“What are the Best Steampunk Book?” We looked at 270 different titles, aggregating and ranking them so we could answer that question!

Take a break from operating your geared metallic dirigible and pick up one of the 270 different steampunk books we aggregated and ranked! The top 36 titles, all appearing on 4 or more lists, are ranked below with images, descriptions, and links. The remaining titles, as well as the sources we used, can be found at the bottom of the page.

Happy Scrolling!

The Top Steampunk Books

36 .) Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon

Lists It Appears On:

• The Best Sci Fi Books
• Steampunk Scholar
• The Artifice
• Abe Books

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.

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35 .) Extraordinary Engines by Nick Gevers

Lists It Appears On:

• Library Journal
• Wikipedia
• Abe Books
• Goodreads

Extraordinary Engines: The Definitive Steampunk Anthology assembles original stories by some of the genre’s foremost writers. Edited by Nick Gevers, this collection includes brand new stories by Stephen Baxter, Eric Brown, Paul Di Filippo, Hal Duncan, Jeffrey Ford, Jay Lake, Ian R. MacLeod, Michael Moorcock, Robert Reed, Lucius Shepard, Brian Stableford, Jeff VanderMeer and more.

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34 .) Morlock Night by K. W. Jeter

Lists It Appears On:

• Steampunk Workshop
• The Artifice
• The Ranting Dragon
• Wikipedia

JUST WHAT HAPPENED WHEN THE TIME MACHINE RETURNED? Having acquired a device for themselves, the brutish Morlocks return from the desolate far future to Victorian England to cause mayhem and disruption. But the mythical heroes of Old England have also returned, in the hour of the country’s greatest need, to stand between England and her total destruction.

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33 .) The Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher

Lists It Appears On:

• Fantasy Book Review
• Wikipedia
• Goodreads
• Renegade Revolution

“Since time immemorial, the Spires have sheltered humanity. Within their halls, the ruling aristocratic houses develop scientific marvels, foster trade alliances, and maintain fleets of airships to keep the peace.

Captain Grimm commands the merchant ship Predator. Loyal to Spire Albion, he has taken their side in the cold war with Spire Aurora, disrupting the enemy’s shipping lines by attacking their cargo vessels. But when the Predator is damaged in combat, Grimm joins a team of Albion agents on a vital mission in exchange for fully restoring his ship.

And as Grimm undertakes this task, he learns that the conflict between the Spires is merely a premonition of things to come. Humanity’s ancient enemy, silent for more than ten thousand years, has begun to stir once more. And death will follow in its wake. . . “

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32 .) The Court of The Air by Stephen Hunt

Lists It Appears On:

• Steampunk Books
• Ypsilanti District Library
• Wikipedia
• Goodreads

“When streetwise Molly Templar witnesses a brutal murder at the brothel she has recently been apprenticed to, her first instinct is to run back to the poorhouse where she grew up. But there she finds her fellow orphans butchered, and it slowly dawns on her that she was the real target of the attack. For Molly is a special little girl, and she carries a secret that marks her out for destruction by enemies of the state.

Oliver Brooks has led a sheltered existence in the backwater home of his merchant uncle. But when he is framed for his only relative’s murder he is forced to flee for his life, accompanied by an agent of the mysterious Court of the Air. Chased across the country, Oliver finds himself in the company of thieves, outlaws and spies, and gradually learns more about the secret that has blighted his life.

Soon Molly and Oliver will find themselves battling a grave threat to civilization, an ancient power thought to have been quelled millennia ago. Their enemies are ruthless and myriad, but the two orphans are also aided by indomitable friends in this endlessly inventive tale full of drama, intrigue, and adventure.”

