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What do you think of all the various -punk settings? Do you use them in you worldbuilding?
What do you guys think about all these various labels? Are they useful, or just kind of over the top? When we start calling all contemporary fiction "nowpunk" it starts getting a bit ridiculous to me, but I also think that "steampunk" is a useful thing that describes a pretty unique and yet common world setting that deserves to have a label.
If you look at this list as a starter, you'll see the following:
- cyberpunk
- biopunk
- nanopunk
- postcyberpunk
- steampunk
- dieselpunk
- stonepunk
- clockpunk
- nowpunk
- elfpunk
- mythpunk
- dreampunk
- decopunk
- atompunk
- cyberprep
I've also seen the following:
- solarpunk
- sandalpunk
- bronzepunk
- candlepunk
- castlepunk
- dungeonpunk
- plaguepunk
- middlepunk
- ironpunk
How much do or don't you use or think of your own worlds in terms of these kinds of labels? What value do they provide to you, if you use them? If you do use them, do you have specific resources you use for inspiration for those various settings and aesthetics?
I've been seeing these terms used more and more frequently, but I don't know that it always helps me understand better, because a lot of the time I have no idea what they mean. There are several on this list that I've heard referenced and tried to google and couldn't find hardly anything about them, so the label then becomes rather useless to me. From things I've read, there's a decent amount of overlap within these, and I don't understand what all the differences and nuances are supposed to be, especially with so little information about so many of them.
For me personally, I just make up whatever setting I'm using and have never really thought about things in terms of these labels. All fantasy and sci-fi stories can be set in whatever kind of world, and don't need a specific label just because you combine a few elements together in a novel way—that's what you're supposed to do as a writer! Am I missing something?




What you have to consider/keep in mind is that the active portion of the term is always "punk." These genres/worlds are worlds that are on the verge or in the midst of societal breakdown or upheaval of one sort or another, similar to that upheaval that gave us the genre of punk music; that's where the term came from. If that's not there, it's not a -punk world, it's just a world. Think Immortality Inc. As opposed to Freejack. The former is just plain genre science fiction, the later (though an adaptation of Immortality Inc.) is cyberpunk.
Steampunk by and large works well in a visual setting, as it seems to end up more as an aesthetic rather than a true punk. I would also like to see a wider use of the ideas, but I haven't seen any examples, just concepts. I just have a tendency to pass them by unless they REALLY nab me; I'm not a huge fan of massive dystopias, either.
I have thought of turning the punk genera on its head and making quasi or true utopias. I keep calling those stupid little ideas preps.
Yeah, I think that's why I've struggled with understanding all these different settings/genres so much. Steampunk is the only one I'm really familiar with, and I think of that more as an aesthetic setting or as @gotquiet said, superficial elements that they do or don't contain.
When I was reading about things though trying to understand more, I did come across "cyberprep" as the idea of cyberpunk but with a utopia rather than a dystopia, so I think you're not the only one thinking in that direction at least!
"Cyber fantasy" would probably be the best way to describe a world with cyber aesthetics but tending towards positive utopia.
That being said, I'm not what I think of renaming "solarpunk" to "solar fantasy" - since it's just as much a movement to many as it is an aesthetic speculative subgenre.
Yeah, I've seen these terms (ab)used quite a lot of late. Me I think the only one that really has any application is steampunk, and that's only because it's been around a while and has had a chance to kind of settle.
I've looked at definitions of some of these others, and they really don't seem to make sense. As I understand steampunk, there is a clear aesthetic sense: kind of Victorian looking veneer (i.e., the "steam" aspect) but with clear leanings towards decco and modern almost fantastic applications of steam. Lots of fantastic devices, airships, the Nautilus and the like.
I've described The World as being something of a "bronzepunk", even though there seems to be no clear-cut definition of the term. (Maybe I should go make one up!) I would liken bronzepunk to steampunk, but pushing the chronograph back a number of centuries. In stead of iron machines puffing steam to do modern work, it would be bronze machines, clockwork and perhaps animal / human power that makes those airships fly and ships skim across the wine dark seas.
As far as The World is concerned, of course, magic also plays its part, so "thaumpunk" or "dwimpunk" may also come in to play as well. Here it is magic that makes certain mundane machines function. So in stead of a hydro-electric power station sending electricity through a grid to power a telephone, in The World, you have thaumically bound imps tapping upon small bronze rods attached to wires with wee hammers that send and receive coded packets of data across those wires that becomes the basis for the farspeaker.
