Cyberpunk derivatives
Encyclopedia
A number of cyberpunk derivatives have become recognized as distinct subgenres in speculative fiction
. These derivatives, though they do not share cyberpunk
's computers-focused setting, may display other qualities drawn from or analogous to cyberpunk: a world built
on one particular technology that is extrapolated to a highly sophisticated level (this may even be a fantastical or anachronistic technology, akin to retro-futurism
), a gritty transreal urban style, or a particular approach to social themes.
Many, but not all, of these subgenres have the suffix -punk
in their names, having been added in a continuing play on the habit of creating portmanteau words as in the cyber
/steam
-punk naming convention.
author Bruce Bethke
first coined the term "cyberpunk
" in his 1980 short story
of the same name, proposing it as a label for a new generation of punk
teenagers inspired by the perceptions inherent to the Information Age
. The term was quickly appropriated as a label to be applied to the works of William Gibson
, Bruce Sterling
, John Shirley
, Rudy Rucker
, Michael Swanwick
, Pat Cadigan, Lewis Shiner
, Richard Kadrey
, and others. Science fiction
author Lawrence Person, in defining postcyberpunk, summarized the characteristics of cyberpunk thus:
The relevance of cyberpunk as a genre to punk subculture
is debatable and further hampered by the lack of a defined cyberpunk subculture; where the small cyber movement shares themes with cyberpunk fiction and draws inspiration from punk and goth
alike, cyberculture
is much more popular though much less defined, encompassing virtual communities and cyberspace
in general and typically embracing optimistic anticipations about the future. Cyberpunk is nonetheless regarded as a successful genre, as it ensnared many new readers and provided the sort of movement that postmodern literary critics found alluring. Furthermore, author David Brin
argues, cyberpunk made science fiction more attractive and profitable for mainstream media and the visual arts in general.
:
Person's essay advocates using the term postcyberpunk to label the new works such writers produce. In this view, typical postcyberpunk stories continue the focus on a ubiquitous datasphere of computerized information and cybernetic augmentation of the human body, but without the assumption of dystopia
(see Technological utopianism
). Good examples are Neal Stephenson
's The Diamond Age
and Bruce Sterling
's Holy Fire. In television, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
has been called "the most interesting, sustained postcyberpunk media work in existence." In 2007, SF writers James Patrick Kelly
and John Kessel
published Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology
. Like all categories discerned within science fiction, the boundaries of postcyberpunk are likely to be fluid or ill defined.
Cyberprep is a term with a very similar meaning to postcyberpunk. The word is a portmanteau combining "cybernetics
" and "preppy
", reflecting its divergence from the punk elements of cyberpunk
. A cyberprep world assumes that all the technological advancements of cyberpunk speculation have taken place but life is happy rather than gritty and dangerous. Since society is leisure-driven, uploading
is more of an art form or a medium of entertainment while advanced body modification
s are used for sports and pleasure.
, based either on the futuristic visions of past eras, or more recent extrapolations or exaggerations of the actual technology of those eras.
, based on an era (c. 1820-1910) centered on the Victorian period
,
is one of the most notable developments of the cyberpunk concept. The genre initially combined extrapolations of Victorian technologies and styles with cyberpunk's bleak film noir
world view. It has since developed in a less dystopian direction.
The word "steampunk" was invented in 1987 as a jocular reference to some of the novels of Tim Powers
, James P. Blaylock, and K.W. Jeter. When Gibson and Sterling entered the subgenre with their collaborative novel The Difference Engine
the term was being used earnestly as well. Alan Moore
's and Kevin O'Neill
's 1999 The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
comic book
series (and the subsequent 2003 film adaption
) popularized the steampunk genre and helped propel it into mainstream fiction.
The most immediate form of steampunk subculture is the community of fans surrounding the genre. Others move beyond this, attempting to adopt a "steampunk" aesthetic through fashion, home decor and even music. This movement may also be (perhaps more accurately) described as "Neo-Victorian
ism," which is the amalgamation of Victorian aesthetic principles with modern sensibilities and technologies. This characteristic is particularly evident in steampunk fashion which tends to synthesize punk, goth and rivet styles as filtered through the Victorian era. As an object style, however, steampunk adopts more distinct characteristics with various craftspersons modding
modern-day devices into a pseudo-Victorian mechanical "steampunk" style. The goal of such redesigns is to employ appropriate materials (such as polished brass, iron, and wood) with design elements and craftsmanship consistent with the Victorian era.
, named for scientist and inventor Nikola Tesla
, refers to fictional narratives or visual styles inspired by 18th, 19th, and early 20th century pioneers of electricity and electrical devices. This narrative or style commonly imagines an alternate history where widely available cheap (or free), clean, and often highly portable electrical energy replaces all previous energy sources (such as wood, coal and oil, and the steam engines that were fueled by them), but has yet to be replaced (or is never replaced) by other energy sources itself (such as diesel or atomic power). In some stories, free-energy technologies are largely forgotten in the present day, but only because they were kept secret by some government or other organization that used the technologies to control the masses.
