Cherie Priest's Clockwork Century Series has been my first thorough introduction into the Steampunk sun-genre of science fiction. Of course, we've read some short stories and novels that displayed elements of steampunk, but I never quite understood what it was until reading these novels. I must say, I think I'm a big fan of steampunk. History has always been one of my favorite subjects. I find it so fascinating because there are certain events in history that have occurred, but you can learn about them in so many different perspectives until it becomes almost like storytelling. For example, when I was in Vietnam this summer, we went to the Vietnam War Museum in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly, Saigon). To view the depiction of the war from the perspective of the North Vietnamese was so very different from the way we learn about it in our country. As it would be. I think the reason I liked Priest's novels so much is because they were set in an alternate civil war era which appealed to the history lover in me while allowing me to imagine a completely different series of events and outcomes than what actually happened which, in my opinion, makes it all the more entertaining.