Since the advent of the cyberpunk genre, a number of cyberpunk derivatives have become recognized in their own right as distinct subgenres in speculative fiction, especially in science fiction.[1] Rather than necessarily sharing the digitally and mechanically focused setting of cyberpunk, these derivatives can display other futuristic, or even retrofuturistic, qualities that are drawn from or analogous to cyberpunk: a world built on one particular technology that is extrapolated to a highly sophisticated level (this may even be a fantastical or anachronistic technology, akin to retrofuturism), a gritty transreal urban style, or a particular approach to social themes.
Steampunk, one of the most well-known of these subgenres, has been defined as a "kind of technological fantasy;"[1] others in this category sometimes also incorporate aspects of science fantasy and historical fantasy.[2] Scholars have written of the stylistic place of these subgenres in postmodern literature, as well as their ambiguous interaction with the historical perspective of postcolonialism.[3]
Classic cyberpunk characters were marginalized, alienated loners who lived on the edge of society in generally dystopic futures where daily life was impacted by rapid technological change, an ubiquitous datasphere of computerized information, and invasive modification of the human body.[5]
The cyberpunk style describes the nihilistic and underground side of the digital society that developed from the last two decades of the 20th century. The cyberpunk world is dystopian, that is, it is the antithesis of utopian visions, very frequent in science fiction produced in the mid-twentieth century, typified by the world of Star Trek, although incorporating some of these utopias. It is sometimes generically defined as "cyberpunk-fantasy" or "cyberfantasy" a work of a fantasy genre that concerns the internet or cyberspace. Among the best known exponents are commonly indicated William Gibson, for his highly innovative and distinctive stories and novels from a stylistic and thematic point of view, and Bruce Sterling, for theoretical elaboration. Sterling later defined cyberpunk as "a new type of integration. The overlapping of worlds that were formally separated: the realm of high tech and modern underground culture.[6][7]
The relevance of cyberpunk as a genre to punk subculture is debatable and further hampered by the lack of a defined 'cyberpunk' subculture. Where the small 'cyber' movement shares themes with cyberpunk fiction, as well as drawing inspiration from punk and goth alike, cyberculture is considerably more popular though much less defined, encompassing virtual communities and cyberspace in general and typically embracing optimistic anticipations about the future. Cyberpunk is nonetheless regarded as a successful genre, as it ensnared many new readers and provided the sort of movement that postmodern literary critics found alluring. Furthermore, author David Brin argues, cyberpunk made science fiction more attractive and profitable for mainstream media and the visual arts in general.[8]
It is an emerging subgenre that is still less common in comparison to other derivatives of cyberpunk.[9] The genre is similar to biopunk, which focuses on the use of biotechnology, such as bionanotechnology and biorobotics, rather than on nanotechnology. (Albeit, like in biopunk, bio-, nanotechnologies, and cyberware often coexist in contrast to classical cyberpunk settings tending to heavily focus on mechanical cyberware to the point of genetic engineering and nanotechnologies being outright banned in some cyberpunk settings.)
One of the earliest works of nanopunk, Tech Heaven (1995) by Linda Nagata, looked into the healing potential of nanotechnology.[9] The genre is often concerned with the artistic and physiological impact of nanotechnology, than of aspects of the technology itself.[11] For instance, Prey (2002) by Michael Crichton explores a potential doomsday scenario caused by nanotechnology.[9] One of the most prominent examples of nanopunk is the Crysis video game series; less famous examples include the television series Generator Rex (2010) and film Transcendence (2014).[11]
Postcyberpunk
Postcyberpunk includes newer cyberpunk works that experiment with different approaches to the genre. Often, such works will keep to central futuristic elements of cyberpunk—such as human augmentation, ubiquitous infospheres, and other advanced technology—but will forgo the assumption of a dystopia.[12] However, like all categories discerned within science fiction, the boundaries of postcyberpunk are likely to be fluid or ill-defined.[13]
It can be argued that the rise of cyberpunk fiction took place at a time when the 'cyber' was still considered new, foreign, and more-or-less strange to the average person. In this sense, postcyberpunk essentially emerged in acknowledgement of the idea that humanity has since adapted to the concept of cyberspace and no longer sees some elements of cyberpunk as from a distant world.[14]
As new writers and artists began to experiment with cyberpunk ideas, new varieties of fiction emerged, sometimes addressing the criticisms leveled at classic cyberpunk fiction. In 1998, Lawrence Person published an essay to the Internet forum Slashdot in which he discusses the emergence of the postcyberpunk genre:
The best of cyberpunk conveyed huge cognitive loads about the future by depicting (in best "show, don't tell" fashion) the interaction of its characters with the quotidian minutia of their environment. In the way they interacted with their clothes, their furniture, their decks and spex, cyberpunk characters told you more about the society they lived in than "classic" SF stories did through their interaction with robots and rocketships.