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31 .) The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man by Mark Hodder

Lists It Appears On:

• Steampunk Books
• Fantasy Book Review
• Tor Books
• Goodreads

Mark Hodder’s second Burton & Swinburne steampunk adventure, following the acclaimed The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack, is filled with eccentric steam-driven technology, grotesque characters, and a deepening mystery. When a clockwork-powered man of brass is found abandoned in Trafalgar Square, Burton and his assistant, the wayward poet Algernon Swinburne, find themselves on the trail of the stolen Garnier Collection–black diamonds rumored to be fragments of the Lemurian Eye of Naga, a meteorite that fell to Earth in prehistoric times. From a haunted mansion to the Bedlam madhouse, from South America to Australia, from séances to a secret labyrinth, Burton struggles with shadowy opponents and his own inner demons. Can the king’s agent expose a plot that threatens to rip the British Empire apart, leading to an international conflict the like of which the world has never seen? And what part does the clockwork man have to play?

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30 .) The Half-Made World by Felix Gilman

Lists It Appears On:

• The Best Sci Fi Books
• Best Fantasy Books
• The Ranting Dragon
• Goodreads

“The world is still only half-made. Between the wild shores of uncreation, and the ancient lands of the East lies the vast expanse of the West—young, chaotic, magnificent, war-torn.

Thirty years ago, the Red Republic fought to remake the West—fought gloriously, and failed. The world that now exists has been carved out amid a war between two rival factions: the Line, enslaving the world with industry, and the Gun, a cult of terror and violence. The Republic is now history, and the last of its generals sits forgotten and nameless in a madhouse on the edge of creation. But locked in his memories is a secret that could change the West forever, and the world’s warring powers would do anything to take it from him.

Now Liv Alverhuysen, a doctor of the new science of psychology, travels west, hoping to heal the general’s shattered mind. John Creedmoor, reluctant Agent of the Gun and would-be gentleman of leisure, travels west, too, looking to steal the secret or die trying. And the servants of the Line are on the march.”

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29 .) The Land Leviathan by Michael Moorcock

Lists It Appears On:

• Steampunk Workshop
• Ypsilanti District Library
• Wikipedia
• Goodreads

Oswald Bastable visits an alternate 1904. Here, he discovers that most of the Western world has been devastated by a short, yet horrific, war fought with futuristic devices and biological weapons. An Afro-American Black Attila is conquering the remnants of the Western nations, destroyed by the wars, in an attempt to bring civilization and social order.

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28 .) The Scar by China Mieville

Lists It Appears On:

• Steampunk Books
• Fantasy Magazine
• Fantasy Book Review
• Ypsilanti District Library

“Aboard a vast seafaring vessel, a band of prisoners and slaves, their bodies remade into grotesque biological oddities, is being transported to the fledgling colony of New Crobuzon. But the journey is not theirs alone. They are joined by a handful of travelers, each with a reason for fleeing the city. Among them is Bellis Coldwine, a renowned linguist whose services as an interpreter grant her passage—and escape from horrific punishment. For she is linked to Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin, the brilliant renegade scientist who has unwittingly unleashed a nightmare upon New Crobuzon.

For Bellis, the plan is clear: live among the new frontiersmen of the colony until it is safe to return home. But when the ship is besieged by pirates on the Swollen Ocean, the senior officers are summarily executed. The surviving passengers are brought to Armada, a city constructed from the hulls of pirated ships, a floating, landless mass ruled by the bizarre duality called the Lovers. On Armada, everyone is given work, and even Remades live as equals to humans, Cactae, and Cray. Yet no one may ever leave.

Lonely and embittered in her captivity, Bellis knows that to show dissent is a death sentence. Instead, she must furtively seek information about Armada’s agenda. The answer lies in the dark, amorphous shapes that float undetected miles below the waters—terrifying entities with a singular, chilling mission. . .”

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27 .) Anno Dracula by Kim Newman

Lists It Appears On:

• Flashlight Worthy
• Wikipedia
• Abe Books
• Goodreads
• Ypsilanti District Library

“It is 1888 and Queen Victoria has remarried, taking as her new consort Vlad Tepes, the Wallachian Prince infamously known as Count Dracula. Peppered with familiar characters from Victorian history and fiction, the novel follows vampire Geneviève Dieudonné and Charles Beauregard of the Diogenes Club as they strive to solve the mystery of the Ripper murders.

