Discussion History Main / MyFriendsAndZoidberg

The answer to the question lies in the roots of the Punk Punk meta-genre. The sf of the late 1980s, later termed \\\'\\\'cyberpunk\\\'\\\', was seen as ultra-realistic in its predictions, e.g. space habitats and continued Cold War (both seemed likely in those days). Less than a decade later, cyberpunk was completely left behind sociologically and still unattained technologically. Unlike some other trends in sf however, it still resonated with speculative fiction fans and so didn\\\'t become entirely extinct. The natural continuation of cyberpunk is to keep writing successful tech + failing society fiction in the same vein, but instead of being wrong about the 1990s/2000s milieu only, it can be wrong about other eras and contexts. In contrast to cyberpunk, steampunk is a deliberately and explicitly anachronistic genre, but it is still true to the spirit of a meta-genre that is more or less defined by those two extremes. Some of the other *punk sub-genres bridge that gap (especially dieselpunk), and others extrapolate even further (like clockpunk and even more extreme, sandalpunk).

The answer to the question lies in the roots of the Punk Punk meta-genre. The sf of the late 1980s, later termed \\\'\\\'cyberpunk\\\'\\\' was seen as ultra-realistic in its predictions, e.g. space habitats and continued Cold War. Less than a decade later, cyberpunk was completely left behind sociologically and still unattained technologically. Unlike some other trends in sf however, it still resonated with speculative fiction fans and so didn\\\'t become entirely extinct. The natural continuation of cyberpunk is to keep writing successful tech + failing society fiction in the same vein, but instead of being wrong about the 1990s/2000s milieu only, it can be wrong about other eras and contexts. In contrast to cyberpunk, steampunk is a deliberately and explicitly anachronistic genre, but it is still true to the spirit of a meta-genre that is more or less defined by those two extremes. Some of the other *punk sub-genres bridge that gap (especially dieselpunk), and others extrapolate even further (like clockpunk and even more extreme, sandalpunk).

I don\\\'t see it as a major problem that there are only a few works in some of the sub-genres; Punk Punk is an unrestricted, inclusivistic, eclectic meta-genre that is quite willing to be speculative about speculativity. I feel it wouldn\\\'t be true to Punk Punk to winnow out sub-genres for being bizarre or unviable. As long as there is 1) a society with tendencies to alienation and authoritarianism and 2) pervasive, story-carrying technology that is rampant rather than advanced, I think it can be made into a Punk Punk sub-genre (I do believe this rules out Cottage Punk though, sorry).