The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

When I was in high school, I learned about "penny dreadfuls" and their American counterpart, "dime novels." Steampunk Publishing is re-creating these popular publications by releasing what they bill as the first on-going magazine for the iPhone featuring pulp fiction -- in this case, stories set in the steampunk genre that is a take on our modern world through the eyes of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. These stories are a great fit for this type of experimental publication, and doing this magazine through the iPhone is a great way to reap the rewards of a pulp fiction magazine without having to worry about the costs associated with a print run.

The initial volume of Steampunk Tales #1 [link opens iTunes] contains 10 stories between 4,500 and 11,000 words. The included reader strives to recreate a Victorian-era feel as much as a possible, with a paper-like background and lavish fonts -- but one of the nicest features about this magazine is that you can customize it to the way that you want. You can chose from among a number of different fonts types and sizes, plus different background wallpapers. The one thing that I think that the magazine is lacking is a bookmark feature a la Classics. With as long as some of these stories are, if you go back and forth between them, you will lose your place unless you remember what page you were on. The stories themselves are highly enjoyable -- my personal favorite to date is "The Anachronist's Cookbook" -- and you can also see the basis for ongoing serials with a couple of the pieces, another hallmark of a bygone era.

If you're a fan of the sort of pulp fiction that came out a century ago, or of the steampunk genre in general, Steampunk Tales is an excellent app to purchase. Each issue costs $1.99USD, and that's a lot of content for less than a quarter of the cost of a single paperback novel. Hopefully, Steampunk Tales will inspire other publishing companies to migrate periodicals to an iPhone-native format.