A review by malus23
Corsets & Clockwork: 13 Steampunk Romances by Trisha Telep

2.0

This collection shows some of steam-punk's growing pains. When this type of story started coming out, just being steam-punk was innovative. Now that it's been around long enough to have its own set of tropes, it takes a little more effort to stand out. Tick tick boom in particular, while written solidly enough technically, was completely paint by number steampunk, and completely forgettable. (Just a week after reading, I had to look it up 3 times to remember what happened.) The darker stories in the collection tended to be better, but even though I liked Vast Machinery of Dreams it's very lovecraft-lite. Cannibal Fiend was a little gross, but interesting. Under Amber Skies was well done, and split my sympathies in an unexpected way. Chickie Hill has promise too, but was a little wacky. Memorable though, which I can't say for some of the others.

So, not a bad collection if you want mostly very classic, comfortably predictable steam-punk shorts, but not as much new here.