, the Atomic Age
and Space Age
, Communism
and concern about it exaggerated as paranoia
in the USA along with Neo-Soviet styling, underground cinema, Googie architecture, the Sputnik programme, superhero fiction
, the rise of the US military/industrial powers and the fall-out of Chernobyl
. Its aesthetic tends toward Populuxe and Raygun Gothic
, which describe a retro-futuristic vision of the world.
, in that it portrays advanced technology based on pre-modern designs, but the technology used is based on springs and clockwork
, and is usually set during the Renaissance
, in the vein of Jay Lake
's novel, Mainspring
, and Whitechapel Gods
by S M Peters.
The term was coined by the GURPS
role playing system.
(c. 1920-1945). This sub-genre is sometimes named Decopunk
, referring to the Art Deco
art style (including its Streamline Moderne
variant). The genre combines the artistic and genre influences of the period (including pulp magazines, serial films, film noir
, art deco
, and wartime pin-ups) with postmodern technology and sensibilities. First coined in 2001 as a marketing term by game designer Lewis Pollak to describe his role-playing game Children of the Sun, dieselpunk has grown to describe a distinct style of visual art, music, motion pictures, fiction, and engineering. Examples include Crimson Skies
, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
, Dark City, the BioShock series
.
of the biotechnology revolution following the discovery of recombinant DNA
. Biopunk fiction typically describes the struggles of individuals or groups, often the product of human experimentation
, against a backdrop of totalitarian governments or megacorporations which misuse biotechnologies as means of social control
or profiteering. Unlike cyberpunk, it builds not on information technology
but on synthetic biology
. As in postcyberpunk however, individuals are usually modified
and enhanced
not with cyberware
, but by genetic manipulation
of their chromosome
s.
. The genre is similar to biopunk, but describes a world in which the use of biotechnology
is limited or prohibited, and only nanotechnology
is in wide use (while in biopunk bio- and nanotechnologies often coexist). Currently the genre is more concerned with the artistic and physiological impact of nanotechnology, than of aspects of the technology itself.
A large number of terms have been used by the GURPS
roleplaying game Steampunk to describe anachronistic technologies and settings, including stonepunk, bronzepunk, sandalpunk, candlepunk, transistorpunk and atomic punk. These terms have seen very little use outside of GURPS.
Elfpunk
Elfpunk was proposed as a subgenre of urban fantasy
in which faeries and elves are transplanted from rural folklore into modern urban settings. During the awards ceremony for the 2007 National Book Awards, judge Elizabeth Partridge expounded on the distinction between elfpunk and urban fantasy
, citing fellow judge Scott Westerfeld's thoughts on the works of Holly Black
who is considered "classic elfpunk — there's enough creatures already, and she's using them. Urban fantasy, though, can have additionally made-up creatures."
Mythpunk
Described as a subgenre of mythic fiction
, Catherynne M. Valente
uses the term "mythpunk" to define a brand of speculative fiction which starts in folklore and myth and adds elements of postmodern fantastic techniques: urban fantasy, confessional poetry, non-linear storytelling, linguistic calisthenics, worldbuilding, and academic fantasy. Writers whose works would fall under the mythpunk label are Catherynne M. Valente
, Ekaterina Sedia
, Theodora Goss
, and Sonya Taaffe
.
Nowpunk
Nowpunk is a term invented by Bruce Sterling
, which he applied to contemporary fiction set in the time period in which the fiction is being published, i.e. all contemporary fiction. Sterling used the term to describe his book The Zenith Angle
, which follows the story of a hacker whose life is changed by the September 11th, 2001 attacks.
Splatterpunk
Splatterpunk, a term that David J. Schow
coined in the mid-1980s at the World Fantasy Convention in Providence, refers to a subgenre of horror fiction
distinguished by its graphic, often gory, depiction of violence. It often overlaps with body horror
. Though it gained some prominence in the 1980s and 1990s, and attracted a cult following, the term "splatterpunk" is currently used less often than other synonymous terms for the genre.
Speculative fiction
Speculative fiction is an umbrella term encompassing the more fantastical fiction genres, specifically science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history in literature as well as...
. These derivatives, though they do not share cyberpunk
Cyberpunk
Cyberpunk is a postmodern and science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life." The name is a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk, and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk," published in 1983...
's computers-focused setting, may display other qualities drawn from or analogous to cyberpunk: a world built
Worldbuilding
Worldbuilding is the process of constructing an imaginary world, sometimes associated with a fictional universe. The result may sometimes be called a constructed world, conworld or sub-creation. The term world-building was popularized at science fiction writer's workshops during the 1970s...
on one particular technology that is extrapolated to a highly sophisticated level (this may even be a fantastical or anachronistic technology, akin to retro-futurism
Retro-futurism
Retro-futurism is a trend in the creative arts showing the influence of depictions of the future produced prior to about 1960...
