Cyberpunk derivatives

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]

  1. ^ a b Bould, Mark (2005). "Cyberpunk". In Seed, David (ed.). A Companion to Science Fiction. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 217. ISBN 978-1-4051-4458-2.
  2. ^ Stableford, Brian (2005). "Alternative History". The A to Z of Fantasy Literature. Scarecrow Press. pp. 7–8.
  3. ^ 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.