Science-fiction is a popular genre as a whole, but readers and critics have made consistent efforts to subdivide it further into a host of different brackets. From space opera to dystopian fiction, an exploration of all the subsets of science-fiction would take more words that I have in this article – and probably more than are in this magazine in total. It’s also the source of plenty of lively debate online, as well as in the bar of many a genre convention up and down the country.
With that said, today’s topic is rather more niche than all that – the popularity of the numerous ‘punk’ subgenres. It’s a fascinating topic from the wider genre perspective, and one that also bears plenty of relevance to writers inside SF – and one we’re going to explore from both angles in this piece.