), a gritty transreal urban style, or a particular approach to social themes.
Many, but not all, of these subgenres have the suffix -punk
Punk subculture
The punk subculture includes a diverse array of ideologies, and forms of expression, including fashion, visual art, dance, literature, and film, which grew out of punk rock.-History:...
in their names, having been added in a continuing play on the habit of creating portmanteau words as in the cyber
Cyberpunk
Cyberpunk is a postmodern and science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life." The name is a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk, and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk," published in 1983...
/steam
Steampunk
Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, and speculative fiction that came into prominence during the 1980s and early 1990s. Steampunk involves a setting where steam power is still widely used—usually Victorian era Britain or "Wild West"-era United...
-punk naming convention.
Cyberpunk
AmericanUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author Bruce Bethke
Bruce Bethke
Bruce Bethke is an American author, best known for his 1983 short story "Cyberpunk" which led to the widespread use of the term, and his novel, Headcrash....
first coined the term "cyberpunk
Cyberpunk
Cyberpunk is a postmodern and science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life." The name is a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk, and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk," published in 1983...
" in his 1980 short story
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
of the same name, proposing it as a label for a new generation of punk
Punk subculture
The punk subculture includes a diverse array of ideologies, and forms of expression, including fashion, visual art, dance, literature, and film, which grew out of punk rock.-History:...
teenagers inspired by the perceptions inherent to the Information Age
Information Age
The Information Age, also commonly known as the Computer Age or Digital Age, is an idea that the current age will be characterized by the ability of individuals to transfer information freely, and to have instant access to knowledge that would have been difficult or impossible to find previously...
. The term was quickly appropriated as a label to be applied to the works of William Gibson
William Gibson
William Gibson is an American-Canadian science fiction author.William Gibson may also refer to:-Association football:*Will Gibson , Scottish footballer...
, Bruce Sterling
Bruce Sterling
Michael Bruce Sterling is an American science fiction author, best known for his novels and his work on the Mirrorshades anthology, which helped define the cyberpunk genre.-Writings:...
, John Shirley
John Shirley
John Shirley is an American fantasist, author of noir fiction, and science-fiction writer. Shirley is a prolific writer of novels and short stories, TV scripts and screenplays who has published over 30 books and 10 collections...
, Rudy Rucker
Rudy Rucker
Rudolf von Bitter Rucker is an American mathematician, computer scientist, science fiction author, and philosopher, and is one of the founders of the cyberpunk literary movement. The author of both fiction and non-fiction, he is best known for the novels in the Ware Tetralogy, the first two of...
, Michael Swanwick
Michael Swanwick
Michael Swanwick is an American science fiction author. Based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he began publishing in the early 1980s.-Biography:...
, Pat Cadigan, Lewis Shiner
Lewis Shiner
Lewis Shiner is an American writer.Shiner began his career as a science fiction writer, identified early on with cyberpunk, and later wrote more mainstream novels, albeit often with magical realism and fantasy elements...
, Richard Kadrey
Richard Kadrey
Richard Kadrey is a novelist, freelance writer, and photographer based in San Francisco.Kadrey's novels are Sandman Slim, Kill the Dead, Aloha From Hell, Metrophage, Kamikaze L'Amour, and Butcher Bird: A Novel Of The Dominion...
, and others. Science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
author Lawrence Person, in defining postcyberpunk, summarized the characteristics of cyberpunk thus:
Classic cyberpunk characters were marginalized, alienated loners who lived on the edge of society in generally dystopic futures where daily life was impacted by rapid technological change, an ubiquitous datasphere of computerized information, and invasive modification of the human body.
The relevance of cyberpunk as a genre to punk subculture
Punk subculture
The punk subculture includes a diverse array of ideologies, and forms of expression, including fashion, visual art, dance, literature, and film, which grew out of punk rock.-History:...
is debatable and further hampered by the lack of a defined cyberpunk subculture; where the small cyber movement shares themes with cyberpunk fiction and draws inspiration from punk and goth
Goth subculture
The goth subculture is a contemporary subculture found in many countries. It began in England during the early 1980s in the gothic rock scene, an offshoot of the post-punk genre. The goth subculture has survived much longer than others of the same era, and has continued to diversify...
alike, cyberculture
Cyberculture
Cyberculture is the culture that has emerged, or is emerging, from the use of computer networks for communication, entertainment and business. It is also the study of various social phenomena associated with the Internet and other new forms of network communication, such as online communities,...
is much more popular though much less defined, encompassing virtual communities and cyberspace
Cyberspace
Cyberspace is the electronic medium of computer networks, in which online communication takes place.The term "cyberspace" was first used by the cyberpunk science fiction author William Gibson, though the concept was described somewhat earlier, for example in the Vernor Vinge short story "True...
in general and typically embracing optimistic anticipations about the future. Cyberpunk is nonetheless regarded as a successful genre, as it ensnared many new readers and provided the sort of movement that postmodern literary critics found alluring. Furthermore, author David Brin
David Brin
Glen David Brin, Ph.D. is an American scientist and award-winning author of science fiction. He has received the Hugo, Locus, Campbell and Nebula Awards.-Biography:...
argues, cyberpunk made science fiction more attractive and profitable for mainstream media and the visual arts in general.
