Steampunk is…the love child of Hot Topic and a BBC costume drama

Gail Carriger

So I’ve started working my way through Shadow and Bone, the Netflix adaption of Leigh Bardugo YA fantasy series. No bad so far, a decent steam punk setting…except wait. According to the author, the more proper term would be Tsarpunk.

Which kind of begs the question…how many -punks are there when it comes to scifi/fantasy subgenres? We have Cyberpunk, the granddaddy of them all…think William Gibson, Blade Runner, etc. Then there is Steampunk, which is steam tech, goggles, old-fashioned revolvers festooned with exposed gears, the 19^th Century with magic and elves. Dieselpunk…think Great Depression or WWII gone bonkers…Iron Sky or Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.)

Clockpunk (da Vinci on Steroids) Steel Punk (?) (Islandpunk (??) Decopunk (???) Stonepunk (????…!) and so on. More -punks than a Black Flag show in the 80’s.

Everything is marketing in the end. I suppose having a novel stand as the only member of its genre is one way to stand out, there will be less competion for it on Amazon. So I hereby lay claim to Aluminiumpunk as my subgenre of choice. Now I just have to write something that fits into it…