Steampunk Review: The Gangs of New York

The Gangs of New York ( An informal history of the underworld) By Herbert Asbury,
First published in 1927. ISBN 0099436744


Showing the darker side of of New York's history, so much so that street names and places have been renamed, and corrupt Politicians and Police have been forgotten!
From 1838 up to 1925 with foot notes about the 1700's as well, full of colourful characters that New Yorkers have unnoticed for to long. Looking at the rise and fall of the district known as the 'Five Points' a dismal slum.

Charles Dickens who visited and chronicled his observations for publication in 'American Notes' wrote:-
“Let us go on again, and … plunge into the Five Points….We have seen no beggars in the streets by night or day, but of other kinds of strollers plenty. Poverty, wretchedness, and vice are rife enough where we are going now.

This is the place; these narrow ways, diverging to the right and left, and reeking everywhere with, dirt and filth. Such lives as are led here bear the same fruits here as elsewhere. The coarse and bloated faces at the doors have counterparts at home and all the wide world over. Debauchery has made the very houses prematurely old. See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes that have been hurt in drunken frays.”

White-chapel in London features in Charles Dickens's novels 'Oliver Twist' and 'Pickwick Papers' is upstaged by the 'Five Point' for its slum and villainy!

The Martin Scorsese film 'Gangs of New York' centres on only a small period of time around the American civil war Riots in New York, with a lot of characters based on real historical people.

The colourful history was by and large gained from the Newspapers of the time, and thus prone to sensationalism, but there is no getting away from the rottenness and vile depravity of New York's slums and their gangs with their political masters.

Steampunk Review: Men like Gods

Ever been driving for miles down a wonderful road, and then the landscape suddenly changes, and its like you are transported to an other World? Well that's what happens to Mr. Barnstaple, going on holiday, Not from Kansas to Oz, but a foggy London to the parallel world of Utopia.

Men like Gods by H. G. Wells

ISBN: 0-8495-5847-6

A socialist (state-controlled) garden paradise set far into the future, and after 'The age of confusion' gave birth to the five Utopian principles that are its foundation;


1. The Principle of Privacy
2. The Principle of Free Movement.
3. The Principle Unlimited Knowledge.
4. Lying is the blackest of crimes.
5. Free Discussion and Criticism.


Quite a shock, to the party of Victorians Wells portrays, the only favourable character being Mr. Barnstaple voicing Wells's own hopes and dreams. The Beautiful People of Utopia (with not a stitch on) meet the Ugly minded Earthlings, with their repressed Victorians values.


A dammed good view into the Victorian mind, and ones views on its society.

Steampunk Reviews: Shikari in Galveston.

For those of you who are familiar with, and crave more of, the adventures of the dashing young cavalry officer Athelstane King and his man Ranjit of the Peshawar Lancers, - look no farther than the novella Shikari in Galveston by S.M. Stirling, featured in Worlds That Weren't (Published by RoC 2002. ISBN 0451458869).

The coal smoke of the Empire's industrialized towns and cities, with their heaving throngs of people, is left far behind for the swamps and dense woodlands and jungles of Texas. A place full of diverting possibilities for our young hero's derring-do.

The locals are good clean folk, etching out a fledgeling civilization from this frontier land in the aftermath of their ancestors. They are noting the use of vulcanized rubber, binoculars, the latest rifles, Steamships and other modern marvels of the Empire.

On leave from his duties in India, King is free to hunt for big game, Man-eaters have been reported and he hopes to bag some trophies. Athelstane's character is one which suffers no fools, believes in fair play and sportsmanship and, as a representative of the British Empire, comports himself impeccably, - winning-over the natives with his innate confidence and charm.

The novella is set in the post Steampunk world and does not disappoint with its turn of events. The author's confessional at the end serves to re-enforce one's fervour for this genre, and the love of adventure.

A darn good yarn of the highest order !