Postcyberpunk
As new writers and artists began to experiment with cyberpunk ideas, new varieties of fiction emerged, sometimes addressing the criticisms leveled at the original cyberpunk stories. Lawrence Person wrote in an essay he posted to the Internet forum SlashdotSlashdot
Slashdot is a technology-related news website owned by Geeknet, Inc. The site, which bills itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters", features user-submitted and ‑evaluated current affairs news stories about science- and technology-related topics. Each story has a comments section...
:
Many writers who grew up reading in the 1980s are just now starting to have their stories and novels published. To them cyberpunk was not a revolution or alien philosophy invading science fiction, but rather just another flavor of science fiction. Like the writers of the 1970s and 80s who assimilated the New WaveNew Wave (science fiction)New Wave is a term applied to science fiction produced in the 1960s and 1970s and characterized by a high degree of experimentation, both in form and in content, a "literary" or artistic sensibility, and a focus on "soft" as opposed to hard science. The term "New Wave" is borrowed from the French...
's classics and stylistic techniques without necessarily knowing or even caring about the manifestos and ideologies that birthed them, today's new writers might very well have read NeuromancerNeuromancerNeuromancer is a 1984 novel by William Gibson, a seminal work in the cyberpunk genre and the first winner of the science-fiction "triple crown" — the Nebula Award, the Philip K. Dick Award, and the Hugo Award. It was Gibson's debut novel and the beginning of the Sprawl trilogy...
back to back with AsimovIsaac AsimovIsaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
's FoundationFoundation (novel)Foundation is the first book in Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy . Foundation is a collection of five short stories, which were first published together as a book by Gnome Press in 1951...
, John BrunnerJohn Brunner (novelist)John Kilian Houston Brunner was a prolific British author of science fiction novels and stories. His 1968 novel Stand on Zanzibar, about an overpopulated world, won the 1968 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel. It also won the BSFA award the same year...
's Stand on ZanzibarStand on ZanzibarStand on Zanzibar is a dystopian New Wave science fiction novel written by John Brunner and first published in 1968. The book won a Hugo Award for Best Novel at the 27th World Science Fiction Convention in 1969, as well as the 1969 BSFA Award and the 1973 Prix Tour-Apollo Award.-Description:A...
, and Larry NivenLarry NivenLaurence van Cott Niven / ˈlæri ˈnɪvən/ is an American science fiction author. His best-known work is Ringworld , which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics...
's RingworldRingworldRingworld is a Hugo, Nebula, and Locus award-winning 1970 science fiction novel by Larry Niven, set in his Known Space universe and considered a classic of science fiction literature. It is followed by three sequels, and preceded by four prequels, and ties into numerous other books set in Known Space...
and seen not discontinuities but a continuum.
Person's essay advocates using the term postcyberpunk to label the new works such writers produce. In this view, typical postcyberpunk stories continue the focus on a ubiquitous datasphere of computerized information and cybernetic augmentation of the human body, but without the assumption of dystopia
Dystopia
A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
(see Technological utopianism
Technological utopianism
Technological utopianism refers to any ideology based on the belief that advances in science and technology will eventually bring about a utopia, or at least help to fulfill one or another utopian ideal...
). Good examples are Neal Stephenson
Neal Stephenson
Neal Town Stephenson is an American writer known for his works of speculative fiction.Difficult to categorize, his novels have been variously referred to as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, and postcyberpunk...
's The Diamond Age
The Diamond Age
The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer is a postcyberpunk novel by Neal Stephenson. It is to some extent a science fiction bildungsroman, focused on a young girl named Nell, and set in a future world in which nanotechnology affects all aspects of life. The novel deals with themes of...
and Bruce Sterling
Bruce Sterling
Michael Bruce Sterling is an American science fiction author, best known for his novels and his work on the Mirrorshades anthology, which helped define the cyberpunk genre.-Writings:...
's Holy Fire. In television, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
is an anime television series produced by Production I.G and based on Masamune Shirow's manga Ghost in the Shell. It was written and directed by Kenji Kamiyama, with original character design by Hajime Shimomura and a soundtrack by Yoko Kanno...
has been called "the most interesting, sustained postcyberpunk media work in existence." In 2007, SF writers James Patrick Kelly
James Patrick Kelly
James Patrick Kelly is an American science fiction author who began publishing in the 1970s and remains to this day an important figure in the science fiction field....
and John Kessel
John Kessel
John Kessel is an American author of science fiction and fantasy. He is a prolific short story writer and the author of two solo novels, Good News From Outer Space and Corrupting Dr...
published Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology
Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology
Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology is a collection of postcyberpunk short stories, published by Tachyon Publications and edited by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel...
