So, the back of this book im reading by Octavia E Butler, mentions Cyber punk, in relation to what Octavia wrote. Saying that she does for people of color what the creator of Cyberpunk did for white disenfranchised youth.

So I started looking up the term and I realize I've read Cyberpunk, and didnt really like it.

Then I found out that there is 'steam punk', which is like cyber punk but instead of all this high tech gadgets, everything revolves around steam engines, like in final fantasy.

So now, I'm thinking. This book I've had in my head for a very long time doesnt really fit into either of those catagories, since there is not any readily available technology to begin with.

What I want to know, are there any "tribal punk" novels?

I don't know of any, but it sounds like a great idea.

(as my handle attests, I do like the good kind of cyberpunk, though. steampunk too)

OK, on a related note, does anybody know of any GOOD steampunk books?

I've read Gibson and Sterling's "The Difference Engine", of course, as well as Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age". Both were great. I've also read something called "The Steampunk Trilogy", which was pretty bad.

Any suggestions?

You've read all China Mieville's New Crobuzon stuff, right Count?

There's a comic out in TPB called Steampunk about a blacksmith with a furnace for a heart. It's really beautiful to look at but really convoluted storytelling. Oh, wait, you asked for GOOD. Hrmmmmmmmmm.

I think Stephenson did something called "The Baroque Cycle," which I heard was steampunk. Haven't read it yet, though, so can't say. Also a young adult book called "Mortal Engines," but I haven't read that one either...

yeah, I've read China Mieville. And also the Baroque Cycle, which is freaking long and not really steampunk, but still pretty damn entertaining. And the Girl Genius comics.

From what I have read of it (and I want to read more) Phil Foglio's Girl Genius is a good steampunk story, ok I just now read completely the last post and he mentions Girl Genius already jumped the gun there, so instead I will just endorse it

Cyberpunk anthologies typically have stories that are partly or wholly steampunk, fantasy, or space opera.

I had often heard that the Mirrorshades anthology was seminal. A few months ago I found a copy, it's amazing, and a who's who of cyberpunk: Pat Cadigan, Rudy Rucker, Paul Di Filippo, etc.

Another good anthology is Live Without a Net, ed. Lou Anders. And Michael Swanwick has a couple of "Darger and Surplus" short stories free on the net.

Iain Sinclair's The Light Ages feels more Dickensian than fantastic.

What about Pavane by Keith Roberts?

Never heard of it til now, but it sounds cool on Amazon.

I think of Greg Bear as a hard sf writer, but his short story "Petra" in Mirrorshades is an extraordinarily intense religious allegory. It was like discovering that Asimov could write like Mieville.

I'm not sure he wrote any other major works, but I really liked Pavane, even though steam-punk is not usually a genre that appeals to me. I came across it by accident in a sale.

I've read William Gibson

and cybered with punks
or at least she had 'punk' in her AIM

it never went from cybering a punk to, um, biopunk (which is what Paul DiFlippo coined)

I had a bit of a think about this. It might not be exactly what you're after but there's a novel by Iain M Banks (sci-fi alter ego of the Wasp Factory author) that, as I remember, deals with this sort of low-tech sci-fi. It's called Feersum Endjinn and large chunks of it are written in a Scottish vernacular dialect that can be a little impenetrable at first... rather like the first time you read A Clockwork Orange or Trainspotting.

For movies, Gilliam's "Brazil" and "Twelve Monkeys" also deal with this grimy, tube- and valve-laden futurescape. Very cool.

More recently, there's a movie called "Steamboy" produced by Studio Ghibli that might interest.

hmmm. I really liked both Brazil and 12 Monkeys. I may need to track down the Banks novel after I read that other book of his I have laying around someplace.

Someone called Tom Waits new album 'steampunk', which is... odd, but i bet he uses steam bellows and old railroads in it, so it might work

tshhh. On "Real Gone" there's a track called "Klang Boom Steam", nobody's called that one steampunk.