Anno Dracula is a rich and panoramic tale, combining horror, politics, mystery and romance to create a unique and compelling alternate history. Acclaimed novelist Kim Newman explores the darkest depths of a reinvented Victorian London.”

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26 .) Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare

Lists It Appears On:

• Reader Pants
• Yalsa
• Ypsilanti District Library
• Goodreads
• Wikipedia

“When Tessa Gray crosses the ocean to find her brother, her destination is England, the time is the reign of Queen Victoria, and something terrifying is waiting for her in London’s Downworld, where vampires, warlocks, and other supernatural folk stalk the gaslit streets. Only the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the world of demons, keep order amidst the chaos.

Kidnapped by a secret organization called The Pandemonium Club, Tessa learns that she herself is a Downworlder with a rare ability: the power to transform into another person. What’s more, the Magister, the shadowy figure who runs the Club, will stop at nothing to claim Tessa’s power for his own.

Friendless and hunted, Tessa takes refuge with the Shadowhunters of the London Institute, who swear to find her brother if she will use her power to help them. She soon finds herself fascinated by—and torn between—two best friends: James, whose fragile beauty hides a deadly secret, and Will, whose caustic wit and volatile moods keep everyone in his life at arm’s length…everyone, that is, but Tessa. As their search draws them deep into the heart of an arcane plot that threatens to destroy the Shadowhunters, Tessa realizes that she may need to choose between saving her brother and helping her new friends save the world…and that love may be the most dangerous magic of all.”

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25 .) The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by Gordon Dahlquist

Lists It Appears On:

• Library Journal
• The Artifice
• Ypsilanti District Library
• Wikipedia
• Goodreads

“It starts with a simple note. Roger Bascombe regretfully wishes to inform Celeste Temple that their engagement is forthwith terminated. Determined to find out why, Miss Temple takes the first step in a journey that will propel her into a dizzyingly seductive, utterly shocking world beyond her imagining.

Nothing could have prepared Miss Temple for the things she would find behind the closed doors of forbidding Harschmort Manor: men and women in provocative disguise, acts of licentiousness and violence, heroism and awakening. But she will also find two allies: Cardinal Chang, a brutal assassin with the heart of a poet, and a royal doctor named Svenson, at once fumbling and heroic—both of whom, like her, lost someone at Harschmort Manor.

As the unlikely trio search for answers, hurtling them from elegant brothels to gaslit alleyways to shocking moments of self-discovery, they are confronted by puzzles within puzzles. And the closer they get to the truth, the more their lives are in danger. For the conspiracy they face—an astonishing alchemy of science, perverted religion, and lust for power—is so terrifying as to be beyond belief.”

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24 .) The Steampunk Bible: An Illustrated Guide to the Imaginary World of Airships, Corsets and Goggles, Mad Scientists, and Strange Literature by Jeff Vandermeer and S.J. Chambers

Lists It Appears On:

• Josh Punk
• Renegade Revolution
• Abe Books
• Ypsilanti District Library
• Reader Pants

Steampunk—a grafting of Victorian aesthetic and punk rock attitude onto various forms of science-fiction culture—is a phenomenon that has come to influence film, literature, art, music, fashion, and more. The Steampunk Bible is the first compendium about the movement, tracing its roots in the works of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells through its most recent expression in movies such as Sherlock Holmes. Its adherents celebrate the inventor as an artist and hero, re-envisioning and crafting retro technologies including antiquated airships and robots. A burgeoning DIY community has brought a distinctive Victorian-fantasy style to their crafts and art. Steampunk evokes a sense of adventure and discovery, and embraces extinct technologies as a way of talking about the future. This ultimate manual will appeal to aficionados and novices alike as author Jeff VanderMeer takes the reader on a wild ride through the clockwork corridors of Steampunk history.

