# Other "punks" besides steampunk and cyberpunk **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 12, 2010, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-punks-besides-steampunk-and-cyberpunk/560381 "2010-11-12T02:28:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-punks-besides-steampunk-and-cyberpunk/560381/21 "2010-11-12T12:28:48Z")
If we’re not careful, mediaeval fantasy will end up known as **swordpunk**. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-punks-besides-steampunk-and-cyberpunk/560381/22 "2010-11-12T12:38:19Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > If we’re not careful, mediaeval fantasy will end up known as **swordpunk**. I’ve heard Roman/Greek fantasy described as “Sandalpunk” with a straight face before, FWIW. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-punks-besides-steampunk-and-cyberpunk/560381/23 "2010-11-12T13:05:05Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I would totally love to read a tikipunk story. Shit. And I’m already half-way through NaNoWriMo; too late to jump tracks… You have planted a dangerous seed there, Miller. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-punks-besides-steampunk-and-cyberpunk/560381/24 "2010-11-12T14:03:18Z")
I am officially a cyberprep author – and I have the button to prove it. Others involved Esther Friesner, Susan Swartz, John M. Ford, Judith Tarr, and (honorary – he has a button but was not one of the founding members) William Gibson. ---
**Author:** ![MegaBee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f0a364/32.png) [@MegaBee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MegaBee)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-punks-besides-steampunk-and-cyberpunk/560381/25 "2010-11-12T14:06:49Z")
Cthulhupunk ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-punks-besides-steampunk-and-cyberpunk/560381/26 "2010-11-12T15:42:23Z")
For the record, William Gibson didn’t coin cyberpunk. He coined “cyberspace,” in the 1982 story “Burning Chrome.” > [@](#): > > I knew every chip in Bobby’s simulator by heart; it looked like your workaday Ono-Sendai VII, the “Cyberspace Seven.” Cyberpunk was used the next year as a title of a story by Bruce Bethke. Steampunk appears in 1987, in a letter that K. W. Jeter wrote to Locus, sort of the trade magazine of science fiction, in 1987. > [@](#): > > Personally, I think Victorian fantasies are going to be the next big thing. as long as we can come up with a fitting collective term for Powers, Blaylock and myself. Something based on the appropriate technology of that era; like “steampunk,” perhaps. Quotes from [Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction](http://www.amazon.com/Brave-New-Words-Jeff-Prucher/dp/0195387066/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1289576421&sr=8-1). ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-punks-besides-steampunk-and-cyberpunk/560381/27 "2010-11-22T12:50:06Z")
There’s also Khyberpunk. ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-punks-besides-steampunk-and-cyberpunk/560381/28 "2010-11-22T13:01:30Z")
> [@MegaBee](#): > > Cthulhupunk There was a Gurps Cthulhupunk book. And Cyberpunk’s fanzine Interface ran an issue devoted to Cthulhupunk (GMed one of the scenarios, Cthulhu and punk really do mix well). P.S: **Sr Siete** , “Capepunk”, never heard of it before, but you’re spot on. It would actually be one of the few instances in which punk really describes the mood rather than an alternate science environment. ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-punks-besides-steampunk-and-cyberpunk/560381/29 "2010-11-22T13:04:24Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > There’s also Khyberpunk. Does Effinger’s “When Gravity Fails” qualifies as Khyberpunk (I understand Khyberpunk to be more exotic and 3rdWorldish)? It used t be considered a classic Cyberpunk novel (and one of my fav SF novels anyway, really wonder why no one has tried to put it into film). ---
**Author:** ![Appl3Dappl3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/47e85d/32.png) [@Appl3Dappl3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Appl3Dappl3)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2013, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-punks-besides-steampunk-and-cyberpunk/560381/30 "2013-12-29T09:35:16Z")
Simply referring to a genre as “\*punk” is demeaning to all genres, especially if the idea has grown beyond what the common person is readily able to comprehend. In the words of the infamous Glenn Hetrick, “Don’t do Steampunk because everyone does it wrong!”. I happen to agree, if we exploit every genre by giving it a new “\*punk” term, then we ruin all literature. What Glenn meant was that we should concentrate on the historical aspect of steampunk and not on the purely speculative, because not every far fetched idea may qualify as steampunk simply because it concerns the same time period. Stop trying to ruin Everything! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2013, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-punks-besides-steampunk-and-cyberpunk/560381/31 "2013-12-29T09:49:37Z")
And then there’s zombiepunk, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2013, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-punks-besides-steampunk-and-cyberpunk/560381/32 "2013-12-29T16:46:06Z")
> [@Appl3Dappl3](#): > > Simply referring to a genre as “\*punk” is demeaning to all genres, especially if the idea has grown beyond what the common person is readily able to comprehend. In the words of the infamous Glenn Hetrick, “Don’t do Steampunk because everyone does it wrong!”. I happen to agree, if we exploit every genre by giving it a new “\*punk” term, then we ruin all literature. What Glenn meant was that we should concentrate on the historical aspect of steampunk and not on the purely speculative, because not every far fetched idea may qualify as steampunk simply because it concerns the same time period. Stop trying to ruin Everything! 😛 They also say this about applying -gate to every political scandal. It either will stop with time (Sputnik \> beatnik \> peacenik \> neatnik and not too much after) or it will live forever. Not a thing you say can affect it. The imitations don’t hurt the originals either. Readers remember what they want to remember. Besides, that quote by Hetrick is idiotic. Everybody does the future wrong, and nobody ever says they should stop.\* \*Well, I do sometimes. But mostly to myself as I mutter in my beard. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2013, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-punks-besides-steampunk-and-cyberpunk/560381/33 "2013-12-29T17:21:13Z")
_The Flintstones_ is either set in the past and is Stonepunk, or else is set in the future and is Genepunk. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2013, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-punks-besides-steampunk-and-cyberpunk/560381/34 "2013-12-29T20:12:35Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > 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. Don’t be ridiculous! You also have to glue gears onto it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-punks-besides-steampunk-and-cyberpunk/560381.md?page=1)