The Atlantic | January 26, 2012

The new book Frank Reade: Adventures in the Age of Invention tells of steampunk adventures using meticulously crafted, faux-documentary imagery.

Boilerplate, the Gilded Age’s steam-powered mechanical man, a veritable steampunk god, debuted in Anina Bennet and Paul Guinan’s 2010 illustrated fict-umentary tome titled, Boilerplate: History’s Mechanical Marvel (Abrams Image). So incredible is this retro-robotic invention that he is arguably giving the beloved Robbie the Robot, from the 1956 film Forbidden Planet, a run for its money as the most exotic metal-made character since L. Frank Baum’s Tin Man. Now, Bennett and Guinan have unveiled a sequel that is just as mind-tweaking and ironic, the faux historical biography, Frank Reade: Adventures in the Age of Invention (Abrams Image), a profusely illustrated chronicle of a dime-novel protagonist whose steam-powered, cast-iron machines take him on fantastical exploits over land, sea and air throughout some of the most untamed corners of the world.

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