The next big thing

MysticPunk

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I don't get steam punk at all. Why do they call it steam PUNK? There doesn't seem to be anything PUNK about it.
 

KalenO

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I don't get steam punk at all. Why do they call it steam PUNK? There doesn't seem to be anything PUNK about it.

It's a derivation of cyberpunk from the '80s. The punk suffix has come to be a catch-all for any niche tech-inspired setting. Essentially, people looked at early steampunk books and saw the similarities between that and cyberpunk, in that both emphasized plots that were intertwined/dependent on a specific kind of tech setting...and so they wanted to coin a name that indicated similarities to cyberpunk, which was a big, commercial trend at the time. Obviously cyber didn't fit, so they had to use punk instead.

The original cyberpunk trend and books had a heavy focus on anarchistic characters and rebellion/revolutionary plots, so the punk label was a lot more fitting then.

And on that note, I'd love to see classic cyberpunk style stories get a revival.
 

MysticPunk

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It's a derivation of cyberpunk from the '80s. The punk suffix has come to be a catch-all for any niche tech-inspired setting. Essentially, people looked at early steampunk books and saw the similarities between that and cyberpunk, in that both emphasized plots that were intertwined/dependent on a specific kind of tech setting...and so they wanted to coin a name that indicated similarities to cyberpunk, which was a big, commercial trend at the time. Obviously cyber didn't fit, so they had to use punk instead.

The original cyberpunk trend and books had a heavy focus on anarchistic characters and rebellion/revolutionary plots, so the punk label was a lot more fitting then.

And on that note, I'd love to see classic cyberpunk style stories get a revival.

I understand Cyber Punk. Cyber Punk was very punk oriented. My genre (which is a urban fantasy subgenre) is descended from it.

I never saw any steam punk with anarchistic or rebellion / revolutionary plots. This is actually the first I've heard of that aspect in it, actually. Thanks!

It always seemed to me, and your answer also kind of gives the same feeling, that they just wanted punk because it "sounds good." and that was always off putting to me.
 

MysticPunk

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I may have missed the bucking the gender norms of the time period in the stories I've read.
 

KalenO

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I may have missed the bucking the gender norms of the time period in the stories I've read.

Well for starters, many steampunks star female main characters having swashbuckling adventures in time periods when women were more traditionally found buttoned up in petticoats with parasols.
 

MysticPunk

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Well for starters, many steampunks star female main characters having swashbuckling adventures in time periods when women were more traditionally found buttoned up in petticoats with parasols.

The protagonists in the ones I've read were female but I didn't notice the time period or feel like it was out of place.

Can you name a specific title where the social trends are expected of the protagonist but she fights back and does her own thing?
 

KalenO

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The protagonists in the ones I've read were female but I didn't notice the time period or feel like it was out of place.

Can you name a specific title where the social trends are expected of the protagonist but she fights back and does her own thing?

It's not that its out of place for there to be female main characters in historical novels, its the kind of adventures those MC's have that defy cultural norms of the time.

Off the top of my head:

In Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld, one of the two MC's is a girl who disguises herself as a boy in order to join the British Air Service, when her family wants her to grow up as a proper lady.

In the adult steampunk novels by Cherie Priest like Bone Shaker, the female MC has action adventures in a post Civil War setting where most women were encouraged to mind the home while men fought. In the Parasol Protectorate novels by Gail Carriger, the female MC is an upper class lady who is supposed to conduct herself in a manner befitting her station, and causes scandal by doing things like embroiling herself in supernatural investigations and rescuing her husband from harm rather than the expected vice versa.

In the comic Girl Genius the main character is a genius inventor in an era when most women were uneducated in things like science and mathematics, etc.
 

MysticPunk

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I'll look into those.

I guess what I meant was, most of the stories I read seemed anachronistic in gender roles but not deliberately fighting against gender roles. Maybe because of the lack of connection to modern times? Maybe because they seemed "victorian like" and not "victornian". I'm not sure, really.
 

maybegenius

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I think it can sometimes be difficult to connect the Victorian era to modern times because the time periods were so different on a superficial level, but there are actually a lot of comparisons to make. For instance, a girl/woman acting as an inventor or scientist and expressing herself sexually during the Victorian era may seem ho-hum compared to the modern day, but in reality women are still dramatically underrepresented in the sciences and still admonished for acting like "sluts," so the comparisons are there. Likewise, a parallel can be drawn between rebels acting to overthrow a regime or subvert the ruling class (fictionalized accounts of Guy Fawkes would be an example) could me compared to the modern-day Occupy Wall Street movement.

The others gave great examples... pretty much what I'd recommend.
 

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I like to think mine coming out this fall is very much about girls breaking out against social norms, and fighting against gender roles. It was kind of why I wrote it really. But I shall to wait and see if I was successful in achieving that when the book is actually read by others :) .
 

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It's awesome that so many works show girls pushing against gender norms -- so much so that it's sort of a well-worn trope in the steampunk genre and YA/children's lit by now, especially in the vein of "girl dressing as a boy to Do Something" -- but beyond that, its treatment from what I've seen is far less radical and revolutionary than the time period actually was. I have to agree with Mystic Punk: there isn't very much punk in steampunk.

