I made a surprise discovery in the children’s section of my local book store the other day: in-between the legion of angel, demon and vampire novels (there may have been some horsey ones too) was a big fat spine that simply read STEAMPUNK!
I suppose I should explain what “steampunk” is – this is a genre we’ll be hearing, seeing and reading more of in the years to come, loosely an intersection of sci-fi, fantasy, even horror, where anachronistic technology such as steam-powered machines plays an integral role (think of the airships in Philip Pullman’s Dark Materials trilogy).
The real reason for my excitement, however, had nothing to do with Wellsian time travel or industrial-strength heroines in top hats and Victorian collars. Rather, it was that the book was an anthology…
[read the full review that appeared in the Sunday Times here]
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