Below I’ll give you my selections for the best Dieselpunk books by a few categories. I will cover these and other great books more in depth later.
1. Doc Savage: Empire of Doom (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) (2017)
It began with the hijacking of a destroyer from the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The stolen warship struck midtown Manhattan with its mighty guns, then vanished far out to sea. Who were the strange raiders wearing the golden uniforms of no known power who pulled off the daring highjacking? And who was their mysterious leader, a being of seemingly supernatural abilities? Doc Savage did not know. But The Shadow did! Combining forces, the Man of Bronze and the Dark Avenger follow the trail of a superfoe from The Shadow’s past. But can they learn to trust one another? From fog-shrouded New York to a…
2. The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk (2015)
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. #1,742,476 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #1963 in Steampunk Fiction #1923 in Science Fiction Short Stories #161455 in American Literature (Books) Would you like to ?If…
3. Lady Mechanika Volume 2: Tablet of Destinies (2016)
After a young friend shows up unexpectedly on her doorstep, Lady Mechanika finds herself on a globe-spanning trek filled with alchemy mysteries, secret societies, and scientific curiosities, while opposing forces race in search of the Tablet of Destinies, an ancient Sumerian artifact reputed to hold the knowledge of the Gods and the secrets of the Universe. Collects all 6 issues of the second Lady Mechanika mini-series, The Tablet of Destinies. #388,560 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #1800 in Fantasy Graphic Novels (Books) #1835 in Science Fiction Graphic Novels (Books) Would you like…
4. Grimm, Grit, and Gasoline: Dieselpunk and Decopunk Fairy Tales (2019)
Dieselpunk and decopunk are alternative history re-imaginings of (roughly) the WWI and WWII eras: tales with the grit of roaring bombers and rumbling tanks, of ‘We Can Do It’ and old time gangsters, or with the glamour of flappers and Hollywood starlets, smoky jazz and speakeasies. The stories in this volume add fairy tales to the mix, transporting classic tales to this rich historical setting.Two young women defy the devil with the power of friendship. The pilot of a talking plane discovers a woman who transforms into a swan every night and is pulled into a much more personal conflict than the war he’s already fighting. A pair of twins…
5. Storming: A Dieselpunk Adventure Novel (2015)
Acclaim for Storming“Dropping (literally) dieselpunk fantasy elements smack into the middle of an action adventure story revolving around a biplane pilot set in 1920s historical fiction was a brilliant idea. This novel is a joy to read!”—Suzan Robertson“Memorably colorful and deeply knit-together characters captain this addictively charming page-turner with dialogue that sounds like an ash bat cracking a home run centerfield and proto-European dieselpunk undertones gild an aesthetic of pure Americana, exotically nostalgic and yet somehow effortlessly resonant, making us feel every punch of action down to the last gasp of a superb…
6. Dieselpunk (2013)
Dieselpunk, steampunk’s ugly stepsister, hauls out its hydrocarbon fueled, noisy behemoths to lay waste to the land. I’ll admit, since the advent of cyberpunk, it’s been something of a norm to add “punk” to a word to define a literary sub-genre: decopunk, biopunk, nanopunk, teslapunk, splatterpunk, atompunk… the list goes on. There’s even Static Movement’s own excellent Monkpunk anthology. Dieselpunk was apparently conceived as a term by Lewis Pollak in 2001 for his game “Children of the Sun”. The general concept is based on the era between the first and second…
7. Watch Them Wander: Book 1 (Colossus of Rhodes Series) (2018)
Samantha is not living the life she thought she was living. Teenager Samantha Rhodes has wandered the desert since her war-torn childhood in bleakest solitude, until the day she discovers an animatronic genie in the sand capable of reversing her fortunes and fulfilling her wildest wishes. After a chance encounter with a starving stranger named Ryder begging for help from a distant village, Samantha and her genie Adam rediscover the outside oases in all their revenge-driven brutality. And from the curious way the lizards and birds watch her with glassy eyes, the way the stars in the sky grow exponentially in number…
8. A Spider In The Eye: A Hannibal Smyth Misadventure (The Hannibal Smyth Misadventures) (2019)
Queen Victoria is in the 200th year of her reign, and her Glorious British Empire faces a grievous threat due to the Machiavellian machinations of that most notorious instigator of insurrections Herbert George Wells.The Ministry, the shadowy branch of the British government that deals with things other Ministries neither need or want to know about, needs to send its best available man. But as the best available man is not available, they are going to have to turn to someone else.Enter Hannibal Smyth, a gentleman of nefarious repute. Formally in the service of ‘She whom is seldom amused’ as an officer in the Royal Air Navy,…
9. DragonFly (Missions of the DragonFly Squadron) (Volume 1) (2015)
In 1942 an unlikely heroine changes the course of history. Twenty-two year old RAF pilot Veronica 'Ronnie' Somerset is determined to overcome every obstacle to become Britain's first female combat pilot. When 'Ronnie' is assigned to Enysfarne, a mysterious Royal Navy base off the coast of Cornwall, fate places her inside the cockpit of a revolutionary new aircraft powered by quadra-hydrogen, the DragonFly, a plane that carries the hopes of Britain on its blue and silver wings. Across the English Channel, Reichsführer Bernhardt Morax,…
10. The Troubleshooter: Four Shots (2018)
Hey there, pal.You’re probably wondering why you’re here in this dimly lit office sitting across from a hard-looking man with his heels on the desk and a shot of bourbon in his hand. Let me guess.You’re here because you got a problem. The kind either the brass doesn’t wanna touch or the kind you don’t want the brass to touch. Doesn’t really matter. When folks in New Haven got those types of problems, they usually end up coming to me. In the days before the Cataclysm, folks would have called me a private eye. But here in the Havens, they call my kind of specialist a Troubleshooter. I do pretty much what the name implies.I shoot…
11. Boom Time (2019)
Bootleggers, coppers, and no good, dirty gangsters! During Prohibition, the parties were wild, the alcohol was flowing, and danger was never far away. Pierce Landcross has been brought to the fast-paced future of New York City, 1926. His abductor, the Trickster, claims he’s hiding Pierce for his own protection, but cutthroats and femme fatales lurk around every corner. Lost in a strange land, Pierce vows to keep his nose clean, but that doesn’t last long when he falls into the bootlegging racket. Pierce has to quickly adapt to a world full of diesel-fueled machines, airships, moving picture…
Best Dieselpunk Books that Should be on Your Bookshelf
We highly recommend you to buy all paper or e-books in a legal way, for example, on Amazon. But sometimes it might be a need to dig deeper beyond the shiny book cover. Before making a purchase, you can visit resources like Genesis and download some dieselpunk books mentioned below at your own risk. Once again, we do not host any illegal or copyrighted files, but simply give our visitors a choice and hope they will make a wise decision.
Please note that this booklist is not errorless. Some books are truly record-breakers according to The New York Times, others are drafted by unknown writers. On top of that, you can always find additional tutorials and courses on Coursera, Udemy or edX, for example. Are there any other relevant resources you could recommend? Leave a comment if you have any feedback on the list.