Are those books any good? I'd like to read some steampunk fiction, but I'm not sure what to go for.

And yeah, I think it'd be fun to play around with a "-punk" world, but I have no idea how to start researching for it. Where does the research/reality stop, and when do you start adding in more fantastical elements? And I don't know much about the steampunk community, so I wouldn't be sure if there's some generally agreed upon steampunk lore to draw from...