. Like all categories discerned within science fiction, the boundaries of postcyberpunk are likely to be fluid or ill defined.
Cyberprep is a term with a very similar meaning to postcyberpunk. The word is a portmanteau combining "cybernetics
Cybernetics
Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...
" and "preppy
Preppy
Preppy, preppie, or prep refers to a modern, widespread United States clique, often considered a subculture...
", reflecting its divergence from the punk elements of cyberpunk
Cyberpunk
Cyberpunk is a postmodern and science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life." The name is a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk, and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk," published in 1983...
. A cyberprep world assumes that all the technological advancements of cyberpunk speculation have taken place but life is happy rather than gritty and dangerous. Since society is leisure-driven, uploading
Mind transfer
Whole brain emulation or mind uploading is the hypothetical process of transferring or copying a conscious mind from a brain to a non-biological substrate by scanning and mapping a biological brain in detail and copying its state into a computer system or another computational device...
is more of an art form or a medium of entertainment while advanced body modification
Body modification
Body modification is the deliberate altering of the human body for any non-medical reason, such as aesthetics, sexual enhancement, a rite of passage, religious reasons, to display group membership or affiliation, to create body art, shock value, or self expression...
s are used for sports and pleasure.
Retrofuturistic derivatives
As a wider variety of writers began to work with cyberpunk concepts, new sub-genres of science fiction emerged, playing off the cyberpunk label, and focusing on technology and its social effects in different ways. Many derivatives of cyberpunk are retro-futuristicRetro-futurism
Retro-futurism is a trend in the creative arts showing the influence of depictions of the future produced prior to about 1960...
, based either on the futuristic visions of past eras, or more recent extrapolations or exaggerations of the actual technology of those eras.
Steampunk
SteampunkSteampunk
Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, and speculative fiction that came into prominence during the 1980s and early 1990s. Steampunk involves a setting where steam power is still widely used—usually Victorian era Britain or "Wild West"-era United...
, based on an era (c. 1820-1910) centered on the Victorian period
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
,
is one of the most notable developments of the cyberpunk concept. The genre initially combined extrapolations of Victorian technologies and styles with cyberpunk's bleak film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
world view. It has since developed in a less dystopian direction.
The word "steampunk" was invented in 1987 as a jocular reference to some of the novels of Tim Powers
Tim Powers
Timothy Thomas "Tim" Powers is an American science fiction and fantasy author. Powers has won the World Fantasy Award twice for his critically acclaimed novels Last Call and Declare...
, James P. Blaylock, and K.W. Jeter. When Gibson and Sterling entered the subgenre with their collaborative novel The Difference Engine
The Difference Engine
The Difference Engine is an alternate history novel by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling.It posits a Victorian Britain in which great technological and social change has occurred after entrepreneurial inventor Charles Babbage succeeded in his ambition to build a mechanical computer .The novel was...
the term was being used earnestly as well. Alan Moore
Alan Moore
Alan Oswald Moore is an English writer primarily known for his work in comic books, a medium where he has produced a number of critically acclaimed and popular series, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell...
's and Kevin O'Neill
Kevin O'Neill (comics)
Kevin O'Neill is an English comic book illustrator best known as the co-creator of Nemesis the Warlock, Marshal Law , and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen .-Early career:...
's 1999 The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is a comic book series written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Kevin O'Neill, publication of which began in 1999. The series spans two six-issue limited series and a graphic novel from the America's Best Comics imprint of Wildstorm/DC, and a third miniseries...
comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
series (and the subsequent 2003 film adaption
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (film)
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is a 2003 superhero film adaptation loosely based on characters from the comic book limited series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore, who is also famous for Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell. It was released on July 11, 2003, in the...
) popularized the steampunk genre and helped propel it into mainstream fiction.
The most immediate form of steampunk subculture is the community of fans surrounding the genre. Others move beyond this, attempting to adopt a "steampunk" aesthetic through fashion, home decor and even music. This movement may also be (perhaps more accurately) described as "Neo-Victorian
Neo-Victorian
Neo-Victorian is an aesthetic movement which amalgamates Victorian and Edwardian aesthetic sensibilities with modern principles and technologies...
ism," which is the amalgamation of Victorian aesthetic principles with modern sensibilities and technologies. This characteristic is particularly evident in steampunk fashion which tends to synthesize punk, goth and rivet styles as filtered through the Victorian era. As an object style, however, steampunk adopts more distinct characteristics with various craftspersons modding
Modding
Modding is a slang expression that is derived from the verb "modify". Modding refers to the act of modifying a piece of hardware or software or anything else for that matter, to perform a function not originally conceived or intended by the designer...
modern-day devices into a pseudo-Victorian mechanical "steampunk" style. The goal of such redesigns is to employ appropriate materials (such as polished brass, iron, and wood) with design elements and craftsmanship consistent with the Victorian era.
