All Steamed Up

Steampunk. I can hear you now—what is it and why would I want to read it? Sounds like something your goth brother-in-law would have on his bookshelf, so you’d never touch it, right? WRONG! Steampunk romance marries four of my favourite things: history, sci-fi, PNR and love.

For those of you unfamiliar with the genre, steampunk is the illegitimate love child of Victorian literature and cyber-punk sci-fi. Polar opposites, yes, but in reality, a match made in heaven. These books tend to explore the social mores of the Victorian era with its tightly hierarchical society while pairing it with an alternate, more technologically advanced history. This means that you can have a woman dressed traditionally in corset, bustle and hoop skirt (chaperoned, of course) taking a trip by ‘airship’ whilst being waited on by her mechanical butler. The best steampunk authors do this so seamlessly, you’d question whether history as you know it really happened.

Though it doesn’t have to, the steampunk genre is ripe for supernatural and paranormal elements to hijack a story. Because we are already suspending disbelief when we accept a Victorian world with technologically advanced elements, it’s easy to also accept vampires, werewolves, necromancers, witches and their ilk as being part of the social fabric of the time.

I read my first steampunk romance when I was given a copy of Gail Carriger’s Soulless in 2010. I’ve always loved paranormal romance but was going through a phase where I couldn’t put down Jane Austen’s books, so a friend gave me her copy of Soulless to read. I finished it in a night, laughing out loud on many occasions (much to my husband’s sleepy disgust) and bought the eBook the next day. Carriger managed to marry a Victorian comedy of manners with a paranormal romance in an alternate history, and she sucked me right in. I’ve reread it so many times, I know lines by heart.

Meljean Brook’s The Iron Duke was next, and the premise was a lot darker, yet just as compelling. Victorian era, post-zombie apocalypse, lots of interesting tech—so much to love! Her books became a bit of an obsession for me. Melanie Karsak wove fairy tales into her steampunk world with Curiouser and Curiouser: A Steampunk Alice in Wonderland, and I devoured all of her Steampunk Fairy Tales series. Then her Airship Racers series. Did I mention I’m one of those readers? The ones who finish all your books and get cranky when you’re too slow writing the next?

Bec McMaster has been my latest obsession. Vampires basically ruling Victorian London? Yes please! Her London Steampunk series starts with a bang with Kiss of Steel and each subsequent book only gets better. If you’re after something less on the paranormal and more on the mechanical or alternate history side, Iron Heart by M.C Dalton and Melanie Page (also RWA members) mixes mechanics and medicine in an unusual Victorian cocktail you’re guaranteed to love.     

 Most Steampunk Romances are slow burn, behind closed-doors romance, though they get steamier if that floats your boat. Or should I say, ‘your airship’? Lots of the tropes associated with PNR books are present in Steampunk Romance, so those PNR fans looking to try something new will still be satisfied, while Historical Romance fans will appreciate a different take on what history could have looked like. As a fan of both Historical and Paranormal Romance, Steampunk is the perfect way for me to get a fix of both at the same time.

Oops. Now I sound like a junkie. And I’ve probably just shot my credibility to pieces. But the reality is, looking behind us through steampunk goggles helps us to question the decisions made in our past and consider whether the present we live in needs some…adjusting. After all, you can’t immerse yourself in steampunk without acceptance of diversity. And even in an alternate Victorian England, there are those who stand up for the greater good of all.

So if you haven’t tried one yet, lace up your corset (or fasten your stays), put on your top hat and gloves and stroll to your local bookshop. Pick up a Steampunk Romance and prepare to be whisked away on an adventure you won’t forget.