Saturday 23 October 2010

For punks sake...

You may remember my blog a week or so ago discussing all the sub genres of punk there are 'what a load of punk'... and as you know I am in the middle of planning a cyberpunk romance...


Well, I sat down today to move all my untidy penned notes over and onto my compter, the world building is thankfully starting to take some shape along with the hero and heroines story. While reading from my research notes I went over the definitions of both cyberpunk and biopunk and in doing so I was left going, 'hmmm, what does my project come under?"

To cut it down -

Cyberpunk - High tech/Low life. Stories take place in the near future but in a dystopian setting. The characters are usually loners and their lives are effected by technology. There is advanced information tech and cybernetics, mixed with radical or a break down in social order.

Biopunk - (believe is or not) is a sub-genre of Cyberpunk. Sometimes set underground. With misuse of biotech. There is human experimentation (illegal). And there is a heck of a lot of genetic manipulation and synthetic biology. The characters are usually fighting against the big bad companies.

Now, everything that is highlighted bold is in my new project. So, dilema time... Biopunk might be a subgenre but my characters arent fighting big evil companies because they have been screwed over. Any human experimentation is legal and is done once the subject has signed a contract (although the ones behind the experiments are very sneaky about how they get their subjects). And there is some stuff underground.

There is high tech, but I wouldn't say life is low, just different due to both nature and mankind messing with the Earth, which is also the reason why there is a break down in social order. It is set in the near future but... my characters aren't loners who are severly effected by this advanced tech. In fact to a degree the advanced tech/cybernetics and human experimentation is both a blessing and a curse.

So where to place the story??

Postcyberpunk - Stories contain regular characters, who embrace technology and live regular lives (have jobs etc). Not really a dsytopia (but as I said above because of the effects of nature and mankind it has the dsytopian feel). Typical postcyberpunk continues to have information tech and cybernetics used to update the human body. Ding. Ding. I think we have a winner. 

But like most things, people probably have certain ideas regarding what exactly should be in a particular genre.

Now my project also has romance, aliens and paranormal elements.... Oy. It's going to be hard to figure the genre out for this project. Naturally the biggest elements takes priority. I found out that some people have created portmanteau* to cover there story (cyber/steam-punk - is an example of one)... maybe I might have to mix it up a little...

How does paranormal postcyberpunk romance sound?? A little too much? Maybe postparanormal-cyberpunk romance sounds a little better. I don't know. I guess I don't need to think about it just yet any way.

On a final note, thank you for everyone who voted to help me pick the name of my hero and heroine.
By popular vote the heroine shall be known as.... Skylar. And the Hero.... Daxen.

Now the male names came to a tie so I have decided to name my secondary hero... Kai.

All the names fit perfectly to the characters I see in my head. ^_^ So thank you!

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* A portmanteau word is a blend of two (or more) words or morphemes and their meanings into one new word.

4 comments:

  1. What about science fiction-paranormal-romance?
    The way you describe the two punk categories they sound just like a subgenre of science fiction.

    Don't get me wrong, but I don't think I need that many subcategories in my reading life. It is just too confusing.

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  2. lol I totally agree, but it isn't really a science fiction novel though.

    If I classed it as a sci/fi I'd get my butt whipped by hard core sci/fi fans lol

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  3. Oh well, then you're probably better off gluing the cyberpunk-label onto it.

    Your cats were staring at invisible things?

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  4. Yeah, they do it a lot. Stare at a certain area as if they can see something I can't. Freaks me out lol

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