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23 .) The Steampunk Trilogy by Paul Di Fillipo

Lists It Appears On:

• Library Journal
• Fantasy Magazine
• Ypsilanti District Library
• Wikipedia
• Goodreads

“Welcome to the world of steampunk, a nineteenth century outrageously reconfigured through weird science. With his magnificent trilogy, acclaimed author Paul Di Filippo demonstrates how this unique subgenre of science fiction is done to perfection—reinventing a mannered age of corsets and industrial revolution with odd technologies born of a truly twisted imagination.

In “Victoria,” the inexplicable disappearance of the British monarch-to-be prompts a scientist to place a human-lizard hybrid clone on the throne during the search for the missing royal. But the doppelgänger queen comes with a most troubling flaw: an insatiable sexual appetite. The somewhat Lovecraftian “Hottentots” chronicles the very unusual adventure of Swiss naturalist and confirmed bigot Louis Agassiz as his determined search for a rather grisly fetish plunges him into a world of black magic and monsters. Finally, in “Walt and Emily,” the hitherto secret and quite steamy love affair between Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman is revealed in all its sensuous glory—as are their subsequent interdimensional travels aboard a singular ship that transcends the boundaries of time and reality.

Ingenious, hilarious, ribald, and utterly remarkable, Di Filippo’s The Steampunk Trilogy is a one-of-a-kind literary journey to destinations at once strangely familiar and profoundly strange.”

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22 .) Airborn by Kenneth Oppel

Lists It Appears On:

• Reader Pants
• Yalsa
• Ypsilanti District Library
• Wikipedia
• The Guardian
• Goodreads

“Sailing toward dawn, and I was perched atop the crow’s nest, being the ship’s eyes. We were two nights out of Sydney, and there’d been no weather to speak of so far. I was keeping watch on a dark stack of nimbus clouds off to the northwest, but we were leaving it far behind, and it looked to be smooth going all the way back to Lionsgate City. Like riding a cloud. . . .

Matt Cruse is a cabin boy on the Aurora, a huge airship that sails hundreds of feet above the ocean, ferrying wealthy passengers from city to city. It is the life Matt’s always wanted; convinced he’s lighter than air, he imagines himself as buoyant as the hydrium gas that powers his ship. One night he meets a dying balloonist who speaks of beautiful creatures drifting through the skies. It is only after Matt meets the balloonist’s granddaughter that he realizes that the man’s ravings may, in fact, have been true, and that the creatures are completely real and utterly mysterious.”

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21 .) Homunculus by James P. Blaylock

Lists It Appears On:

• The Best Sci Fi Books
• Library Journal
• Steampunk Workshop
• The Artifice
• The Ranting Dragon
• Abe Books

“It is the late 19th century and a mysterious airship orbits through the foggy skies. Its terrible secrets are sought by many, including the Royal Society, a fraudulent evangelist, a fiendish vivisectionist, an evil millionaire and an assorted group led by the scientist and explorer Professor Langdon St. Ives.

Can St. Ives keep the alien homunculus out of the claws of the villainous Ignacio Narbondo?”

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20 .) Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding

Lists It Appears On:

• The Best Sci Fi Books
• Best Fantasy Books
• Steampunk Books
• The Ranting Dragon
• Wikipedia
• Goodreads

“Sky piracy is a bit out of Darian Frey’s league. Fate has not been kind to the captain of the airship Ketty Jay—or his motley crew. They are all running from something. Crake is a daemonist in hiding, traveling with an armored golem and burdened by guilt. Jez is the new navigator, desperate to keep her secret from the rest of the crew. Malvery is a disgraced doctor, drinking himself to death. So when an opportunity arises to steal a chest of gems from a vulnerable airship, Frey can’t pass it up. It’s an easy take—and the payoff will finally make him a rich man.

But when the attack goes horribly wrong, Frey suddenly finds himself the most wanted man in Vardia, trailed by bounty hunters, the elite Century Knights, and the dread queen of the skies, Trinica Dracken. Frey realizes that they’ve been set up to take a fall but doesn’t know the endgame. And the ultimate answer for captain and crew may lie in the legendary hidden pirate town of Retribution Falls. That’s if they can get there without getting blown out of the sky.”

