Steampunkd [Mass Market Paperback]

Rabe and Greenburg compile an anthology filled with imagination and creativity with "Steampunk'd." Steampunk is set in the industrial age; approximately between 1830-1900. The one constant concept is that electricity has not been invented yet so everything runs on steam. Imagine grey colors, soot, brass and you've got steampunk.

The anthology has fourteen stories that take place in various setting ranging from the Americas to Africa. In "Chance Corrigan and the Tick-Tock King of the Nile," Chance pits wits against his foe Gavrilis. Who will win? In "Foggy Goggles," Gavin is a reporter who visits a famous inventor who has made snow in Arizona - but how bad will it ruin the environment? In "The Battle of Cumberland Gap," French forces threaten to make a stronghold in America by going through the Cumberland Gap. Can LT Landry stop them?

"Portrait of a Lady in a Monocle" is about a female inventor who is not highly regarded by her peers because she's a woman, but will she have the last laugh? In "Foretold" Maks is a seer who hunts down meteorites, but when he stops "seeing" will the competition get ahead?

"Echoer" is about an inventor, Brandon, who is building an airship. Can he convince the women he's in love with to help? In "Of a Feather," Kit and her crew find a prehistoric bird in South America, but will the competition steal the bird for themselves? In "Scourge of the Spoils," Constance has a chance to capture the elusive Dr. Ocularious, but can she haul him in?

"Edison Kinetic Light and Steam power" is a story about Thomas Edison. Will he blow himself up to find electricity? In "The Nubian Queen," Sahdi finds herself in the midst of international conflict on an African continent that flourished when Cleopatra and Mark Antony defeated Rome. "Opals from Sydney" is about a widow who owns an opal that animates objects. Will the opal fall into the wrong hands?

In "the Whisperer," Avery's whispers are like hypnotic suggestions. Can he save Lilly from death? "Imperial Changeling" is about the royal houses of Europe. Elisabeth and Ludwina are fey. Can they stop the evil Col. Ames from carrying out his plan? In "The Transmogification Ray," will Francis actually change lead to gold and stop the spies from stealing his discovery?

This anthology is fiction and will give the reader a nice flavor of the Steampunk genre. My favorite stories include "The Nubian Queen" and "Imperial Changeling" for their creative takes on history. "Steampunk'd" will take you on a heart-pounding airship ride around the world.

(This review, by me, originally appeared on Doctor Fantastique's Show of Wonders.)

Steampunk'd is a collection of short stories edited by anthology veterans Jean Rabe and Martin H. Greenberg. With such prestigious editors, a beautiful cover design, and publisher DAW Books on the spine, I had high hopes for this anthology that promises "14 original stories of what might have been if steam tech took different paths in the Victorian era."

The book opens with a story by best-selling novelist Michael A Stackpole, "Chance Corrigan and the Tick-Tock King of the Nile." The tale is fairly typical steampunk fare about an American engineer persuaded by a Greek tycoon to speed the construction of a dam over the Nile. The story is a rollicking, Indiana Jones-esque adventure, complete with a hard-drinking protagonist, giant mechanical spiders, and a beautiful antiquities expert disguised as a bellydancer. It's a fun read, but the setting and characters will be very familiar to anyone who reads the genre regularly.

A number of the stories in the anthology, however, dare to go where steampunk stories rarely do, taking us outside the typical Western settings and Caucasian, male protagonists to give us a taste of something truly new and different. Bradley P. Beaulieau's story "Foretold" takes us to the Ural Mountains of alternate-history Russia, where miners crew enormous "walkers" and do battle over fallen meteorites. The story follows the psychic in charge of predicting the descent of meteorites for a walker called the Braga, a man who is struggling with his own fading abilities and the rising star of his apprentice. Beaulieau pulled me into the alternate setting with convincing characters and a compelling mystery.

"Of A Feather," by Stephen D. Sullivan, takes place in alternate-history Brazil, along the Amazon river. A team of researchers, led by a woman, pursue endangered ranodons--yes, dinosaurs!--and try to evade a Russian military psychic whose assistants are mind-controlled Neanderthals. That description alone should convince you that this story is worth reading! Sullivan's characters are flawed enough to be believable and sympathetic, and the final scene had me grinning with satisfaction.

"The Nubian Queen," by Paul Genesse, is another great example of an atypical, and very effective, steampunk tale. Genesse takes the reader to alternate-history Africa, where Cleopatra's descendant, Queen Sahdi, sits on the throne of Egypt. A powerful, fascinating, larger-than-life character, Sahdi is faced with the choice of marrying the elderly King of Greece to prevent war and save her nation--but at what cost to her own heart? Airships and submarines ground this story in the steampunk tradition while the setting and characters take it somewhere wholly new and wonderful.

My favorite story in the collection was "The Whisperer" by Marc Tassin. This story is small in scope compared to many of the others--no airships or political dignitaries here--but it might be this small scope that makes the story so effective. Avery is a young man with the remarkable ability to "whisper" mechanical items into following his commands. When he's told that the love of his life, Lily, has been taken to the hospital and he can no longer see her, he finally braves the world outside his cell at the asylum to see her one last time. What results is a lyrical, heartfelt tale of love and the lengths to which we are willing to go for a chance at happiness.

Honorable mention must go to Matthew P. Mayo's "Scourge of the Spoils," a story in the Western tradition of True Grit, with its hardscrabble desert setting, a heroine in over her head, an unscrupulous guide, and a Sheriff hiding a tender heart behind the barrel of a gun. The character that really jumped off the page for me, however, was Doctor Ocularis, a brilliant scientist and cad, who rules the desert through trickery and guile. With predictable endings the norm in steampunk literature, the twist finale of this tale was a nice change.

Unfortunately there are a few tales in this anthology that concentrate on the tech of the alternate settings to the detriment of important elements like characterization and plot. There are, however, certainly enough excellent stories in this collection to warrant the cover price.

Steampunk'd was recommended to me and it wasn't a disappointment with the variety of vivid stories and adventures for my sci-fi desires.

I tend to make assumptions of where a story might lead to however Mary Louise Eklund's story, "Opals from Sydney," threw my expectations out the window of a steam powered zeppelin. This is a new genre for me and Mary Louise Eklund was able to write in this steam powered Victorian age a way I could easily imagine myself in an era without the technology currently surrounding me. It was a delightful and exciting read and I wish I could read more about Sydney's adventures with her amazing opals.

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