently on "King Kull".

[Wolfshead]

Clavell's Tai Pan

[thingfish]

Am continuing all things Cornelius with Una Persson and Catherine Cornelius in the 20th Century.

[Governor of Rowe Island]

Started An Expensive Place to Die, the Deighton I picked up yesterday. About a third of the way through and I do believe Len is showing off a bit with his knowledge of French slang from the period it was written.

[Kevin McCabe]

Well, I did just receive The New Nature of the Catstrophe and should join TF. But, my brain is too burnt from the last couple of months of work to really be reading Jerry. I'm off in search of more Asaro. (She renders quantum mechanics, special relativity, and advanced chemistry a tad easier to follow than our favorite harlequin )

[UncleDes]

HG Wells - War of the Worlds

Still uses the word "tumult" too frequently....

Excellent fiction - was this the first "steampunk" novel?

Des

[Pebble]

HG Wells - War of the Worlds

Still uses the word "tumult" too frequently....

Excellent fiction - was this the first "steampunk" novel?

Des

I keep on thinking I must go over to Horsell Common as I think there is a plaque to the Martiain Landing! Woking has both a tripod (more Jeff Wayne than Victorian retro) and a partially buried cyclinder in the town streets. Might have some photos somewhere.

Wells War of the Wars is a Victorian Scientific Romance. So it can't be a retro genre - now if it was set in the 17th Century. IMHO, The Warlord of the Air is first Steampunk novel or at least its Godfather.

[thingfish]

I would say Wells' The War in the Air is the first steampunk novel.

[David Mosley]

From Wikipedia article on Steampunk:

Proto-steampunk
Steampunk was influenced by and often adopts the style of the 19th century scientific romances of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Mark Twain, and Mary Shelley.[2]

Several works of fiction significant to the development of the genre were produced before the genre had a name. Titus Alone by Mervyn Peake, published in 1959, anticipated many of the tropes of steampunk.[3] Quite possibly one of the earliest mainstream manifestations to invoke the steampunk ethos was the original The Wild Wild West television series that ran on CBS from 1965 to 1969, while the 1999 film remake of the series was one of the first contemporary steampunk motion pictures.[2][4]

Keith Laumer made an early contribution to the genre with his Imperium series of which the first installment, Worlds of the Imperium, was published in 1962. Ronald W. Clark's 1967 novel Queen Victoria's Bomb has been cited as another early influence upon the genre,[5] as has Michael Moorcock's 1971 Warlord of the Air [6] (the first volume of Moorcock's steampunk trilogy A Nomad of the Time Streams, continued in 1974 and completed in 1981). Harry Harrison's 1973 novel A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah! portrays a British Empire of an alternate 1973 A.D., full of atomic locomotives, coal-powered flying boats, ornate submarines and Victorian dialogue.

Because he coined the term, K.W. Jeter's 1979 novel Morlock Night is typically considered to have established the genre.[7]

In other words, because Wells and Verne pre-dated and influenced the genre they can't strictly be termed 'steampunk' in their own right although they are rightly considered antecedents. IMO Warlord is more properly an 'alternative history' novel rather than 'steampunk' in the pure sense, although I'm more than happy to see Mike take some of the credit for the genre.

[Governor of Rowe Island]

Another one that I'm surprised isn't mentioned is Christopher Priest's Fugue for a Darkening Island. While strictly an alternate history story (but aren't all steampunk stories?), it has much to identify it with the genre, albeit not smack in the middle of it.

[Kevin McCabe]

I think WotA is steampunk. I agree with the delineation of Verne and Co based on the fact those folks were imagining the future while modern steampunk, like Stephenson's "Diamond Age," often imagines a different future where alternate technologies dominate. WotA imagines a different past where alternate technologies dominate.
By the way, Devilchicken and Pebble mentioned a great steampunk movie in another thread. It's a B movie called "Captain Nemo and the Underwater City." Great flick. I saw it when I was a kid as the opening feature for "Return to the Planet of the Apes" at a drive-in theatre with my parents and kid sister.