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19 .) The Affinity Bridge by George Mann

Lists It Appears On:

• The Artifice
• Fantasy Book Review
• Ypsilanti District Library
• Wikipedia
• Abe Books
• Goodreads

“Welcome to the bizarre and dangerous world of Victorian London, a city teetering on the edge of revolution. Its people are ushering in a new era of technology, dazzled each day by unfamiliar inventions. Airships soar in the skies over the city, while ground trains rumble through the streets and clockwork automatons are programmed to carry out menial tasks in the offices of lawyers, policemen, and journalists.

But beneath this shiny veneer of progress lurks a sinister side.

Queen Victoria is kept alive by a primitive life-support system, while her agents, Sir Maurice Newbury and his delectable assistant Miss Veronica Hobbes, do battle with enemies of the crown, physical and supernatural. This time Newbury and Hobbes are called to investigate the wreckage of a crashed airship and its missing automaton pilot, while attempting to solve a string of strangulations attributed to a mysterious glowing policeman, and dealing with a zombie plague that is ravaging the slums of the capital.”

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18 .) The Alchemy of Stone by Ekaterina Sedia

Lists It Appears On:

• The Best Sci Fi Books
• Fantasy Magazine
• The Ranting Dragon
• Abe Books
• Goodreads
• Bookriot

Mattie, an intelligent automaton skilled in the use of alchemy, finds herself caught in the middle of a conflict between gargoyles, the Mechanics, and the Alchemists. With the old order quickly giving way to the new, Mattie discovers powerful and dangerous secrets—secrets that can completely alter the balance of power in the city of Ayona. This doesn’t sit well with Loharri, the Mechanic who created Mattie and still has the key to her heart— literally.

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17 .) The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore

Lists It Appears On:

• Library Journal
• Fantasy Magazine
• Flashlight Worthy
• Impact Books
• Abe Books
• Goodreads

London, 1898. The Victorian Era draws to a close and the twentieth century approaches. It is a time of great change and an age of stagnation, a period of chaste order and ignoble chaos. It is an era in need of champions. In this amazingly imaginative tal

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16 .) Worldshaker by Richard Harland

Lists It Appears On:

• Best Fantasy Books
• The Ranting Dragon
• Reader Pants
• Ypsilanti District Library
• Wikipedia
• Abe Books

“Col Porpentine understands how society works: The elite families enjoy a comfortable life on the Upper Decks of the great juggernaut Worldshaker, and the Filthies toil Below Decks. Col’s grandfather, the Supreme Commander of Worldshaker, is grooming Col as his successor.

Used to keep Worldshaker moving, Filthies are like animals, unable to understand language or think for themselves. Or so Col believes before he meets Riff, a Filthy girl on the run who is clever and quick. If Riff is telling the truth, then everything Col has been told is a lie. And Col has the power to do something about it—even if it means risking his whole future.”

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15 .) Mainspring by Jay Lake

Lists It Appears On:

• Best Fantasy Books
• Library Journal
• Ypsilanti District Library
• Wikipedia
• Abe Books
• Goodreads
• Fantasy Book Review

“Jay Lake’s first trade novel is an astounding work of creation. Lake has envisioned a clockwork solar system, where the planets move in a vast system of gears around the lamp of the Sun. It is a universe where the hand of the Creator is visible to anyone who simply looks up into the sky, and sees the track of the heavens, the wheels of the Moon, and the great Equatorial gears of the Earth itself.

Mainspring is the story of a young clockmaker’s apprentice, who is visited by the Archangel Gabriel. He is told that he must take the Key Perilous and rewind the Mainspring of the Earth. It is running down, and disaster to the planet will ensue if it’s not rewound. From innocence and ignorance to power and self-knowledge, the young man will make the long and perilous journey to the South Polar Axis, to fulfill the commandment of his God.”