Where are the abolitionists? Where are the suffragettes? All this talk about breaking out of gender roles, yet I can't think of one steampunk novel that features a suffragette. Or how about a boy dressing as a girl to Do Something or break out of gender norms? That would actually be kind of radical both for today and for the 19th century, and it's something I've never really seen.

For me, what would really put the punk in steampunk would be more stories that address how, although the steampunk aesthetic is very cool, it does sort of glorify colonialism (and specifically upper-class Victoriana). The 19th century was a pretty tumultuous time, full of political and social upheaval. You can find elements of that in some stories, but often it feels like background window dressing. I'd like to see more of that as the focus, brought to the forefront.


Oh, and another recommendation: His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman, which is more steampunk-esque than actual steampunk, but still very good.
 

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It's awesome that so many works show girls pushing against gender norms -- so much so that it's sort of a well-worn trope in the steampunk genre and YA/children's lit by now, especially in the vein of "girl dressing as a boy to Do Something" -- but beyond that, its treatment from what I've seen is far less radical and revolutionary than the time period actually was. I have to agree with Mystic Punk: there isn't very much punk in steampunk.

Where are the abolitionists? Where are the suffragettes? All this talk about breaking out of gender roles, yet I can't think of one steampunk novel that features a suffragette. Or how about a boy dressing as a girl to Do Something or break out of gender norms? That would actually be kind of radical both for today and for the 19th century, and it's something I've never really seen.

For me, what would really put the punk in steampunk would be more stories that address how, although the steampunk aesthetic is very cool, it does sort of glorify colonialism (and specifically upper-class Victoriana). The 19th century was a pretty tumultuous time, full of political and social upheaval. You can find elements of that in some stories, but often it feels like background window dressing. I'd like to see more of that as the focus, brought to the forefront.


Oh, and another recommendation: His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman, which is more steampunk-esque than actual steampunk, but still very good.

I have an idea for an alternative history somewhat matriarchal society where the boy does pretend to be a girl to 'do something', and I'm kind of nervous about it since I haven't gotten positive feedback on writing a matriarchy. But I haven't asked about it here, yet.

Edit: basically what I meant by not positive feedback, some thought I should portray him as pretending to be a woman in a society that is patriarchal, so it would be more a perceived step down like the poster said below... or they just don't like how I've portrayed women with power as the bad buys.
 
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waitingfordawn

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It's awesome that so many works show girls pushing against gender norms -- so much so that it's sort of a well-worn trope in the steampunk genre and YA/children's lit by now, especially in the vein of "girl dressing as a boy to Do Something" -- but beyond that, its treatment from what I've seen is far less radical and revolutionary than the time period actually was. I have to agree with Mystic Punk: there isn't very much punk in steampunk.

Where are the abolitionists? Where are the suffragettes? All this talk about breaking out of gender roles, yet I can't think of one steampunk novel that features a suffragette. Or how about a boy dressing as a girl to Do Something or break out of gender norms? That would actually be kind of radical both for today and for the 19th century, and it's something I've never really seen.

For me, what would really put the punk in steampunk would be more stories that address how, although the steampunk aesthetic is very cool, it does sort of glorify colonialism (and specifically upper-class Victoriana). The 19th century was a pretty tumultuous time, full of political and social upheaval. You can find elements of that in some stories, but often it feels like background window dressing. I'd like to see more of that as the focus, brought to the forefront.


Oh, and another recommendation: His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman, which is more steampunk-esque than actual steampunk, but still very good.

This! I was browsing the thread and the "breaking with gender norms" piqued my interest because... well, girls dressing up as boys doesn't break any gender norms. Like, at all. I mean, at the time, it might have been radical, but today, it's become a tired trope. There are so many stories where girls dress up as boys, and that's because, well... because masculinity is a step up from femininity. Meanwhile, there are no stories I can think of with boys dressing up as girls to Do Something, because femininity is a step down. I think it's culturally ingrained that for girls to dress up in a masculine fashion is a step up while for boys to dress up in a feminine fashion is a step down. And that's not even touching on the issue of transmasculinity and transfemininity, because often these characters are just dressing up as boys to, like the poster above said, Do Something rather than reflect their gender.
 

Justin_AC

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I don't get steam punk at all. Why do they call it steam PUNK? There doesn't seem to be anything PUNK about it.

The PUNK suffix actually isn't about tech, as others have said. The tech aspect comes from the STEAM preffix, indicating the type of technology (steam-based). Cyberpunk features cybernetic or similar levels of technology. The PUNK suffix isn't about tech. Or it isn't supposed to be though a lot of people get confused and see punk and think "Oh, technology."

Other genres that use the PUNK suffix include dieselpunk, biopunk, splatterpunk, clockworkpunk, and a few others, and yes, all of these are real. Splatterpunk, for example, is a genre Clive Barker has a lot of experience with and has absolutely nothing to do with any form of technology. Again, the punk suffix isn't about the tech, it's about the characters.