Postcyberpunk uses the same immersive world-building technique, but features different characters, settings, and, most importantly, makes fundamentally different assumptions about the future. Far from being alienated loners, postcyberpunk characters are frequently integral members of society (i.e., they have jobs). They live in futures that are not necessarily dystopic (indeed, they are often suffused with an optimism that ranges from cautious to exuberant), but their everyday lives are still impacted by rapid technological change and an omnipresent computerized infrastructure.[5][unreliable source?]
Person advocates using the term postcyberpunk for the strain of science fiction that he describes above. In this view, typical postcyberpunk fiction explores themes related to a "world of accelerating technological innovation and ever-increasing complexity in ways relevant to our everyday lives," while continuing the focus on social aspects within a post-third industrial-era society, such as of ubiquitous dataspheres and cybernetic augmentation of the human body. Unlike cyberpunk, its works may portray a utopia or to blend elements of both extremes into a relatively more mature societal vision.
Denoting the postmodern framework of the genre, Rafael Miranda Huereca (2006) states:
In this fictional world, the unison in the hive becomes a power mechanism which is executed in its capillary form, not from above the social body but from within. This mechanism as Foucault remarks is a form of power, which "reaches into the very grain of individuals, touches their bodies and inserts itself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes and everyday lives". In postcyberpunk unitopia 'the capillary mechanism' that Foucault describes is literalized. Power touches the body through the genes, injects viruses to the veins, takes the forms of pills and constantly penetrates the body through its surveillance systems; collects samples of body substance, reads finger prints, even reads the 'prints' that are not visible, the ones which are coded in the genes. The body responds back to power, communicates with it; supplies the information that power requires and also receives its future conduct as a part of its daily routine. More importantly, power does not only control the body, but also designs, (re)produces, (re)creates it according to its own objectives. Thus, human body is re-formed as a result of the transformations of the relations between communication and power.[15]
In addition to themes of its ancestral genre, according to Huereca (2011), postcyberpunk might also combine elements of nanopunk and biopunk. Some postcyberpunk settings can have diverse types of augmentations instead of focusing on one kind, while others, similar to classic cyberpunk, can revolve around a single type of technology like prosthetics, such as in Ghost in the Shell (GitS).[16]
Cyberprep is a term with a similar meaning to postcyberpunk. A cyberprep world assumes that all the technological advancements of cyberpunk speculation have taken place, but life is utopian rather than gritty and dangerous.[18] Since society is largely leisure-driven, advanced body enhancements are used for sports, pleasure, and self-improvement.
The word is an amalgam of the prefix cyber-, referring to cybernetics, and preppy, reflecting its divergence from the punk elements of cyberpunk.[18]
As a wider variety of writers began to work with cyberpunk concepts, new subgenres of science fiction emerged, playing off the cyberpunk label, and focusing on technology and its social effects in different ways. Many derivatives of cyberpunk are retro-futuristic: they reimagine the past either through futuristic visions of historical eras (especially from the first and second industrial revolution technological-eras), or through depictions of more recent extrapolations or exaggerations of the actual technology from those eras.
The most immediate form of steampunk subculture is the community of fans surrounding the genre. Others move beyond this, attempting to adopt a "steampunk" aesthetic through fashion, home decor and even music. This movement may also be (perhaps more accurately) described as "Neo-Victorianism", which is the amalgamation of Victorian aesthetic principles with modern sensibilities and technologies. This characteristic is particularly evident in steampunk fashion which tends to synthesize punk, goth and rivet styles as filtered through the Victorian era. As an object style, steampunk adopts more distinct characteristics with various craftspersons modding modern-day devices into a pseudo-Victorian mechanical "steampunk" style.[23] The goal of such redesigns is to employ appropriate materials (such as polished brass, iron, and wood) with design elements and craftsmanship consistent with the Victorian era.[24]
First coined in 2001 as a marketing term by game designer Lewis Pollak to describe his role-playing game Children of the Sun,[32][34] dieselpunk has since grown to describe a distinct style of visual art, music, motion pictures, fiction, and engineering.