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14 .) The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson

Lists It Appears On:

• The Best Sci Fi Books
• Best Fantasy Books
• Flashlight Worthy
• Abe Books
• Goodreads
• Fantasy Magazine
• The Ranting Dragon

“Decades into our future, a stone’s throw from the ancient city of Shanghai, a brilliant nanotechnologist named John Percival Hackworth has just broken the
rigorous moral code of his tribe, the powerful neoVictorians. He’s made an illicit copy of a state-of-the-art interactive device called A Young Ladys Illustrated Primer Commissioned by an eccentric duke for his grandchild, stolen for Hackworth’s own daughter, the Primer’s purpose is to educate and raise a girl capable of thinking for herself. It performs its function superbly. Unfortunately for Hackworth, his smuggled copy has fallen into the wrong hands.

Young Nell and her brother Harv are thetes–members of the poor, tribeless class. Neglected by their mother, Harv looks after Nell. When he and his gang waylay a certain neo-Victorian–John Percival Hackworth– in the seamy streets of their neighborhood, Harv brings Nell something special: the Primer.”

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13 .) The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

Lists It Appears On:

• The Best Sci Fi Books
• Best Fantasy Books
• Fantasy Magazine
• Impact Books
• Reader Pants
• Yalsa
• Goodreads

“Lyra is rushing to the cold, far North, where witch clans and armored bears rule. North, where the Gobblers take the children they steal–including her friend Roger. North, where her fearsome uncle Asriel is trying to build a bridge to a parallel world.

Can one small girl make a difference in such great and terrible endeavors? This is Lyra: a savage, a schemer, a liar, and as fierce and true a champion as Roger or Asriel could want.

But what Lyra doesn’t know is that to help on of them will be to betray the other…”

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12 .) The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

Lists It Appears On:

• The Best Sci Fi Books
• Best Fantasy Books
• Library Journal
• The Artifice
• Reader Pants
• Abe Books
• Goodreads

H.G. Wells, a pioneer in the science fiction genre, produced awesomely imaginative novels whose technologies seem impossibly sophisticated for a writer living in an era before automobiles and the widespread application of electricity. In his work The Time Machine, Wells Time Traveller, a gentleman inventor living in England, traverses first thousands of years and then millions into the future, before bringing back the knowledge of the grave degeneration of the human race and the planet. One wonders if Wells could truly see into the future, as over 100 years after its publication date his visions seem timelier than ever.

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11 .) Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve

Lists It Appears On:

• The Best Sci Fi Books
• The Ranting Dragon
• Yalsa
• The Guardian
• Goodreads
• Fantasy Book Review
• Wikipedia
• Ypsilanti District Library

“Welcome to the astounding world of Predator Cities!

London is hunting again. Emerging from its hiding place in the hills, the great Traction City is chasing a terrified little town across the wastelands. Soon, London will feed.

In the attack, Tom Natsworthy is flung from the speeding city with a murderous scar-faced girl. They must run for their lives through the wreckage–and face a terrifying new weapon that threatens the future of the world.
“

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10 .) Soulless by Gail Carriger

Lists It Appears On:

• The Best Sci Fi Books
• Best Fantasy Books
• Library Journal
• Steampunk Scholar
• The Ranting Dragon
• Wikipedia
• Abe Books
• Goodreads

“Alexia Tarabotti is laboring under a great many social tribulations. First, she has no soul. Second, she’s a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette.

Where to go from there? From bad to worse apparently, for Alexia accidentally kills the vampire — and then the appalling Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous, and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate.

With unexpected vampires appearing and expected vampires disappearing, everyone seems to believe Alexia responsible. Can she figure out what is actually happening to London’s high society? Will her soulless ability to negate supernatural powers prove useful or just plain embarrassing? Finally, who is the real enemy, and do they have treacle tart?”

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9 .) Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

Lists It Appears On:

• Best Fantasy Books
• The Artifice
• The Best Sci Fi Books
• Flashlight Worthy
• Abe Books
• The Guardian
• Goodreads
• Fantasy Book Review

French naturalist Dr Aronnax embarks on an expedition to hunt down a sea monster, only to discover instead the Nautilus, a self-contained world built by its enigmatic captain. Together Nemo and Aronnax explore the underwater marvels, undergo a transcendent experience amongst the ruins of Atlantis, and plant a black flag at the South Pole. But Nemo’s mission is one of revenge – and his methods coldly efficient. Verne’s classic work has left a profound mark on the twentieth century. Its themes are universal, is style humorous and grandiose, its construction masterly.

