The Steampunk Adventurer's Guide by Thomas Willeford

9/10

Bringing together an action-filled story full of automatons, airships and a dastardly plot to take over the world and instructions on how to make your own gadgets, The Steampunk Adventurer’s Guide by Thomas Willeford (aka Lord Archibald ‘Feathers’ Featherstone) is a fantastically fun way to get immersed in the Steampunk world.

I would say the audience this is most suited for would be early to mid-teens who like crafts and steampunk, but I enjoyed reading the story and if you are interested in building your own glider wings and rivet gun the instructions are clear, amusing and light-hearted in tone, and well illustrated, with several pages of templates at the back.

The story is short but highly entertaining and sees 13 year old Isaac and 11 year old Amelia Griffith break codes, sneak onto airships and invent awesome weapons to rescue their uncle. The adventure is split into sections, pausing when engineering genius Isaac has to invent a new gadget and you can then build it along with him.

The Steampunk Adventurer’s Guide is great fun and simply a really good idea. Willeford clearly loves his craft and with his story accompanied by artwork from Phil Foglio it is attractively packaged. Along with all of this, Willeford also manages a discussion on ‘What is Steampunk’ and an appendix of suggested reading, viewing, gaming, music and more.