Fantasy Guide ⚙️ Steampunk, Gaslamp, and Silkpunk Fantasy

It does things a little bit different. So, this one is good if you're looking for something that doesn't quite feel like anything you've experienced before in its setting, but has some familiar story beats because of the mystery component.

So, the world building in A Winter's Promise is very fascinating. It's very different, even if the almost fairy tale feel has that sense of grounding you.

If you like the idea of a Sanderson book with a more steampunk feel to it with the airships and those sorts of things, then I would say there's a chance that you'll enjoy this one. It kind of has like a rakish character who is very protective of this young woman and there is, once again, a enormous sense of adventure within this story.

It's very on the nose with its themes. It is very blunt with its themes, but I absolutely loved the progression of the plot. I loved the way that we combined all these various different pieces, the grayness of the character, to put it lightly.

As for Infernal Devices, the first book in this actually felt exceptionally similar to Solace. So, if you like one, there's a decent chance you'll like the other one.

And surprise, surprise, I also really loved the setting of that story. There is a little bit of the kind of industrial revolution feel within that because part of the catalyst for what's moving the plot forward is this sense of unrest in the population, but there's also kind of this warring feel between past and present, and that's represented through the guilds and the church, and the church is trying to take advantage of the disgruntled feeling, to put it lightly, that the general population has with the guilds.

I think it's borrowing from the aesthetic really well, but this one just is so off the walls. And also, I think it's a little bit closer to sci-fantasy in a lot of ways.

Jacobi 100% fits more so within gaslamp than it does steampunk. It's less so about innovation and technology, and it's more so about the urban components. However, they're also solving crimes within the story, so that's why I wanted to put it into the mystery category, because you are going to have this sort of detective, and you're following this detective's apprentice as they are trying to figure out supernatural cases.

Legacy of Brightwash, I've read the first one. I thought it was amazing. I thought it was very well executed.

So, first off, we have Of Jade and Dragons, and this is one of the other silkpunk-inspired stories that is on this list. You follow a character who joins in this school setting to try and not only hone her skills that are more so associated with things that we think of when we think of steampunk, but also to try and get to the bottom of what happened to her father who was recently killed.

It's really off the walls. It is truly very weird. It's kind of entirely based on what if we rejected the typical sword and sorcery and we just embraced all these other things from all these other forms of speculative fiction.

With Senlin Ascends, there is this tower where when he goes to arrive at this place, his wife disappears, he gets separated from her, and now he's ascending the tower, and each level is weirder and more intense than the last, but he's continuing to go through this tower in hopes that he can find and rescue his missing wife. You can see the comparisons to things like Alice in Wonderland and why they fit within the sort of fairy tale feel.

I do think Solace is a little bit campier, a little bit funnier, and it doesn't take itself too seriously. It does have that kind of British humor to it.

Grace of Kings, the subcategorization for this one is going to be historical as if you look at people who are both fans of this and also people who have criticisms of this series, it is often times rooted in the fact that this so heavily is based in real historical events. The thing that turns this into silkpunk is the way that you have almost this gods among us perspective within the story.

Wickwire Watch, I would say maybe fits better within gaslamp fantasy. However, it also gets very off the walls and it also gets really over the top.

You do have that kind of sense of wonder that the innovation side of things provides because you do have these people that have these airships. I do think that this one has some similarities to what you'll find in a lot of Final Fantasy games because there is just that sense of wonder and exploration and innovation all baked into one.