Crystal Rain

I didn't only buy Tobias S. Buckell's debut novel, Crystal Rain (2006) at Balticon because it had a gorgeous finned airship on the cover, but I admit, Todd Lockwood's art was part of the attraction.  The book mostly lived up to it.

Is there such a genre as Caribbean-inflected Steampunk?  If so, this book would be representative of it.  We're in a low-tech human colony on an alien planet, Nanagada, in an area settled primarily by groups from the Caribbean, which gives us interesting dialect and lead characters (and villains) of color.  The villains are bloodthirsty Aztec-ish warriors intent on conquering the peaceful inhabitants and using them as either slaves or blood sacrifices.  Or both, sequentially.  Our hero is one John deBrun, who suffers from amnesia and does not seem to age, but has settled down and built a new life for himself with a wife and preteen son.  When the Azteca invade, the family is scattered and deBrun finds himself (via airship and railroad) in the Capitol City, where he is tempted/coerced into setting out on a mission to recover the mysterious Ma Wi Jung, a legendary weapon which may help turn the tide of the war.