Suggested VSF reading?

[Chairface]

The Peshawar Lancers by SM Stirling.

[Mancha]

The Peshawar Lancers by SM Stirling.

I keep wishing he'd come out with a continuation of that book.   

[Cosmotiger]

There is also a Michael Moorcock book called The Warlord of the Air which I also enjoyed reading.

I was going to suggest the Oswald Bastable books by Moorcock myself. The Land Leviathan???  Think there are at least three.

The Steel Tsar is the other one.

A good VSF graphic novel is "Scarlet Traces," which is a sequel to "War of the Worlds."

[Malamute]

A good VSF graphic novel is "Scarlet Traces," which is a sequel to "War of the Worlds."

Ahh yes, I had forgotten that one, its a great read.

[Doug ex-em4]

Thanks for the ideas everyone. A quick on-line scan of Herefordshire libraries doesn't give much hope for finding any of the recommendations there (although I haven't searched for them all yet) so I've dropped a little money on Amazon to gt me started.

Doug

[Malamute]

Thanks for the ideas everyone. A quick on-line scan of Herefordshire libraries doesn't give much hope for finding any of the recommendations there (although I haven't searched for them all yet) so I've dropped a little money on Amazon to gt me started.

Doug

What have you purchased?

[Doug ex-em4]

[/quote]

What have you purchased?
[/quote]

Just Peshawar Lancers and Digging Leviathan to start off.

Doug

[dampfpanzerwagon]

One more!

STARCROSS by Philip Reeve, a childrens story - but just full of fantastic illustrations.  At 49 years old, I really enjoyed the humour!

Tony
http://dampfpanzerwagon.blogspot.com/

[v_lazy_dragon]

I blame the kids books I read a few years ago for getting me into VSF - Phillip Reeves 'Mortal engines' series has a fairbit of steampunk insperation, even if the setting is more dieselpunk-post apocalypse... another good source are Phillip Pullman's 'Dark Materials' series, as these do have some good steampunk elements in a couple of the settings. (As kids... sorry, 'Young adults'... books, they should both be in the library )

[Will Bailie]

Well, I'm jumping in late on this thread (as usual) but I just noticed that no one has suggested "The Strictest School in the World", by our very own Howard Whitehouse (sometimes known as Mexican Jack Squint)!

[leadfool]

The basic principle of Victorian Sci Fi (VSF) is that any technology that the writers of the era thought would work in fact does.  Burroughs and Wells of course are the two main authors of the era.
The other idea is to read books about the actual time period and then sort of take off from there.  Howard Whitehouses "Wars in Africa" is great.  Byron Farwell did several books on the period, "Eminent Victorian Soldiers," "Mr. Kipling's Army",  and best of all, "Queen Victoria's Little Wars."  Don't confuse the latter for HG Wells' "Little Wars," which is essentiall the first set of war game rules.  You might also read "War on the Nile" by Michael Barthorp, "Great Zulu Battles" by Ian Knight or "The Washing of the Spears" by Donald R. Morris.  Neal Ascherson's "The King incorporated" is about the Belgain Congo.  You might also pick up any book on the history of Canada, South America, Asia etc. 

VSF has several rules sets for gaming, my favorite is Rampant Colonialism. 

There is lots of modern alternate history set in this period, especially based around the idea of the Confederacy not being defeated in the Civil War (thereby becoming the Second American Revolution)  The best is the book "How few remain" by Harry Turtledove, which then leads to a series of 9 more books that take the theme up to the end of WWII.


My game group here in Sacramento likes to take historical events and twist them into our VSF games.  So we have had battles not only in Africa or Asia but lots of battles in Mexico and Canada.  Mexico was occupied by British, Austrian and French troops in 1866.  The Fenians (Irish American war veterans) invaded Canada in 1866 and again in 1870.  The Meti rebelled in Canada twice and had armed attempts to secceed.  All of these actual events make for great "what if "places to start a battle.  Just add a few steam powered tanks and a gatling gun or two and you are off in your own little VSF world.

Please look at my recently posted VSF photos in the Tanks section of the Gallery


Good Luck

[fastolfrus]

Thanks for the ideas everyone. A quick on-line scan of Herefordshire libraries doesn't give much hope for finding any of the recommendations there (although I haven't searched for them all yet) so I've dropped a little money on Amazon to gt me started.
Doug

Can you not bring out an Em-4 VSF range and then claim your books as R&D expenditure ?

[Doug ex-em4]

leadfool -

Your VSF sounds very attractive and so are your photos - thanks. I've actually read several of the books you mention , The Washing of the Spears many times, but my quest to find source material as in my original post on this thread was not too successful. I ordered 2 books from Amazon; one was never delivered and the sellers had no other copies so that wasn't very useful and the other, the much recommended Peshawar Lancers, did arrive but it has failed to grip me. Altogether too many words in italics for one thing. I'll try and struggle through it but as an inspiration to VSF gaming it's a failure. Any randomly selected posts from this forum are far more inspirational.

Can you not bring out an Em-4 VSF range and then claim your books as R&D expenditure ?

 

Doug

[zebcook]

A couple of late suggestions to the list:

"Mainspring" and "Escapement" both by Jay Lake. It's a fantasy quasi-Victorian world where the heavens literally are clockwork and the British Empire's greatest enemy is the Chinese Empire. Steam-powered gasbags of the Royal Navy, giant boring machines, Chinese coal-powered submarines, and other fun stuff. For the VSF feel, Escapement has more toys and there is a strong fantasy element to both.

Also Jesse Nevins is posting the text of a period "penny blood" on his blog. The story is "On the Queen's Service" and can be found here.

http://queenservice.blogspot.com/2008/12/blood-and-its-author.html

[The Somnambulist]

You could also try The Space machine by Christopher Priest which combines The Time Machine with War Of The Worlds. There is also The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter, the authorised sequel to The Time Machine.