Strange Horizons Reviews, June 20-24

It's alternative steampunk week at the Strange Horizons reviews department.  Brendan Byrne kicks things off with his review of Angry Robot's reprint of Infernal Devices by K.W. Jeter, one of the first steampunk novels, which Brendan views as a glimpse of what steampunk might have been without its propensity to view the past through rose-tinted glasses.  Chris Kammerud looks at another reprint, Fantagraphics's translation of Jacques Tardi's early graphic novel The Arctic Marauder, a work of "icepunk."  Finally, Adam Roberts reviews Jean-Christophe Valtat's Aurorarama.  Valtat is an author of literary fiction who responded to Charlie Stross's broadside against steampunk soon after it was posted, and Adam finds his approach to the subgenre more palatable than most.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that John Clute's column Scores also appears this week.  This time, John's topics are the Jonathan Strahan-edited anthology Engineering Infinity, which he finds disappointingly backwards-looking, and J.M. McDermott's Never Knew Another, which he praises, but with the caveat that it's the first volume in a trilogy and therefore defies definitive judgment.

Comments

Jessica Boggs said…
This is very interesting stuff here. Looking forward to seeing more of it. :)
June 24, 2011 11:17 PM

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