Start Reading, Watching or Playing

Your first steps into steampunk

Five doors, one for each mood. Each pick is chosen because it rewards a newcomer instead of quietly testing them on Babbage trivia at the threshold.

If you want to read

Start with a book

Adventure first, brass second. These reward the page-turner before the engineer.

Post-apocalyptic Steampunk Mortal Engines 2001 · Novel Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines is essential YA steampunk, imagining post-apocalyptic traction cities and mobile London.

YA Core / Biopunk-Steampunk Leviathan 2009 · Novel Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan is essential YA steampunk, setting Clanker machines against Darwinist biotech in alternate WWI.

YA Steampunk-adjacent / Airship Adventure Airborn 2004 · Novel Kenneth Oppel's Airborn is a YA steampunk-adjacent airship adventure, full of alternative-world travel and skyfaring romance.

Core Steampunk Fantasy The Court of the Air 2007 · Novel Stephen Hunt's The Court of the Air is core secondary-world steampunk fantasy, with airships, revolution and ancient powers.

If you want to watch

Start on screen

Two hours, no homework. The warmest welcomes the genre has filmed.

Core Anime Steampunk Castle in the Sky 1986 · Anime film Hayao Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky is core anime steampunk, full of air pirates, Laputa, lost technology and skyward adventure.

Gaslamp / Steampunk Fantasy Howl's Moving Castle 2004 · Anime film Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle is gaslamp steampunk fantasy, mixing witchcraft, walking machinery and anti-war air fleets.

Core Anime Steampunk Steamboy 2004 · Anime film Katsuhiro Otomo's Steamboy is core anime steampunk, set in Victorian Britain around steam power, industry and war.

Gaslamp / Dieselpunk fantasy adjacent Arcane 2021 · Animated series Arcane is gaslamp and dieselpunk-adjacent animated fantasy, using hextech, class conflict, industrial design and the divided cities of Piltover and Zaun.

If you want to play

Start with a game

Worlds you can walk around in, from frozen cities to whale-oil capitals.

Core survival steampunk Frostpunk 2018 · Video game Frostpunk is 11 bit studios' survival steampunk city-builder of coal furnaces, frozen apocalypse, social ethics and desperate lawmaking.

Whalepunk / steampunk-adjacent Dishonored 2012 · Video game Dishonored is Arkane Studios' 2012 stealth action game of plague, whale-oil technology, occult powers and class decay in Dunwall.

Core interactive Vernean 80 Days 2014 · Video game 80 Days is Inkle's interactive Vernean adventure, reworking Around the World in Eighty Days with automata, airships and branching travel.

Diesel/steampunk-adjacent BioShock Infinite 2013 · Video game BioShock Infinite is a 2013 game of Columbia, a floating city shaped by American exceptionalism, sky-lines, retrofuturism and quantum weirdness.

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