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8 .) Steampunk by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer

Lists It Appears On:

• The Best Sci Fi Books
• Library Journal
• Flashlight Worthy
• The Ranting Dragon
• Tor Books
• Ypsilanti District Library
• Wikipedia
• Reader Pants
• Goodreads
• Steampunk Scholar

“Steampunk is Victorian elegance and modern technology: steam-driven robots, souped-up stagecoaches, and space-faring dirigibles fueled by gaslight romance, mad scientists, and oh-so-trim waistcoats. It’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Wizard of Oz, and The Golden Compass.

Replete with whimsical mechanical wonders and bold adventurers, this riveting anthology lovingly collects classic steampunk stories, pop culture–fueled discussions of steampunk, and essential recommended reading lists for the discerning steampunk fan.”

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7 .) Infernal Devices by K.W. Jeter

Lists It Appears On:

• Fantasy Magazine
• Goodreads
• Impact Books
• Library Journal
• Steampunk Scholar
• Steampunk Workshop
• The Artifice
• The Ranting Dragon
• Tor Books
• Wikipedia
• Ypsilanti District Library

When George Dower’s father died, he left George his watchmaker’s shop – and more. But George has little talent for watches and other infernal devices. When someone tries to steal an old device from the premises, George finds himself embroiled in a mystery of time travel, music and sexual intrigue.

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6 .) Perdido Street Station by China Miéville

Lists It Appears On:

• Best Fantasy Books
• Fantasy Book Review
• Flashlight Worthy
• Goodreads
• Library Journal
• Steampunk Books
• The Best Sci Fi Books
• The Ranting Dragon
• Tor Books
• Wikipedia
• Ypsilanti District Library

“Beneath the towering bleached ribs of a dead, ancient beast lies New Crobuzon, a squalid city where humans, Re-mades, and arcane races live in perpetual fear of Parliament and its brutal militia. The air and rivers are thick with factory pollutants and the strange effluents of alchemy, and the ghettos contain a vast mix of workers, artists, spies, junkies, and whores. In New Crobuzon, the unsavory deal is stranger to none—not even to Isaac, a brilliant scientist with a penchant for Crisis Theory.

Isaac has spent a lifetime quietly carrying out his unique research. But when a half-bird, half-human creature known as the Garuda comes to him from afar, Isaac is faced with challenges he has never before fathomed. Though the Garuda’s request is scientifically daunting, Isaac is sparked by his own curiosity and an uncanny reverence for this curious stranger.

While Isaac’s experiments for the Garuda turn into an obsession, one of his lab specimens demands attention: a brilliantly colored caterpillar that feeds on nothing but a hallucinatory drug and grows larger—and more consuming—by the day. What finally emerges from the silken cocoon will permeate every fiber of New Crobuzon—and not even the Ambassador of Hell will challenge the malignant terror it invokes . . .”

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5 .) The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers

Lists It Appears On:

• Best Fantasy Books
• Fantasy Book Review
• Fantasy Magazine
• Flashlight Worthy
• Goodreads
• Library Journal
• Steampunk Workshop
• The Best Sci Fi Books
• The Ranting Dragon
• Tor Books
• Wikipedia

Ace Books is proud to present this classic novel of time travel in a beautiful new trade edition. It took the fantasy world by storm a decade ago, and now fans can savor this Philip K. Dick Award-winner for the first time all over again. Only the dazzling imagination of Tim Powers could have assembled such an insane cast of characters: an ancient Egyptian sorcerer, a modern millionaire, a body-switching werewolf, a hideously deformed clown, a young woman disguised as a boy, a brainwashed Lord Byron, and finally, our hero, Professor Brendan Doyle.

