Brian Peters wrote:

"There is a grain of truth in what you say about 'reaction to the horrors of modern life': I remember finding Bob Copper's memoir of life in rural Sussex on A Song for Every Season heartwarming precisely for its contrast with the turmoil of my own late teenage years. It's just too bad Bob isn't here now so that you could tell him that his reminscences were nothing more than some kind of mythic comfort blanket."

How true! I remember an earnest young fellow, whom, after hearing Bob speak somewhere describing the (only occasionally) idyllic life in Rottingdean and saying that his father and contemporaries were 'happy', said that "they only only thought they were happy, and were in fact victims of, etc.etc" - to which Bob replied, "you know what? I'll settle for thinking I'm happy, it seemed to work for them".

Oh yes, I don't know if there's such a thing as SteamFolk, but SteamPunk looks like a right good old laugh, what with all those computer keyboards made of redundant typewriter keys, funny old stovepipe hats and swirly Victorian graphics. If you want a pure unadulterated SteamPunk novel and possibly the first of the genre (although not bearing that appellation) I recommend Keith Roberts' 'Pavane'