Steampunk is far and away one of my favorite escapist genres to explore. The playful Victorian aesthetics aside, there is something quite freeing in the retro-futuristic landscape of the worlds it encompasses. It allows for us to play in a setting where things were perhaps a bit more stifling for anyone that wasn’t a white, upper class man, and oftentimes show women who are going against the grain a bit. More recently, a subgenre of steampunk has emerged, that takes the ideas of steampunk, and focuses it less on scienes and gadgets and more on the Gothic horror literature of the Victorian era. This genre is aptly called dreadpunk.

Ghosts By Gaslight is a collection of steampunk horror fiction, falling squarely into the perimeters of dreadpunk. Naturally, I was very excited to see so many things I loved come together into one collection of short stories, as Gothic horror has such a unique charm for me. But did Ghosts By Gaslight manage to meet my hopeful expectations? Unfortunately, the answer is a very strong no.

Full review: https://thebechdelscream.wordpress.com/2015/09/22/ghosts-by-gaslight/ ( )

I am a fan of short stories, and of themed anthologies as a rule, and this was a very good one. While it's being presented as a book of Steampunk stories, it seems many of the contributing writers have only a rudimentary understanding of Steampunk as a set of aesthetics, which is what I think makes the collection so very interesting. Fantasy writers not known for their Steampunk aesthetic try their hand at some 19th Century Ghosts Stories with terrific results. Gene Wolfe has the very compelling "Why I Was Hanged", and John Harwood gives us "Face to Face" and darkly disturbing exploration of the Myth of the Fatal Book (one of my favorite tropes). And Peter Beagle's "Music, When the Soft Voices Die" was equal parts terrifying and heartbreaking.

Another reason I tend to like themed anthologies, is that it is a way I often discover new readers. "Kiss Me Deadly" introduced me to Caitlin Kittredge's "Iron Codex" series, and "The Eternal Kiss" gave me Holly Black's *tremendous* "The Coldest Girl in Coldtown". "Ghosts by Gaslight", too, introduced me to new (to me) writers from whom I am anxious to hear more: Theodora Goss (her "Christopher Raven" was lovely. Part allegory, part cautionary tale), and Margo Lanagan to name only two.

I was also interested to see how the Victorian tropes were used throughout -- authors made great use of both travelogues and correspondance.

I recommend this for lovers of dark and elegant stories -- there is not much here to truly keep you up at night, but sometimes an elegant shiver is what I want more. ( )

It's entirely likely that there's something interesting in this book somewhere, but my overwhelming apathy (and the absurd number of books I have checked out right now) forces me to give it up. ( )

The compliation of suspense stories couldn't really be categorized as 'steampunk'. If anything they had wonderful steampunk elements that transcended the stories to a higher level. However, some stories fell behind to some of their counterparts. But overall, it's a nice collection. ( )

For the most part, a wonderfully atmospheric collection, leaning more toward the supernatural than the steampunk. ( )