Teslapunk
TeslapunkTeslapunk
Teslapunk, named for scientist and inventor Nikola Tesla, refers to fictional narratives or visual styles inspired by 18th, 19th, and early 20th century pioneers of electricity and electrical devices...
, named for scientist and inventor Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor, mechanical engineer, and electrical engineer...
, refers to fictional narratives or visual styles inspired by 18th, 19th, and early 20th century pioneers of electricity and electrical devices. This narrative or style commonly imagines an alternate history where widely available cheap (or free), clean, and often highly portable electrical energy replaces all previous energy sources (such as wood, coal and oil, and the steam engines that were fueled by them), but has yet to be replaced (or is never replaced) by other energy sources itself (such as diesel or atomic power). In some stories, free-energy technologies are largely forgotten in the present day, but only because they were kept secret by some government or other organization that used the technologies to control the masses.
Atompunk
Atompunk relates to the pre-digital period of 1945-1965, including mid-century ModernismModernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
, the Atomic Age
Atomic Age
The Atomic Age, also known as the Atomic Era, is a phrase typically used to delineate the period of history following the detonation of the first nuclear bomb Trinity on July 16, 1945...
and Space Age
Space Age
The Space Age is a time period encompassing the activities related to the Space Race, space exploration, space technology, and the cultural developments influenced by these events. The Space Age is generally considered to have begun with Sputnik...
, Communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
and concern about it exaggerated as paranoia
Paranoia
Paranoia [] is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself...
in the USA along with Neo-Soviet styling, underground cinema, Googie architecture, the Sputnik programme, superhero fiction
Superhero fiction
Superhero fiction is a form originating in and most common to American comic books, though it has expanded into other media through adaptations and original works....
, the rise of the US military/industrial powers and the fall-out of Chernobyl
Chernobyl
Chernobyl or Chornobyl is an abandoned city in northern Ukraine, in Kiev Oblast, near the border with Belarus. The city had been the administrative centre of the Chernobyl Raion since 1932....
. Its aesthetic tends toward Populuxe and Raygun Gothic
Raygun Gothic
Raygun Gothic is a catchall term for a visual style that incorporates various aspects of the Googie, Streamline Moderne and Art Deco architectural styles when applied to retro-futuristic science fiction environments. Academic Lance Olsen has characterised Raygun Gothic as "a tomorrow that never was"...
, which describe a retro-futuristic vision of the world.
Clockpunk
Clockpunk is a subgenre of speculative fiction which is similar to steampunkSteampunk
Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, and speculative fiction that came into prominence during the 1980s and early 1990s. Steampunk involves a setting where steam power is still widely used—usually Victorian era Britain or "Wild West"-era United...
, in that it portrays advanced technology based on pre-modern designs, but the technology used is based on springs and clockwork
Clockwork
A clockwork is the inner workings of either a mechanical clock or a device that operates in a similar fashion. Specifically, the term refers to a mechanical device utilizing a complex series of gears....
, and is usually set during the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
, in the vein of Jay Lake
Jay Lake
Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is a science fiction and fantasy writer. In 2003 he was a quarterly first place winner in the Writers of the Future contest. In 2004 he won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in Science Fiction. He lives in Portland, Oregon and currently works as a product manager...
's novel, Mainspring
Mainspring (novel)
Mainspring is the third novel from writer Jay Lake. It is a science fiction/fantasy novel, of the sub genre steampunk.This novel is followed by the 2008 sequel Escapement and the 2010 sequel Pinion.-Plot summary:...
, and Whitechapel Gods
Whitechapel Gods
Whitechapel Gods is a 2008 Canadian Clockpunk/retro-futuristic novel written by S.M. Peters. It is a dystopian industrial alternate history of Victorian London.-Plot summary:...
by S M Peters.
The term was coined by the GURPS
GURPS
The Generic Universal RolePlaying System, or GURPS, is a tabletop role-playing game system designed to allow for play in any game setting...
role playing system.
Dieselpunk
Dieselpunk is based on the aesthetics of the interbellum period through World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
(c. 1920-1945). This sub-genre is sometimes named Decopunk
Decopunk
Decopunk is a recent subset of the Steampunk genre, centered around the Art Deco and Streamline Moderne art styles, and based around the period between the 20s and 50s. In an interview at CoyoteCon, steampunk author Sara M. Harvey made the distinctions "...shiner than DieselPunk, more like...
