I have loved steampunk as soon as I came across it. Yeah, ok, it's basically Goth in brown leather, but the Victorian aesthetic mixed with a sci-fi twist is basically all sorts of awesome in one.

But for me, steampunk had always been about the accessories, the clothing, the crazy inventions. I hadn't really read a lot of steampunk material.

Then I stumbled across Carnal Machines from Cleis Press, the publishers I now intern at. This is so fucking hot. The stories in here have some excellent queerness added to the gears and oil to make for a perfect smut collection that can be in turns as soft as a glove or as hard as steel.

So far I've read multiple stories with machines that have all sorts of exciting appendages, sultry whores and clever engineers, genderfuckery and buggery on airships. I don't always get turned on by the genre of "erotica", finding it kind of soft, but this collection was all sorts of sexyfuntimes. I really appreciated that there was flexibility in gender roles in here, and tons of kink of all sorts. The juxtaposition of invention with the primness of Victorian social mores around sex are perfectly played out in these pages. Class is also nicely handled.

Whether you're a steampunk yourself, enjoy Victoriana and/or sci fi, or just really like well-written smut, Carnal Machines is worth a look! It definitely kept me guessing as to what would happen next... and to whom.

Thanks Cleis for a free book in exchange for an honest review!