The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk

by Sean Wallace (Editor)

Overview

Dieselpunk is an aesthetic within steampunk that explores the decadence of the Roaring 20s, the excitement of the World's Fairs, and the dystopian struggle for survival of the World Wars. Dieselpunk keeps all the adventure and eccentric inventions of steampunk while blending a 20th century past with a fantastic future. In this new collection, Sean Wallace presents a new collection of exciting stories by established and upcoming steampunk authors.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780762456161
Publisher:	Running Press Book Publishers
Publication date:	07/14/2015
Series:	Mammoth Books
Pages:	512
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Sean Wallace is the founder and editor of Prime Books, which won a World Fantasy Award in 2006. In the past he was co-editor of Fantasy Magazine as well as Hugo Award-winning and two-time World Fantasy nominee of Clarkesworld Magazine. He is also the editor of the following anthologies: Best New Fantasy, Fantasy, Horror: The Best of the Year, Jabberwocky, Japanese Dreams, and The Mammoth Book of Steampunk. Plus, he co-edited Bandersnatch, Fantasy Annual, Phantom, and Weird Tales: The 21st Century.

Editorial Reviews

05/25/2015
As demonstrated in this diverse collection of 21 alternate histories, dieselpunk updates the fashions of steampunk, replacing Victorian crinolines with the flapper’s short skirt, but maintaining all of the subversion of pulp fiction conventions (including airships). Thrilling battle stories are converted into more realistic and gritty accounts of the toll that war takes on its heroes, as in Laurie Tom’s depiction of the cyborg resurrection of the Red Baron in “The Wings the Lungs, the Engine the Heart,” or the political necessities that undercut genre staples such as having the cavalry come over the hill just in time in Carrie Vaughan’s Spanish Civil War tragedy, “Don Quixote.” Noir crimes are solved without fistfights, and by characters normally considered victims, in A.C. Wise’s “The Double Blind.” Genevieve Valentine’s “This Evening’s Performance” is a wonderful tribute to Walter M. Miller’s 1955 story “The Darfsteller.” The selections and the contributors span the globe, from China, where lovers float away during Sun Yat-sen’s revolution in Joseph Ng’s “Into the Sky,” to a Brazil that sends the last emperor’s clone into hiding to escape a military coup backed by an American robot soldier in Cirilo S. Lemos’s “Act of Extermination.” Readers unfamiliar with dieselpunk will find this an excellent introduction to a new but cohesive subgenre. (July)

Publishers Weekly

Readers wondering where dieselpunk and steampunk diverge will find examples aplenty in this collection of 21 alternate histories. Tobias S. Buckell introduces dieselpunk as the “grease and noise and ‘We Can Do It' posters” of the interwar period, marrying Machine Age concerns to Art Deco aesthetics. This basic framework supports an excitingly diverse array, with stories spanning the globe and narrated by journalists, factory workers, soldiers, robots, even a dragon...Offering an examination of how technology affects our humanity, this collection is a mix of the entertaining and the thoughtful.
—Booklist

From the Publisher