, referring to the Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
art style (including its Streamline Moderne
Streamline Moderne
Streamline Moderne, sometimes referred to by either name alone or as Art Moderne, was a late type of the Art Deco design style which emerged during the 1930s...
variant). The genre combines the artistic and genre influences of the period (including pulp magazines, serial films, film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
, art deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
, and wartime pin-ups) with postmodern technology and sensibilities. First coined in 2001 as a marketing term by game designer Lewis Pollak to describe his role-playing game Children of the Sun, dieselpunk has grown to describe a distinct style of visual art, music, motion pictures, fiction, and engineering. Examples include Crimson Skies
Crimson Skies
Crimson Skies is a media franchise and fictional universe created by Jordan Weisman and Dave McCoy. The series' intellectual property is currently owned by Microsoft Game Studios , although Weisman's new company, Smith & Tinker Inc., has announced that it has licensed the electronic entertainment...
, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is a 2004 American pulp adventure science-fiction film written and directed by Kerry Conran in his directorial debut. The film is set in an alternative 1939 and follows the adventures of Polly Perkins , a newspaper reporter, and Harry Joseph "Joe" Sullivan ,...
, Dark City, the BioShock series
BioShock (series)
BioShock is a video game series developed by Irrational Games—the first under the name 2K Boston/2K Australia—and designed by Ken Levine. It was originally released for the Windows operating system and Xbox 360 video game console on 21 August 2007 in North America, and three days later in Europe...
.
Biopunk
Biopunk emerged during the 1990s and focuses on the near-future unintended consequencesUnintended Consequences
Unintended Consequences is a novel by John Ross, first published in 1996 by Accurate Press. The story chronicles the history of the gun culture, gun rights and gun control in the United States from the early 1900s through the late 1990s...
of the biotechnology revolution following the discovery of recombinant DNA
Recombinant DNA
Recombinant DNA molecules are DNA sequences that result from the use of laboratory methods to bring together genetic material from multiple sources, creating sequences that would not otherwise be found in biological organisms...
. Biopunk fiction typically describes the struggles of individuals or groups, often the product of human experimentation
Human experimentation
Human subject research includes experiments and observational studies. Human subjects are commonly participants in research on basic biology, clinical medicine, nursing, psychology, and all other social sciences. Humans have been participants in research since the earliest studies...
, against a backdrop of totalitarian governments or megacorporations which misuse biotechnologies as means of social control
Social control
Social control refers generally to societal and political mechanisms or processes that regulate individual and group behavior, leading to conformity and compliance to the rules of a given society, state, or social group. Many mechanisms of social control are cross-cultural, if only in the control...
or profiteering. Unlike cyberpunk, it builds not on information technology
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
but on synthetic biology
Synthetic biology
Synthetic biology is a new area of biological research that combines science and engineering. It encompasses a variety of different approaches, methodologies, and disciplines with a variety of definitions...
. As in postcyberpunk however, individuals are usually modified
Body modification
Body modification is the deliberate altering of the human body for any non-medical reason, such as aesthetics, sexual enhancement, a rite of passage, religious reasons, to display group membership or affiliation, to create body art, shock value, or self expression...
and enhanced
Human enhancement
Human enhancement refers to any attempt to temporarily or permanently overcome the current limitations of the human body through natural or artificial means...
not with cyberware
Cyberware
For other uses; see Cyberware Cyberware is a relatively new and unknown field...
, but by genetic manipulation
Human genetic engineering
Human genetic engineering is the alteration of an individual's genotype with the aim of choosing the phenotype of a newborn or changing the existing phenotype of a child or adult....
of their chromosome
Chromosome
A chromosome is an organized structure of DNA and protein found in cells. It is a single piece of coiled DNA containing many genes, regulatory elements and other nucleotide sequences. Chromosomes also contain DNA-bound proteins, which serve to package the DNA and control its functions.Chromosomes...
s.
Nanopunk
Nanopunk refers to an emerging genre of speculative science fiction still very much in its infancy in comparison to other genres like that of CyberpunkCyberpunk
Cyberpunk is a postmodern and science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life." The name is a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk, and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk," published in 1983...
. The genre is similar to biopunk, but describes a world in which the use of biotechnology
Biotechnology
Biotechnology is a field of applied biology that involves the use of living organisms and bioprocesses in engineering, technology, medicine and other fields requiring bioproducts. Biotechnology also utilizes these products for manufacturing purpose...
is limited or prohibited, and only nanotechnology
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...
is in wide use (while in biopunk bio- and nanotechnologies often coexist). Currently the genre is more concerned with the artistic and physiological impact of nanotechnology, than of aspects of the technology itself.
Other proposed derivatives
There have been a handful of divergent terms based on the general concepts of steampunk. These are typically considered unofficial and are often invented by readers, or by authors referring to their own works, often humorously.A large number of terms have been used by the GURPS
GURPS
The Generic Universal RolePlaying System, or GURPS, is a tabletop role-playing game system designed to allow for play in any game setting...
roleplaying game Steampunk to describe anachronistic technologies and settings, including stonepunk, bronzepunk, sandalpunk, candlepunk, transistorpunk and atomic punk. These terms have seen very little use outside of GURPS.
