When I first heard that there was an upcoming book called “The Steampunk Bible”, I rolled my eyes so hard that they nearly rolled right on out of their sockets. I do a lot of work studying Steampunk and I was fully prepared to hate this book, sight unseen, for all the errors and misconceptions that it would perpetuate. Steampunk, as I’ve said many times, is an incredibly multi-faceted phenomenon that doesn’t lend itself to being easily defined, and far too often people don’t take in the full breadth of what Steampunk is when trying to explain it. Not only that, but there are huge differences of opinion about nearly everything, so how was anyone going to make something claiming to be a Steampunk Bible?

I only say that so that you understand the trepidation with which I opened the rather nice cover of this book. Rather nice is actually an understatement… The whole book, cover to cover, is absolutely gorgeous. The quality of the pages is art-book level, and the images and arrangements are all beautifully done. Seriously, I can’t stress enough how great this book looks and feels. You have to hold it in your hands to understand, and I recommend that you do so, because when you do, you’ll discover the same thing that I did when I read the first chapter, written by Jeff VanderMeer, which is that this guy actually knows what he’s talking about. My mouth was hanging open so far that I was in danger of catching flies, but even as a Steampunk scholar, I could find very little wrong with VanderMeer’s description of Steampunk. Sure, I could nitpick, but that’s not important. What’s important is that he’s laid out what Steampunk is in a way that people should be able to understand, and that’s impressive, given how easy Steampunk is to misunderstand.

After the first chapter, I began to get the feeling that this book was going to be something special, and as it turns out, I was right. This book does actually live up to its name, and even as I say that, I still can’t believe it. There are detailed sections on nearly every aspect of Steampunk history and culture, starting with Verne and Wells and moving forward. It’s not only a full explanation of what Steampunk is, but it’s also a how-to guide that explains how to be a Steampunk. It’s full of pretty pictures, yes, but it’s also full of an impressive amount of text. I literally read the section on Wells with an eagle eye, waiting to pounce on any inaccuracy, but didn’t find any. Throughout the book, there were a couple of that’s-not-strictly-trues and a few I-wouldn’t-have-said-it-exactly-like-thats, but there wasn’t a single spot that I could point at as being wrong. Granted, it skirts a few problem areas and gets around a couple of tight spots with just a single sentence, but still, those things probably didn’t need to be in a book like this, anyway.

Despite how pleased I was at how correct all the information is, the book isn’t without its faults. I understand that the book isn’t intended to be the Steampunk Encyclopedia, but it was entirely missing a section on Steampunk video games. The sections involving Steampunk culture seemed to me to be biased toward the East coast of the United States, often ignoring not only the West coast, but also failing to go into detail about Steampunk culture in other countries and how it’s different, though I did appreciate the short section at the end on multiculturalism. There was also no real distinction between Steampunk that takes place in Britain versus America, which is a shame, because that’s an area of interest of mine. My last complaint is that I saw some of the same names cropping up again and again, where it would have been nice to hear a few other voices, as some big movers and shakers in the Steampunk world were notably absent.

I want to make it clear, however, that these complaints are all pretty minor. I quasi-professionally study Steampunk; I’m not the audience for this book. The audience for this book is someone who is new to Steampunk, or someone who’s been in it for awhile but doesn’t know everything about it. There is an absolute wealth of information for both of those types of people. However, when I say that the audience for this book is someone who is new to Steampunk, I mean that quite literally. For example, I recently attended a dinner party populated mostly by 60-somethings who were friends of the family. They asked me, “So what is it that you’re doing now?” In response, I handed them this book, and after leafing through it a bit, they would invariably say, “Oh, I see,” having been assured of Steampunk’s legitimacy. See, this book is more than just some book that’s about Steampunk; this book is so well put together that it actually provides the entire movement with legitimacy in the eyes of those who don’t know anything about it, and that’s a pretty impressive feat. So whether you think you need to own this book or not, I’m telling you right now that you should be glad that it exists and that next time you see its authors, Jeff Vandermeer and S.J. Chambers, you should shake their hands, not because of what the book says, but for having produced such a sterling, high-quality book that is both accessible to outsiders and true to our beloved Steampunk.

Austin Sirkin is a modern day, Victorian-inspired Renaissance man who wears many hats, both literally and figuratively. Primarily a literature scholar at Georgia State University, Austin uses his training to explore Steampunk and has presented several papers on the topic at academic conferences as well as fan conventions.