Some of those on the list I haven't even heard of before, but would wonder aforehand if they're as non-sensical as some of the others!
Haha, I think one of your comments the other day mentioned bronzepunk and I tried to look it up, and that was one of the things that inspired me to make this post!
I think the main thing that confuses me is I can't figure out what makes these "-punk." Like, as far as I can tell, "nowpunk" just describes all contemporary fiction, and "sandal punk" is just anything in an ancient setting. So why not just say it's set in the current real world, or say it's set in an ancient culture with a pantheon of gods or whatever it is?
Cyberpunk is older than steampunk and is he only -punk i can really stand. It has an actually punk aethetic and the dystopia elements are often front and center. I've always hated steampunk as a genre because it is often defined by conpletely superficial elements, with maybe few exceptions, and for what ever reason I often can't suspend my disbelief over certain elements of the worldbuilding. I wouldn't say i dismiss all steampunk categorically, but I do regard it with extreme suspicion.
As I understand the etymology of cyberpunk (the term from which steam- and all the punkoids derive), actual "punks" --- young(ish) hooligans of the rebel-with-or-without-a-cause mindset --- are involved. I think of steampunk and bronzepunk as derivative aesthetics. But most of these terms seem to be nothing more than knock-offs playing on the name of the older terms without actually being punkish and probably without any real understanding of how such words are even put together.
For what it worths, I saw that there was no definition for bronzepunk at Wiktionary, so I added one. We'll see if I get chewed out for stepping on some Wikinazi's manor or not. at least it's not being defined as "any fiction set in the Bronze Age"!
The original spare handful of -punk terms were both evocative and useful, but all these tiny little categories are nothing but snowflakes in action, in my opinion.
Which ones do you consider the original ones that were more useful? The only ones I know of are cyberpunk and steampunk—are there others that you consider more canon?
The original is cyberpunk; steampunk is a direct evolution (essentially "cyberpunk thematics in an earlier era", something more recent steampunk has been losing). Biopunk (also as "ribofunk") also, as a direct answer to and at times a deliberate counter of cyberpunk.
The rest? Blah.
I like the central theme beyond the various punk settings - that the world is a dark place that's only made worthwhile if you dress it up properly - but I don't usually incorporate it in my world. If anything, I'm more of a post-punk kind of writer in that I like my worlds to exist in the aftermath of everything going to Hell.
In one of my projects, the world (insofar as the characters are aware) is a bleak and desolate desert known as the Boundlessness; whether they're aware of it or not, they live in an age long after a magic-related apocalypse destroyed civilization. I say "or not" because the event happened so long ago that it barely even exists in oral histories and the ruins of Humanity are few and far between, existing only in the places protected from erosion and other natural phenomena. A big part of the setting is the lack of mathematics: nobody has even a concept of numbers. "How far away is that hill? Not too far." "When did that happen? Recently." "How many sheep are there in the pen? Some." The story revolved around a man, Wanderer-Once-Smith, who has a vision one night then sets out into the Boundlessness to make sense of it and bring long-lost knowledge to a chosen people. As you can see, there are elements of punk settings in this setting and story but ultimately its a rebuttal against the nihilistic views of the settings you're talking about.
Going to go off topic here
Would that even be possible? Lack of advanced and/or only very primitive/basic mathematics I can believe, but complete lack of numeracy I can't. There is no real way a society of any sort can exist without even the concept of numbers. "I have many sheep" is a statement that becomes almost entirely meaningless when the numeric concepts are limited to "I have that sheep" and "I have many sheep" and nothing else (and many itself indicates that you do have some knowledge, however rudimentary, of numbers.) So much of the basics of communication depends on quantifying things that you might as well have proposed a society without nouns. To take from your example, with no concept of numbers, Once means nothing, neither does "one night." Both are dependent on numerical concepts, the measurement of time. Once he was a smith. One night ago. Etc. It's possible to have very little math and mathematic knowledge/use, though I don't think it's really plausible. But it is not really possible to not have numbers.
The sheep example is a bad one, I'll admit. It's hard to communicate how a society without an understanding of numbers computes the value of a thing or group of things. I read a National Geographic article once about societies in the Middle East with no concept of numbers beyond "There is either a thing or many things", which is what inspired this. Buildings are constructed, fall into disuse, and are covered by sand; wells are dug, go dry, and become ruins; people are born, they live, and they die. Everything is relative. It's not so much that a shepherd looks at their flock and says "I have many sheep" so much as "my flock is bigger than my neighbour's" or "the flock is smaller than it was when my father tended to it"; it's more about viewing things for their whole rather than their parts, so the shepherd sees the flock as a mass and makes a relative judgement of size instead of counting how many individual sheep make up the flock.
