Steampunk has grown as a genre over the last few years and some very cool stuff has hit the shelves recently. Everyone has their favorites and we have compiled a list of the seven “must have” Steampunk books and games for fans to check out.

Steampunk

^[1]Replete with whimsical mechanical wonders and charmingly anachronistic settings, this pioneering anthology gathers a brilliant blend of fantastical stories. Steampunk originates in the romantic elegance of the Victorian era and blends in modern scientific advances—synthesizing imaginative technologies such as steam-driven robots, analog supercomputers, and ultramodern dirigibles. The elegant allure of this popular new genre is represented in this rich collection by distinctively talented authors, including Neal Stephenson, Michael Chabon, James Blaylock, Michael Moorcock, and Joe R. Lansdale.

Steampunk is available at Amazon.com ^[1].

Steamworks

^[2]Ever wish you could just toss a grenade into a room full of orcs? Or wish you had an automaton to scout out a booby trapped hallway? Or that you could let your fantasy characters explore the ruins of an ancient, technologically advanced civilization? If you’ve ever wanted to introduce a little bit of steampunk into your fantasy campaign, then you want Steamworks!

Steamworks is your ultimate guide to adding steampunk-style inventions, gadgets, gizmos, machines, and devices into your fantasy setting. This 165 page guide offers new classes, new skills and feats, new magic, new creatures, and of course new technology!

Steamworks is available at RPGNow.com ^[2].

The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer

^[3]In Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson took science fiction to dazzling new levels.

Now, in The Diamond Age, he delivers another stunning tale. Set in twenty-first century Shanghai, it is the story of what happens when a state-of-the-art interactive device falls in the hands of a street urchin named Nell. Her life—and the entire future of humanity—is about to be decoded and reprogrammed…

The Diamond Age is available at Amazon.com ^[3].

Steampunk Musha

^[4]Steampunk Musha is an alternative setting for Iron Gauntlets that features a Victoriental feudal land, torn between honoring the old traditions and embracing new technologies. It includes all new and original player races, such as clockwork ronin, the half-demon jinteki-oni, keshou (goblin cousins), and the juunishi-p’o (human-spiritual hybrids of the zodiac animals); new gimmicks, backgrounds, and vocations; two new forms of magic; new dueling, melee, and ranged weapons including firearms; and a bestiary that includes dangerous creatures, spirits, and oni.

Steampunk Musha is available at RPGNow.com ^[4].

Against the Day

^[5]The inimitable Thomas Pynchon has done it again. Hailed as “a major work of art” by The Wall Street Journal, his first novel in almost ten years spans the era between the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 and the years just after World War I and moves among locations across the globe (and to a few places not strictly speaking on the map at all). With a phantasmagoria of characters and a kaleidoscopic plot, Against the Day confronts a world of impending disaster, unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places and still manages to be hilarious, moving, profound, and so much more.

Against the Day is available at Amazon.com ^[5].

RunePunk: Steam and Shadow

^[6]Dark steampunk fantasy like no other. RunePunk is a complete Plot Point campaign setting officially licensed for Savage Worlds and requires the Savage Worlds roleplaying game to play. Inspired by the works of Mieville and Moorcock among others, RunePunk is a gaming experience like no other. Running 192 pages, RunePunk: Steam & Shadow is a beautifully illustrated, full color hardback book detailing everything you need to bring the dystopian city of ScatterPoint to life.

RunePunk: Steam and Shadow is available at RPGNow.com ^[6].

The Steampunk Trilogy

^[7]Steampunk is the twisted offspring of science fiction and postmodernism, a sassy, unpredictable tongue-in-cheek style of which the incomparable Paul Di Filippo is master. The three short novels in The Steampunk Trilogy are all set in a very alternative nineteenth century, and feature a mixture of historical and imaginary figures. In “Victoria,” a young and lissome Queen Victoria disappears from her throne and is replaced by a sexy human/newt clone. The race is on to find the original Victoria and to hide the terrible secret from the nation. In “Hottentots,” Massachusetts is threatened by monsters from the deep; in “Walt and Emily,” Emily Dickinson hooks up with a robust and lusty Walt Whitman, loses her virginity, and travels to a dimension beyond time where she meets the future Allen Ginsberg.

The Steampunk Trilogy is available at Amazon.com ^[7].

So many more…

This is just a small collection of cool Steampunk products to explore. So many more are available. Ranging from Anime like Steamboy ^[8] to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen ^[9] comic collection. Someone even built at Steampunk Laptop ^[10]. How cool is that?

What is your favorite Steampunk?