Cyberpunk derivatives

  • Top left, example of decopunk: Scenic setting from the movie Metropolis (1927)
  • Top right, example of oceanpunk: Illustration from the book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870)
  • Lower left, example of steampunk: Illustration from the book Le Vingtième siècle. La vie électrique (1890)
  • Lower right, example of cyberpunk: Sony Center in Berlin, described by David Suzuki as having a cyberpunk aesthetic

Cyberpunk derivatives, variously also called literary punk genres, science fiction punk (sci-fi-punk), punk fiction, or punk-punk,[1][2][3][4] are a collection of genres and subgenres in speculative fiction, science fiction, retrofuturism, aesthetics, and thereof, with the suffix -punk, collectively derived from the science fiction subgenre cyberpunk. In correspondence with cyberpunk, they are centered around visual worldbuilding, but, rather than necessarily sharing the digitally and mechanically focused setting of cyberpunk, these derivatives can display other qualities that are drawn from or analogous to cyberpunk. The basic idea is a focus on technology, usually a world built on one particular technology,[1] where punk genres are really defined by taking the technology of a given time period, and stretching it to highly sophisticated, fantastical, or even anachronistic levels.[2]

Akin to cyberpunk, transreal urbanism, or a particular approach to social stigma, have also been common, including elements of dystopia, rebellion, social alienation, societal collapse, and apocalypse, etc, with the main characters often being marginalized members of society, which ties into the original meaning of the word punk, but more recently, however, utopian themes have also become common.[1][2]

Steampunk, one of the most well-known of these subgenres, has been defined as a "kind of technological fantasy;"[5] others in this category sometimes also incorporate aspects of science fantasy and historical fantasy.[6] 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.[7]

  1. ^ a b c "Punkpunk: A Compendium of Literary Punk Genres". litreactor.com. Retrieved 12 June 2025.
  2. ^ a b c "Different punk: A to Z of punk genres". sorcereroftea.com. Retrieved 12 June 2025.
  3. ^ "Punk Punk". tvtropes.org. Retrieved 12 June 2025.
  4. ^ "Everything 'Punk". bkbass.com. Retrieved 14 June 2025.
  5. ^ Bould, Mark (2005). "Cyberpunk". In Seed, David (ed.). A Companion to Science Fiction. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 217. ISBN 978-1-4051-4458-2.
  6. ^ Stableford, Brian (2005). "Alternative History". The A to Z of Fantasy Literature. Scarecrow Press. pp. 7–8.
  7. ^ 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.
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