Decopunk is a recent subset of dieselpunk, centered around the art deco and Streamline Moderne art styles. Other influences include the 1927 film Metropolis as well as the environment of American cities like New York, Chicago, and Boston around the period between the 1920s and 1950s.
Steampunk author Sara M. Harvey made the distinction that decopunk is "shinier than dieselpunk;" more specifically, dieselpunk is "a gritty version of steampunk set in the 1920s–1950s" (i.e., the war eras), whereas decopunk "is the sleek, shiny very art deco version; same time period, but everything is chrome!"[39]
There have been a handful of divergent terms based on the general concepts of steampunk. These are typically considered unofficial and are often invented by readers, or by authors referring to their own works, often humorously.
For instance, Bruce Sterling described his 2004 novel The Zenith Angle, which follows the story of a hacker whose life is changed by the September 11 attacks,[64] as "nowpunk".[65] The developers of the computer game Neo Cab used the same term to describe themselves.[66] Another example is Rococopunk, a combination of Rococo and punk clothing in cosplay or theatrical costuming.[67][68] Also, the term Stonepunk has been used to refer to settings based in which characters use Neolithic technology,[69] such as the 2017 videogame Horizon Zero Dawn.[70]
A large number of terms have been used by the GURPS roleplaying game Steampunk to describe anachronistic technologies and settings, including clockpunk (Renaissance tech), and transistorpunk (Atomic-Age tech)—the latter is analogous to atompunk. These terms have seen very little use outside GURPS.[28]
Raypunk
Raypunk (derived from "Raygun Gothic") is a distinctive (sub)genre that deals with scenarios, technologies, beings or environments, very different from everything that is known or what is possible here on Earth or by science. It covers space surrealism, parallel worlds, alien art, technological psychedelia, non-standard 'science', alternative or distorted/twisted reality, and so on.[71]
It is a predecessor to atompunk with similar "cosmic" themes, but mostly without explicit nuclear power or definitive technology. It is also distinct in that it has more archaic/schematic/artistic style, and that its atmosphere is more dark, obscure, cheesy, weird, mysterious, dreamy, hazy, or etheric (origins before 1880–1950), parallel to steampunk and dieselpunk.[72][73]
Solarpunk is a movement, a subgenre, and an alternative to cyberpunk fiction that encourages optimistic envisioning of the future in light of present environmental concerns, such as climate change and pollution,[74] as well as concerns of social inequality.[75] Solarpunk fiction imagines futures that address environmental concerns with varying degrees of optimism.
Lunarpunk
Lunarpunk is a subgenre of solarpunk with a darker aesthetic. It portrays the nightlife, spirituality, and more introspective side of solarpunk utopias.[76]
^ abBould, Mark (2005). "Cyberpunk". In Seed, David (ed.). A Companion to Science Fiction. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 217. ISBN978-1-4051-4458-2.
^Stableford, Brian (2005). "Alternative History". The A to Z of Fantasy Literature. Scarecrow Press. pp. 7–8.
^Smith, Eric D. (2012). "Third-World Punks, Or, Watch Out for the Worlds Behind You". Globalization, Utopia and Postcolonial Science Fiction: New Maps of Hope. Palgrave Macmillan.
^Sterling, Bruce (1988). Mirrorshades: the Cyberpunk Anthology. Ace. p. XI. The term captures something crucial to the work of these writers, something crucial to the decade as a whole: a new kind of integration. The overlapping of worlds that were formerly separated: the realm of high tech and the modern pop underground...
^ abHawkes-Reed, J. (2009). "The Guerilla Infrastructure HOWTO". In Colin Harvey (ed.). Future Bristol. Swimming Kangaroo. ISBN978-1-934041-93-2. Archived from the original on 27 December 2010. Retrieved 17 December 2010.
^ abNicholls, Peter; Langford, David (2023). "Steampunk". In Clute, John; Langford, David (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (4 ed.). London and Reading: SFE Ltd and Ansible Editions. Retrieved 25 February 2024.
^Reilly, Luke (5 March 2023) [Originally posted February 20, 2023]. "Atomic Heart Review". IGN. Archived from the original on 20 February 2023. Retrieved 5 November 2023.