Elfpunk
Elfpunk was proposed as a subgenre of urban fantasy
Urban fantasy
Urban fantasy is a sub-genre of fantasy defined by place; the fantastic narrative has an urban setting. Many urban fantasies are set in contemporary times and contain supernatural elements. However, the stories can take place in historical, modern, or futuristic periods...
in which faeries and elves are transplanted from rural folklore into modern urban settings. During the awards ceremony for the 2007 National Book Awards, judge Elizabeth Partridge expounded on the distinction between elfpunk and urban fantasy
Urban fantasy
Urban fantasy is a sub-genre of fantasy defined by place; the fantastic narrative has an urban setting. Many urban fantasies are set in contemporary times and contain supernatural elements. However, the stories can take place in historical, modern, or futuristic periods...
, citing fellow judge Scott Westerfeld's thoughts on the works of Holly Black
Holly Black
Holly Black née Riggenbach is an American writer and editor, best known for writing The Spiderwick Chronicles, a series of children's fantasy books she created with illustrator Tony DiTerlizzi.-Early life and education:...
who is considered "classic elfpunk — there's enough creatures already, and she's using them. Urban fantasy, though, can have additionally made-up creatures."
Mythpunk
Described as a subgenre of mythic fiction
Mythic fiction
Mythic fiction is literature that is rooted in, inspired by, or that in some way draws from the tropes, themes and symbolism of myth, folklore, and fairy tales. The term is widely credited to Charles de Lint and Terri Windling...
, Catherynne M. Valente
Catherynne M. Valente
Catherynne M. Valente , is a Tiptree–, Andre Norton–, and Mythopoeic Award–winning novelist, poet, and literary critic. Her short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, the World Fantasy Award–winning anthologies Salon Fantastique and Paper Cities, along with numerous Year's Best volumes...
uses the term "mythpunk" to define a brand of speculative fiction which starts in folklore and myth and adds elements of postmodern fantastic techniques: urban fantasy, confessional poetry, non-linear storytelling, linguistic calisthenics, worldbuilding, and academic fantasy. Writers whose works would fall under the mythpunk label are Catherynne M. Valente
Catherynne M. Valente
Catherynne M. Valente , is a Tiptree–, Andre Norton–, and Mythopoeic Award–winning novelist, poet, and literary critic. Her short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, the World Fantasy Award–winning anthologies Salon Fantastique and Paper Cities, along with numerous Year's Best volumes...
, Ekaterina Sedia
Ekaterina Sedia
Ekaterina Sedia is a Russian-born fantasy author who is currently living in the United States. Her most recent work is The Alchemy of Stone, a steampunk novel that explores sexism and class bigotry. Alchemy received a star review from Publishers Weekly and was made the LA Timess 2008 Summer...
, Theodora Goss
Theodora Goss
Theodora Goss is a Hungarian American writer of fantasy short stories. Her stories have been nominated for major awards, including the 2007 Nebula Award for "Pip and the Fairies," and the 2005 World Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction for "The Wings of Meister Wilhelm." She won the 2004...
, and Sonya Taaffe
Sonya Taaffe
Sonya Taaffe is a Massachusetts-based author of short fiction and poetry. Sonya grew up in Arlington and Lexington, MA and graduated from Brandeis University in 2003 where she received a BA and MA in Classical Studies...
.
Nowpunk
Nowpunk is a term invented by Bruce Sterling
Bruce Sterling
Michael Bruce Sterling is an American science fiction author, best known for his novels and his work on the Mirrorshades anthology, which helped define the cyberpunk genre.-Writings:...
, which he applied to contemporary fiction set in the time period in which the fiction is being published, i.e. all contemporary fiction. Sterling used the term to describe his book The Zenith Angle
The Zenith Angle
The Zenith Angle is a science fiction novel by Bruce Sterling, first published in 2004, about a pioneering expert in computer and network security with a traditional hacker personality named Derek Vandeveer...
, which follows the story of a hacker whose life is changed by the September 11th, 2001 attacks.
Splatterpunk
Splatterpunk, a term that David J. Schow
David J. Schow
David J. Schow is an American author of horror novels, short stories, and screenplays. His credits include films such as The Crow and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. Most of Schow's work falls into the sub-genre splatterpunk, a term he is sometimes credited with coining...
coined in the mid-1980s at the World Fantasy Convention in Providence, refers to a subgenre of horror fiction
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
distinguished by its graphic, often gory, depiction of violence. It often overlaps with body horror
Body horror
Body horror, biological horror, organic horror or venereal horror is horror fiction in which the horror is principally derived from the graphic destruction or degeneration of the body. Such works may deal with disease, decay, parasitism, mutilation, or mutation...
. Though it gained some prominence in the 1980s and 1990s, and attracted a cult following, the term "splatterpunk" is currently used less often than other synonymous terms for the genre.
External links
- Die Wachen, a concise overview of literary punk genres.