Sunday Spotlight: Here Come The Punks!

  Once Bruce Bethke’s 1983 short story coined the term “cyberpunk,” people everywhere began to find further derivations of the term “punk” to define a particular sub-genre, or even sub-sub genre. Since cyberpunk can be thought of as “high-tech, low-life,” any other punk can be thought of as “high emphasis-on-some-unique-thing, low-life to accompany it. 

  Steampunk was the first to do this, and so it definitely belongs to the middle-to-late portion of the Cyberpunk Era (roughly 80's and 90's). Grabbing hold of the general theme, along with the amazing appeal that it had in costuming, people ran with it the concept. Steampunk developed certain variants, such as clockpunk, dieselpunk, and Teslapunk, but on the whole, the general notion is “old tech, new twist,” and the tech is usually from the 1900’s. Some great examples might be The Difference Engine (1990) by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. Or The Rocketeer (1991), Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), The Adventures of Briscoe County, Jr. (1993 – 1994), Hugo (2011), or Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004). They are all part of the general trend I like to call retrofuturism. But if it’s more popularly labeled steampunk, who am I to argue?

  After steampunk, nanopunk is probably the most popular. It developed more in the late 90’s, but certainly caught on by the late aughts. Anything having to do with nanotechnology can be considered nanopunk. Michael Crichton’s Prey (2002) is certainly nanopunk. The remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) overwhelmingly qualifies. The latter seasons of Star Trek: Voyager (1995 – 2001) relied so heavily on Borg nanotechnology that it should definitely be considered nanopunk. And the online novellas of 17776 (2018) and 20020 (2020) by Jon Bois are definitely nanopunk.

  Biopunk is a little more specified, but it crops up so frequently that it’s hard to ignore. It became unambiguous towards the late 90’s going into the 2000’s. Cloning, genetic engineering, virophages, biohacking; these are just some of the hallmarks of biopunk. Some examples of nanopunk would be Ribofunk (1996) by Paul DiFilippo, or The Windup Girl (2009) by Paolo Bacigaluppi, or Oryx and Crake (2003) by Margaret Atwood. Chasm City (2001) by Alistair Reynolds might also make the list.

  Certain themes have taken on the term “punk” in latter years. Bugpunk would be one. The term was coined by Kameron Hurley as she used it to describe her Bel Dame Apocrypha Trilogy, although one could retroactively apply the term to certain bug-themed horror films such as Them! (1954) or Eight Legged Freaks (2002). Seapunk would be another, although that was more an artistic, visually-based subculture that originated on Tumblr and had little to do with film or literature, even though one might think it would apply to things like SeaQuest DSV (1993-1996).

  Silkpunk is a term popularized by Ken Liu. It refers to a steampunk motif, but instead of drawing upon Western antiquity, it draws upon the antiquity of East Asia. Silkpunk would feature silk, of course, but also junk ships, bamboo, pagodas, the martial arts, etc. The concept has caught on in recent years, and the popularity of Ken Liu’s writing is largely why. 

        There is also a recent trend known as nativepunk, popularized by writers such as Rebecca Roanhorse and Darcie Little Badger. The idea is to draw upon the cultural traditions of natives, whether it be Native Americans, or Native Africans. In many ways, the modern trend towards Afrofuturism is an extention of this idea. Lavie Tidhar expands upon this notion to emphasize his Jewish heritage, which he calls “Hebrewpunk.” Michael Chabon’s work, “The Yiddish Policeman’s Union” might be included in this category. To this author, the entire phenomenon seems to be something identifiable as “ethnic retrofuturism,” and would include the steampunk phenomenon which started it all. I will here label this by coining the term "culturepunk."

Other variants are often just being cutesy. Terms like “spacepunk” to refer to a space opera, or “elfpunk” to refer to a work of fantasy are not terms which one ought to take seriously.