Squidpunk

The 1980s brought us cyberpunk, which featured computer hackers and crackers, self-aware artificial intelligences and man-machine interfaces. That was followed by biopunk, with its biotech hackers, extreme genetic engineering, and human cloning. So what's the next trend? Squidpunk!

Fiction that unlike New Weird, Steampunk, or Slipstream, is at its core not only about squid, but about the symbolism of squid as color-changing, highly-mobile, alien-looking, intelligent ocean-goers. As a powerful ecosystem indicator, the squid is a potent symbol for environmental rejuvenation. Squidpunk is almost exclusively set at sea and must contain some reference to either cephalopods or to anything that thematically relates to squid, in terms of world iconography and tropes. Squidpunk is never escapist or whimsical. It is always serious and edgy. This combination of a hard punk aesthetic with the fluid propulsion system common to the squid has produced a unique literary hybrid beloved by Mundanes and Surrealists alike.

As this promo video for Ann & Jeff Vandermeer's new anthology demonstrates, squidpunk is ready to conquer the SciFi world!


Wicked awesome!

(Yes, it's taken me more than a week to catch up with my blog reading.)

Tags:squidpunk