Literary punk genres
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- This article is about literary genres named after the punk movement. For literature produced by the punk movement, see punk literature.
The suffix -punk appears in the names of a number of genres of speculative fiction. Other genres without the suffix may also be related.
- - set in present or in a future time, where genetics have advanced significantly
- - set in a futuristic (usually dystopic), highly technological world
- - themes relating to the comedy of manners and high fantasy fiction
- - themes relating to horror fiction
- - set during an alternative or secret history Victorian era, English Regency, Industrial Revolution or Edwardian period or else highly reminiscent of them
As a continuing play on the cyber/steam-punk naming convention, there have been a handful of divergent terms based on the general concepts of steampunk. A prominent example is sandalpunk, which posits a world in which ancient civilization never collapsed into the so-called Greek Dark Ages and instead saw rapid technological advancement after a few key discoveries are made or developed into industrial technologies, such as Hero of Alexandria's steam engine, built around 130 BC or the Antikythera mechanism. An example of this subgenre is Inne piesni (Other Songs) by Jacek Dukaj, as well as Rintaro and Peter Chung's Reign: The Conqueror.
GURPS Steampunk also introduced several other variations on the steampunk theme, including timepunk—a general term covering any historical variation on steampunk— or more specifically, bronzepunk (steampunk set in the Bronze Age) and stonepunk (steampunk set in the Stone Age, as seen in The Flintstones). Dieselpunk (e.g. Sky Captain) was made known by Children of the Sun RPG
Note that there are other several 'unofficial' and little-documented categories, often improvisingly invented by readers. Such names include Spacepunk (e.g. Flash Gordon), Clockpunk (e.g. Discworld) etc.
Some of these terms are often criticized as funny by several readers who dismiss this manner of categorizing of works, or even the potential existence of the categories themselves in the sense of lacking any currency outside a certain subset of Internet fandom; their evolution into proper genres remains to be seen.
[edit] See also
- List of musical punk genres
| Literary sci-fi punk genres |
|---|
| Cyberpunk — Postcyberpunk — Steampunk — Biopunk — Clockpunk |
| Other themes |
| Retro-futurism — Cyberprep — Transrealism |
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