The Best Dieselpunk Books

If you’re looking for a recipe for your next great read, look no farther. Violently stir together gears, gadgets, nuclear powered airships, atomic bombs, robots, DNA experiments, washed-up astronauts, and biotech, then season to taste with a generous sprinkling of Nazis. Read until after midnight and don’t stop until you’ve slaked your hunger for the very best dieselpunk books in the genre. Enjoy!

Railsea is a cleverly reimagined take on Moby Dick, but just because you know the old story doesn’t mean you won’t be surprised by this one. The young protagonist, Sham Yes ap Soorap, rides the moletrain Medes in search of moldywarpe, giant moles hunted for their meat (and harpooned just like ye olde whales). An ivory mole has stolen the moletrain captain’s arm many a year ago, and she can’t rest until she finds it. Unexpectedly, the crew comes upon a wrecked train, and a mysterious collection of pictures hidden inside leads to attacks by monsters, pirates, and more. The evil beasts lurking throughout the railsea are terrifying and diverse, and just one example of how incredibly inventive the author was in building the story. Consider this a tale for all ages that never gets old, especially in this retelling.

Detective Paul Donner and his wife have been murdered. Now he has to figure out who did it, which is totally possible in a world where death no longer exists, inanimate DNA can be “reactivated,” and those reborn are actually growing younger toward their own births (think The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). With the assistance of a holographic secretary, Donner navigates a noir world with truly genius retrofuturism, like maglev Studebakers and plasma tommy guns, to uncover the mystery of the Shift and the ominous plot to use it against the terror-struck nation. Sympathetic characters, 1940s slang, and old genre tropes blended up in creative new ways make this one dieselpunk story you won’t want to miss.

It would be completely wrong not to include a founding text like this one on a list claiming to include the best dieselpunk books. Now a popular Netflix series, Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle tells the story of what would have happened if the United States had lost WWII. For those unfamiliar with the setting, it’s 1962, and what used to be the USA is now occupied by Japan on the west coast and Nazi Germany on the east; slavery is legal, and the few Jews left are in hiding. Part of what makes the setup so fascinating and simultaneously unsettling is that there are no rebels. The main characters - the ones we like, the ones we’re supposed to relate to - are not at all like the Americans we think of as being representative citizens today (or are they?). Rockets are a normal way to travel, and the Nazis, obsessed with expansion, are working on colonization of the Moon, Mars, and Venus. Another incredible element of this story is that all of the characters are reading a fictional account of what life might have been like if the United States HAD won WWI (just let that sink in before you run to grab a copy and start reading right away).

A one-eyed foul-mouthed cigar-smoking monkey pilot, nuclear-powered Zeppelins, and a speculative future Paris provide tons of fun in a surprisingly serious book based on an award-winning short story. There’s no deus ex machina nonsense and the dialogue is solid, so if you don’t take yourself too seriously you can jump right in and splash around. In addition to the aforementioned gun-toting primate, there’s Victoria Valois, a former journalist searching for her husband’s killer, also the man who - get ready for this - stole her electronic soul. Oh yeah. Part thriller, part pulp adventure, part alternate history, Ack-Ack Macaque is a three book series, so if you love it you’re not at the end yet.

This reimagined WWI young adult novel focuses on two central characters: Prince Aleksander, Austrian heir-in-exile on the run with a battle scarred war machine, and Deryn Sharp, a daring girl disguised as a boy in the British Air Service. When the two meet, they have both secrets to hide and help to offer each other. By Scott Westerfeld of Uglies fame, the story pits two great powers against each other on the large scale: Darwinists, capable of manipulating DNA to create floating whale ships and jellyfish hot air balloons, and Clankers, techno geeks with walkers like AT-ATs. It never gets too far away from the personal stories of its protagonists, though, and their adventures are all too engaging to pull away. The machines that move like beasts and the animals that work as machines are creatively painted into the story and never feel like artificial devices or pandering to fans of the genre. Westerfeld really worked on the science and it shows. Leviathan is a lighter romp through the dieselpunk world fit for the young or the young at heart. (If you love it, don’t miss the second and third books in the series - they’re excellent as well.)

Mike Mignola is at it again. Here he’s created a villain truly worthy of an award-winning comic book - a demonic avatar created by Nazi occultists for Hitler - and a hero with an origin story that’s got mythic depth and a relatable feel at the same time. (And when I say mythic depth, I mean that Mignola clearly has read everything: Norse sagas, Christian apocrypha, Nazi conspiracies, you name it, and it provides a strong foundation for the characters to stand on.) Of course it’s not completely fair to say “hero” in the singular, because Hellboy’s fellow protagonists, Elizabeth Sherman and Dr. Sapien, are both heroes in their own right. Hellboy definitely takes the comic book as an art form to a higher level than ever before, but its literary chops never take away from the fast-paced excitement. Lovecraftian influences are another treat for the initiated. If you’ve seen the goofy movies, don’t let them steer you away from trying the comics: they’re darker, deeper, and flawlessly balanced.

Hard Magic is an urban fantasy set in a reimagined 1930s by none other than Larry Correia (of Monster Hunter International fame). The story begins in the 1850s when humans with magical powers begin appearing around the world and are almost universally hated (think of X-Men’s mutants). Engaging characters move through a scientifically sound world; despite the “magic” thing, Correia has brilliantly tweaked and included famous quotes from history at the beginning of each chapter to make magic a proven fact in this world. The main character, Jake, is a “Heavy,” which means he has the power to alter gravity. Grimnoir (of the series title) refers to the secret society which Jake joins to fight against the powers of evil. The story is simultaneous intricate and subtle, gory and intense, and proves a solidly built, unarguably fun place to lose yourself in for hours.