Punk Punk?

I've often thought of trying my hand at steampunk/clockpunk/biopunk etc., just because it seems like it would be so fun, except that even though I have a general idea of what steampunk is, I'm totally clueless when it comes to specifics.

Me: "Have you heard of steampunk?"
Friend: "What's that?"
Me: "It's...uh...you know, that subgenre of fiction with, um, gears and Victorian England and...yeah."

Anyways, I had a squee moment when I found out that there's going to be one of those illustrated guides to the Leviathan series (by Scott Westerfeld) featuring Keith Thompson's amazing art, in full color!

And then I was disappointed when I found out that the original cover for Behemoth was going to be this:



...instead of the less awesome version that's now being used.

In fact, why did the original awesome cover for Leviathan get pulled from the shelves, anyway? *sad face*