Posts in the "Sub genres, what do they mean (steam, cyber, bio, splatter)? 

" Category

• DIY not EMI

  Sub genres, what do they mean (steam, cyber, bio, splatter)? 



  It is a blessing and a curse being the guy who posts on Friday around here. A blessing, because I get to read what everybody else wrote about the week’s topic, and sometimes that gives me an idea when I’m stumped for my own. It’s a curse because sometimes one of the other inmates steals my idea before I have a chance to write it, and then I gotta go think up a new one at the last minute.

  This week it’s a blessing, because reading everybody else’s posts has kindled within me the burning spirit of 1977, and made me want to pull on my old black leather jacket and stomp boots and shout along to “London’s Burning” all over again.

  Why? I’ll tell you why.

  A lot of the others talked about the tenuous connection between punk music and the various genrepunk sub-divisions, and how the connections have gotten even more tenuous as time has gone on – and they’re right. Cyberpunk started off pretty punk. It was written by a new generation, about a new generation, in a new and dangerous way. Splatterpunk, ditto. It went for the visceral and ugly, and prided itself in providing not a shred of relief or comfort to the reader. Steampunk? Okay, not so much. And even the earlier genres have lost a lot of their rusty razor edge as they’ve aged, just like punk rock did. Blondie went disco in three albums. The Ramones did movie soundtracks. Johnny Rotten did beer advertisements.

  But it doesn’t have to be like that. Yes, the “punk” suffix is basically just a marketing tool now, but so what? It could mean something if we wanted it to. And I want it to. (more…)

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• INCONCEIVABLE!

  Sub genres, what do they mean (steam, cyber, bio, splatter)? 



  “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” — The Princess Bride

  What do various subgenres really mean? It’s important to think about the answer to that question because SFF works are constantly being categorized and re-categorized. The English language is a living thing in that it constantly shifts and changes. Words are dropped out of current use and others are revived. The particulars of grammar alter over time as does spelling. One can object to such things, but it doesn’t do much good. (Although, I do wish sometimes that people had a bit of historical context.) Readers need labels in order to find what they like. There are simply too many books out there. Here are my thoughts on a few subgenre labels.

  Urban Fantasy/Paranormal

  The meaning of Urban Fantasy seems hotly contested these days. There are those who swear it is Fantasy with a romantic sub-plot (a newer definition) and those who deny that romance has anything to do with it and that it merely means fantasy set in an urban environment (an older definition.) As I’ve said before, while I don’t agree with the first definition (I’m in the ‘not romance’ camp) it does have merit. Those of the first group tend to use television (specifically Buffy the Vampire Slayer which aired starting in 1997) as the start point. Those of the second group are referencing  Borderland (an anthology published in 1986) and authors which contributed to it and the subsequent series such as Terri Windling, Charles de Lint, Ellen Kushner, Emma Bull, and Will Shetterly. Neil Gaiman and Jim Butcher are (in my opinion) Urban Fantasy authors. Traditional Urban Fantasy also has a musical (usually punk but also country-folk) element. Laurel K. Hamilton started as an Urban Fantasy author and then drifted into Paranormal Romance, that is, fantasy with romance plots. (She is where the lines between the two start to fray.) If you ask me, the whole argument is a bit like asking music fans about the origins of punk music. Some will say that punk started in New York and is defined with music and fashion only. Others will state with absolute certainty that punk started in London and also encompassed a political movement. (I’m of the belief it started in London.) The truth is, while the London scene had a bit of a jump on the New York crowd — each heavily influenced the other from the very beginning. Which brings me to the next set of subgenres.

  *-punk

  As you can probably tell, I’m into punk music. So, the word punk has certain associations — subculture, youth, rebellion, shock culture, artistic edgy-ness, fringe, political upheaval, anger, DIY, chaos, anarchy, and anti-establishment. Now that ‘punk’ has become a genre suffix… well… I don’t believe that it’s necessarily being used in the same way. In the case of Steampunk, I’m dead certain it isn’t. However, it can be argued that Cyberpunk (the first subgenre to use -punk) did intend the ’70s era meaning of the word. Cyberpunk stories contained high-end technology combined with a disintegrating social order, that is, chaos. It tended to glorify the loner, had a DIY (do it yourself) mentality (if you were a programmer) and very definitely was anti-establishment. Steampunk, on the other hand, is about nostalgia, more specifically, a nostalgia for empire. My theory is that the movement is rooted in the anxiety that America (like Great Britain before it) has lost its status as the dominating super-power in the world. Thus, steampunk looks backward instead of forward — to the good old days when men were men and women wore corsets and looked dainty and everyone (well everyone not being oppressed by the empire in question, anyway) was optimistic and financially stable and all was right with the world. (Again, provided you weren’t a minority.) For that reason, I don’t understand why Steampunk rates the punk suffix. Perhaps it’s because of the DIY costuming element, or maybe it’s the mad scientist angle, but for me that isn’t enough. Of course, there are authors who are challenging the Steampunk stereotype. Frankly, I look forward to seeing that aspect of the subgenre develop more fully.

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• The Shock of the New.

  Sub genres, what do they mean (steam, cyber, bio, splatter)? 



  I had a long and interesting career in the music industry, but not as a performer. My love of music is equalled only by my inability to perform it or compose it. In the absence of those abilities I ran PPL, the world’s largest record industry copyright organisation, and worked for performers and record companies by doing rights negotiations and fighting legal cases.

  To quote Elvis Presley (US Male), I said all that to say all this: because of where I spent most of my working life, the word Punk has a particular resonance for me. Perhaps more than the suffix -Punk. As a movement which shook the pomposity out of popular music, Punk has a huge resonance. As a suffix appended to other words it has – for me, at least – rather less. It denotes various kinds of sub-genres which have produced novels and novelists I admire hugely, but none of those sub-genres has shaken the whole of SF in quite the way Punk shook the whole of popular music.

  Chas Chandler, of the great sixties group The Animals, was an early advocate of Jimi Hendrix (John The Baptist heralding Jesus? I always found that comparison irresistible, if tasteless). I went to the first Jimi Hendrix Experience concert in Britain, at the Marquee in London in 1967. When I heard and saw what he did with a guitar, I might have used the expression Shock of the New – except that it didn’t appear until the 1980s, when it was used to describe the advent of modern art, but with hindsight it fits.

  (more…)

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• Richard Hell and William Gibson: Any Connection?

  Sub genres, what do they mean (steam, cyber, bio, splatter)? 



  o hold the t.v. to my lips, the air so packed with cash
  then carry it up flights of stairs and drop it in the vacant lot
  To lose my train of thought and fall into your arms’ tracks
  and watch beneath the eyelids every passing dot

  I belong to the blank generation . . .

  –Richard Hell and the Voidoids

  When I learned I was to write a blog post about all the –punk genres (cyber, steam, bio, splatter), I panicked.  Here, I am entirely ignorant. But I do know about punk music, so my mind turned there instead. Why is the word ‘punk’ attached to these genres?

  First I must address the question of whether or not the ‘punk’ of steampunk actually has anything to do with the music. I’ve seen arguments that it doesn’t—that punk is a much older word. No argument that it’s a much older word: I remember my dad being dismayed that punk music was called ‘punk music’ because of what ‘punk’ had meant to him in the Navy. But truly I think arguments that ‘punk’ is referring to something pre-1970s are reaching a bit too far. The term ‘cyberpunk’ was coined in 1983, a mere decade or so after the advent of Television, The Stooges, and the Ramones, an earthquake in terms of contemporary culture. I think the term was meant to build upon that, both for shock value and for aligning itself with punk values. (more…)

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