You know Guy Himber’s work. He worked on special effects for Aien 3, Underworld, Independence Day, Edward Scissorhands, I, Robot, lots of other productions. And now, he is playing around with LEGO.

Steampunk Lego by Guy Himber is subtitled “The illustrated researches of various fantastical devices by Dr. Herbert Jabson, with epistles to the Crown, Her Majesty Queen Victoria; A travelogue in 11 chapters.” The book itself is all steampunky, in fact heavily steampunky, with brown colors, gears and wheels as background images, and victorian techno-objects decorating a faux photographic album motif. Meaning, Himber did not really write a travelogue in 11 chapters because, I assume, a true Victorian Travelogue would be mind numbingly boring. Everything is taped, glued, or in some cases, riveted onto the pages (no actual rivets were used in making this book).

It may not be a Travelogue but it is very Travelish.

By my estimation about half the book involves depictions of things that travel. Lots of trains, boats, some bikes, Zeppelins, other lighter than air craft, other things that fly, and more. There are numerous robots, and a variety of other things. There is even a LEGO moon. All the contrivances are LEGO constructed and then photographed usually but not always using a victorian looking technology.

There is some background on what Steampunk is, which may be necessary for the LEGO-crazed who don’t happen to now much about this genre. Then there is background on the key players in the story, Sir Herbert Jobson and Lt. Penfold.

Then it is trains, monowheels, horseless carriages, automatons, weapons, a “cabinet of Curiosities”, boats, things that fly, clockwork animals, and floating islands. Then there is Space, the final frontier. I mean chapter. The final chapter.

The book is so visual, I think the best way to indicate its qualities is to show a number of spreads from within. With no particular introduction, these (click to see a larger version of the image):

This is a great coffee table present for the holidays. It is not a huge coffee table format, more like 10.5 by 8.5 inches, but somehow it looks bigger.

Have you read the breakthrough novel of the year? When you are done with that, try:

In Search of Sungudogo by Greg Laden, now in Kindle or Paperback
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