How many other “punk” alternate-history scenarios are there besides cyberpunk (the original) and steampunk?
Wikipedia’s article on cyberpunk derivatives includes atompunk, dieselpunk, clockpunk, biopunk, and atompunk. All of these essentially refer to scenarios where advanced technology has been developed using the technology referred to in the name, far more advanced than the technology that actually was developed in each case. It takes the specific concept to a much greater scale. Pretty much all “punk” scenarios involve gigantic contraptions and unique systems of transportation and communication.
There’s nothing “punk” about any of them, really - that name, which came from “cyberpunk,” seems to have stuck despite not having much to do with the things to which it refers. I guess the original ‘cyberpunk’ fiction centered around vaguely punk-rock type people in a futuristic setting, i.e. the people on the fringes of society or operating in some underground capacity. But the later variations don’t necessarily involve this at all.
Also, are there examples of these various scenarios being used in movies or video games before the whole ‘punk’ labeling even existed? Or being used by people who didn’t necessarily know what they were?
The element “punk” in the name of science fiction subgenres doesn’t have much to do anymore with the term as derived from “punk rock” or the 1950’s idea of a punk as a minor criminal/rebel. In the term “cyberpunk,” the idea was to have characters who rebelled against society while being hip to the ideas of the computer age. Note that cyberpunk was never intended to be a kind of alternate history. Somebody then decided that adding “punk” to a word meant just “a subgenre of science fiction, probably having something to do with alternate history,” and thus people starting making up names like “steampunk,” “atompunk,” “clockpunk,” etc.
The only one of these that has really caught on is “steampunk.” My observation at science fiction conventions though is that the people (usually fairly young ones) who claim to be interested in steampunk aren’t really interested in alternate history or even science fiction. They just like to dress up in Victorian clothes.
Your guesses at the history here are reasonably close to the truth. It’s debatable how “punk” any of the literature was. William Gibson’s Neuromancer is one of the earliest and “punkiest” of the lot.
Early steampunk, written as an anti-Edisonaide was fairly darn punk. But it grew to incorporate more pulpy things that weren’t deconstructions of the genre.
Goth-punk, which is, well, gothic but with more metal to it, is a known variant.
I’ve occasionally heard ‘splatterpunk’ used to refer to cool (or wanna-be cool, at least) over-the-top action/horror or action/horror/comedy. Not common, but it seemed a ‘real’ term, not a marketing-based one.
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I’ve still got a copy of Cyberpunk 2020 around here somewhere. Dibs on the Fixer!
If you really want to have some fun, scroll through the talk and history pages. There used to be a much much much longer list, which overzealous or rational wiki editors whittled away with a thousand paper cuts.
Yeah, “punk” in this case, is the same as the “gate” in “Watergate”. The original “punk” in “cyberpunk” was actually a bit punk. But “punk” was repurposed to mean “an adventure with the cultural and/or chronological and/or artistic/design trappings of a specific stage of technology, but given an exaggerated sci-fi expansion”. It’s still punk, but instead of being about punkish characters, like the original genre, it now refers to the ‘punkification’ of the technology and period rather than the characters.
In terms of actual stories, wikipedia is pretty good at only allowing actual things you can cite. Although maybe tvtropes is more permissive.
But maybe you want potential punks. So make two lists: one of all technological categories (solar, geothermal, atomic, Newton, stone age, etc), and one of all period specific design aesthetics (50s diner, tiki, shiny steel and rivits, art deco, etc) - extra points if they coincide - and you have a potential “punk” genre.
Cassettepunk - alternate history where optical data technology was never developed and so cassette tape became the default medium for any kind of information processing.
Wait, I’ve got an idea: “Punk punk” – in a world where a bespectacled closeted gay man croons about crocodiles and a sea captain plays keyboards in accompaniment to a young lady mooning about muskrats, out of nowhere a group of hardcore young urban misfits will have none of it, instead picking up their guitars and shouting out in favor of anarchy and against the bloody Queen. Some die from heroin overdoses.
On that theory Red Dwarf counts, since it’s set in the far future (even before the accident that wipes out the ship’s crew) and yet all the data appears to be stored on microcassettes and VHS tapes.
When superhero narrative is subverted and presented in a realistic setting often with extreme sex and violence: anything by Ennis, Miller, Millar, Moore, Brubaker, Ellis. A perfect exmple would be Ennis’ “The Boys”.
For a non-comic but still very funny deconstruction of the Superhero Genre, I can’t recommend Austin Grossman’s Soon I Will Be Invincible highly enough. Well worth reading, IMHO.
And, slightly off topic as it’s not alternate history, there was splatterpunk, coined to describe the violent horror writing of the late 80s/early 90s.