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4 .) The Warlord of the Air by Michael Moorcock

Lists It Appears On:

• Abe Books
• Best Fantasy Books
• Fantasy Magazine
• Flashlight Worthy
• Goodreads
• Library Journal
• Steampunk Scholar
• Steampunk Workshop
• The Artifice
• The Ranting Dragon
• Wikipedia

“It is 1973, and the stately airships of the Great Powers hold benign sway over a peaceful world. The balance of power is maintained by the British Empire – a most equitable and just Empire, ruled by the beloved King Edward VIII. A new world order, with peace and prosperity for all under the law. Yet, moved by the politics of envy and perverse utopianism, not all of the Empire’s citizens support the marvelous equilibrium.

Flung from the North East Frontier of 1902 into this world of the future, Captain Oswald Bastable is forced to question his most cherished ideals, discovering to his horror that he has become a nomad of the time streams, eternally doomed to travel the wayward currents of a chaotic multiverse.”

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3 .) Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

Lists It Appears On:

• Abe Books
• Best Fantasy Books
• Bookriot
• Goodreads
• Impact Books
• Library Journal
• Steampunk Books
• Steampunk Scholar
• The Best Sci Fi Books
• The Ranting Dragon
• Tor Books
• Wikipedia
• Yak Max
• Ypsilanti District Library

“In the early days of the Civil War, rumors of gold in the frozen Klondike brought hordes of newcomers to the Pacific Northwest. Anxious to compete, Russian prospectors commissioned inventor Leviticus Blue to create a great machine that could mine through Alaska’s ice. Thus was Dr. Blue’s Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine born.

But on its first test run the Boneshaker went terribly awry, destroying several blocks of downtown Seattle and unearthing a subterranean vein of blight gas that turned anyone who breathed it into the living dead.

Now it is sixteen years later, and a wall has been built to enclose the devastated and toxic city. Just beyond it lives Blue’s widow, Briar Wilkes. Life is hard with a ruined reputation and a teenaged boy to support, but she and Ezekiel are managing. Until Ezekiel undertakes a secret crusade to rewrite history.”

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2 .) Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

Lists It Appears On:

• Abe Books
• Best Fantasy Books
• Fantasy Book Review
• Goodreads
• Josh Punk
• Reader Pants
• Steampunk Scholar
• The Artifice
• The Best Sci Fi Books
• The Guardian
• The Ranting Dragon
• Wikipedia
• Yalsa
• Ypsilanti District Library

“It is the cusp of World War I. The Austro-Hungarians and Germans have their Clankers, steam-driven iron machines loaded with guns and ammunition. The British Darwinists employ genetically fabricated animals as their weaponry. Their Leviathan is a whale airship, and the most masterful beast in the British fleet.

Aleksandar Ferdinand, a Clanker, and Deryn Sharp, a Darwinist, are on opposite sides of the war. But their paths cross in the most unexpected way, taking them both aboard the Leviathan on a fantastical, around-the-world adventure….One that will change both their lives forever.”

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1 .) The Difference Engine by William Gibson & Bruce Sterling

Lists It Appears On:

• Best Fantasy Books
• Fantasy Book Review
• Fantasy Magazine
• Flashlight Worthy
• Goodreads
• Library Journal
• Renegade Revolution
• Steampunk Scholar
• Steampunk Workshop
• The Best Sci Fi Books
• The Ranting Dragon
• Tor Books
• Wikipedia
• Ypsilanti District Library

1855: The Industrial Revolution is in full swing, powered by steam-driven cybernetic Engines. Charles Babbage perfects his Analytical Engine, and the computer age arrives a century ahead of its time. Three extraordinary characters race toward a rendezvous with the future: Sybil Gerard—fallen woman, politician’s tart, daughter of a Luddite agitator; Edward “Leviathan” Mallory—explorer and paleontologist; Laurence Oliphant—diplomat, mystic, and spy. Their adventure begins with the discovery of a box of punched Engine cards of unknown origin and purpose. Cards someone wants badly enough to kill for.

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The Remaining Best Steam Punk Books

The Best Steampunk Book Lists