-punk books are supposed to feature characters on the outsides of normal society, and almost always with a highly irreverent or downright rebellious attitude toward authority. I mean, if you call somebody a punk, what does that mean? Think about terms like punk rock. It isn't about the technology used in the music, it's about the message the music is sending. Anti-authority, anti-conformity, anti-normalcy.

Something like the above-mentioned "Perdido St., Station," is an excellent example of Steampunk because the book is about the pursuit of radical new steam-powered technology ("Steam-") and stars bohemian, rebellious characters who defy social norms ("-punk").

A LOT of steampunk today, especially YA Steampunk, just features the "Steam-" part and kind of loses the "-punk." They're basically stories about fairly normal kids having adventures that feature a lot of funky locomotives and airships or whatever.

EDIT- okay, I need to REED MOAR, because I see you already got this. Seems you an I are in agreement about most of steampunk that's out today. I actually wrote my third book because I was so sick of all the steampunk on the market having so little punk in it.
 
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ejwriter

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did anyone say Fairytales yet? reading through PM the past few months, i've seen so many YA novels with a fairytale twist. and CINDER seems to be doing really well!

um, also... is this thread still about the next "big thing?" i know i'm late to the party. ;)
 

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I think fairytales will just always be there.
 

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I feel like fairytales are the current big thing. Considering the movies and television shows of late, and all the novels (not just CINDER). It's not some trend coming our way, we're living it baby! :)
 

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And on that note, I'd love to see classic cyberpunk style stories get a revival.

YES! Especially with the technology we have now. I would love to see a current "Hackers" style book. (Coincidentally, LOVE that movie. Oh young Jonny Lee Miller and Angelina Jolie! And Matthew Lillard! Can't forget about him.)

...jotting this down in my idea notebook...

Could anybody suggest a great example of the punk elements being in steam punk?

Punk doesn't always mean what most people have come to associate it with in terms of say, punk rock. The looser definition includes any sort of anarchist or rebelliousness. Cyberpunk, for instance, typically deals with hackers, etc going against the grain and bringing down "the man". Steampunk, as others have pointed out, is about going against "the man" by rebelling against what was the norm. For instance, a bootlegger during prohibition using steam technology to transport liquor.

"Punk" was a term for a prostitute as used by Shakespeare in "All's Well That Ends Well." That's the first documented usage in literature, as far as I'm aware.

Coming from the Scottish "spunk" meaning spark, the term was brought to the Virginia colonies and used to describe overcooked corn. Native Americans used the word "ponk" for rotten wood used tinder.

"Punk" then became known as "something rotten" invoking the various meanings (prostitute, bad corn, rotten wood), and in the late 1800s was used to describe a rotten or worthless person, or a young criminal. "That punk kid stole my corn!"

In the 1970s, Dave Marsh used this connotation when coining "punk rock." The evolution continued as you look at how punk rock changed through the ages from the Ramones- leather and jeans- to the Sex Pistols- dyed hair, plaid, and safety pin jewelry, haha- to initial Green Day- dyed hair, jeans, and skateboards, and so on.

So using the 1800s meaning, the "punk" in steampunk would describe someone society viewed as rotten or criminal, which, in current literature, has been used to indicate a rebel of some sort. There's the punk in steampunk for you.
 

Roly

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Can we revive this thread? It's fun!

Plus a few months have passed. I don't have a PM account, but I see that a lot of diverse things are being picked up from High Fantasy to (of course) Sci Fi and Thrillers etc.

But I almost feel as though we need different definitions to properly describe what we're talking about in any given context (or at least I do) because it can get muddled for me. Like, there are forced trends and true trends. Forced trends are trends started by publishers who speculate about what the next big thing is going to be, anticipate that X is going to be the next big thing and proceed to acquire X. It's like supplying a demand before the demand is made and without really knowing whether or not anyone will demand it in the first place. A guessing game. So everyone kind of said that Sci Fi would be the next big thing because it (somehow) piggy backs off dystopians (or at least the kind of dystopian novels that are more in the vein of the Hunger Games that does incorporate sci-fi-ish stuff in the novel). So then editors and agents start looking for sci fi. Writers start writing and submiting sci fi and they get acquired and published. But because this is all based on speculation, there really is no telling which of these books will actually gain a big following. Marketing can only do so much. At the end of the day, a book isn't going to be mega popular based on the genre alone. It'll become popular if people LIKE it.

Which leads me to The True Trend. This is, of course, started when that one break out hit comes along and knocks everyone's socks off and sells like gangbusters. Honestly, I think this can be in ANY genre, as long as the plot doesn't feel overdone. There's no hard and fast rule that says we're moving from X trend to Y trend to Z trend. It's just: whatever people are currently in love with at the moment, whatever is capturing people's imaginations, that'll be the one. I don't think that book has come along yet after The Hunger Games. We could guess, but we probably wouldn't agree, and if we can't agree that itself is a sign that that book hasn't come along (or who knows, maybe it's already been published/making the rounds/will be published soon). It took people a couple of years, after all, to catch on to the Hunger Games.

But when I think about the reason why I like the Hunger Games and HP, it's mostly because of the amount of care and detail that went into creating these worlds paired with a simple plot, memorable characters and a relatable struggle. You can find that in any genre.