Of course no society with technology comparable to ours can exist in this environment, but that's the point. In the Boundlessness, shifting sands make judging distance difficult and an equatorial latitude makes telling time equally difficult. Things are so bleak nobody can keep track of time; what's the use when a day ago you did the same thing as you did on that day a week or a month earlier? Maybe you dug up another root or two for dinner, but it's so mundane that there's no point in logging time. You can't judge distance, you can't be bothered to judge time, and it's never even occurred to you that the whole is equal to - let alone greater than - the sum of its parts.
It's essentially a world where people are either resource gatherers or bandits who prey on resource gatherers; farming is a fairly recent innovation; and the harsh conditions of life reduce a person to either living or dead. Maybe such a culture could not exist in the real world, but it was certainly an interesting thought experiment at the time.
Hm. I would urge you to dig a little deeper than Nat'l Geo, if you truly want to pursue a set-up like this, though. A different concept and valuation of numerical thought I can buy, but not a complete lack of it. Measurement is numeracy. You cannot build even a shack without measuring (this one is as long as that one) and you cannot judge amounts (there are more here than there are there) or the passage of time (I had this child, then that child, and then the other child.) Unstated numbers are still implicitly understood numbers.
Particularly in a harsh setting, knowledge of quantity can directly affect your chances of survival, whether a resource gatherer or a bandit. Having just enough to eke out some kind of a living isn't really possible, particularly if living communally, if you don't know how much will be enough. And unless it is either perpetually light or perpetually dark, a concept of the passage time is also very necessary, even if it's limited solely to "I must get back before dark/I can't set out until it's light." Even the bandits would need this knowledge, particularly the concept of "how many," should the gatherers start gathering under guard or they become prone to attacks by other bandit groups themselves.
I think one of the most famous societies without numbers is an Amazon tribe called the Pirahã.
There's another article about them here, though I didn't bother reading it in depth to see if it provides any additional info. But that would be a good place for @Data_7 to start looking at a culture that doesn't use numbers. It sounds like there's been a fair amount of research/debate about them.
I've also read about the idea that without a word, that thing doesn't exist in other contexts, too. For example, there's actually substantial evidence that ancient cultures couldn't see the color blue—not because their eyes were any different from ours, but simply because they didn't have a name for it—and conversely, how it's impossible for most of us to see which of these squares is a different color green from the others because we don't have names for those different colors, but the Himba tribe can:
Anyway, Pirahã apparently has no numbers and no concept of number, as well as a number of other things that had Chomsky's knickers in a twist: just chalk it up to ANADEW and enjoy the story, I say!
I don't use the label myself of anything I've been doing or planning, because there's nothing about my invented worlds that feel particularly punk, as it were.
When it comes to works by others I do use "steampunk" sometimes - and "cyberpunk", but that's a genre I've read very little in - but I leave the rest alone. I don't find them particularly helpful.
Probably replace "punk" with "fantasy". It still conveys the type of aesthetic you'd like to use for your world, but without abusing the word "punk".
I'll agree with that. I think most people dismiss the little punks because they're really not used, save for cyber and steam.
I've been wondering - where does something like the graphic novel Baker Street fit? From the early 1990s by Gary Reed and Guy Davis, it's a kind of reimagining of Sherlock Holmes where both the Holmes and the Watson characters are women, but it's set in the 1980s in an alternative world where the British Empire never broke up and the social attitudes in general are still quite Victorian, though there is a small punk subculture and the Holmesian character caters to that milieu and is a part of it. However, it's not particularly steam-ish in terms of technology - everything is a little bit more oldfashioned than the 80s in our world, but there are cars and such. The fashion is still quite Victorian, though, apart from the punks.
I've always loved that work, but I can't decide what to call it when describing it to others.
From all the descriptions I've read as I was trying to understand this stuff, it sounds like maybe "clockpunk" would be the best fit? Basically my understanding is it's steampunk just set a little bit earlier in time and thus with less sophisticated technology—nothing "steam" powered.
But again, I'd probably just rather have you describe it basically like you did, if I were an average person, rather than have you say "it's clockpunk" and then leave me wondering wtf that means, haha.
It's more the other way around - it's set later than the steam period. But I hear you about needing to add more words to describe it.