{"families":[{"code":"cyberpunk","desc":"High tech, low life. The original -punk: neon megacities, megacorps, hackers, and the dark side of the digital revolution.","era":"Near future, 2040 to 2100","image":"/assets/imgs/punk/cyberpunk.webp","name":"Cyberpunk","tagline":"High tech, low life. The corporation ate the state and rents you back your body.","url":"/family/cyberpunk"},{"code":"steampunk","desc":"Brass, steam & the 19th century that never ended. Victorian retrofuturism, mechanical wonders, and the romance of industrial machinery.","era":"Alternate 19th century, Victorian","image":"/assets/imgs/punk/steampunk.webp","name":"Steampunk","tagline":"The past dreamed the future better than the present did.","url":"/family/steampunk"},{"code":"dieselpunk","desc":"Iron, oil, smoke & propaganda. The retrofuture of the diesel era: art deco, biplanes, factories, noir.","era":"Alternate 1920s to 1950s","image":"/assets/imgs/punk/dieselpunk.webp","name":"Dieselpunk","tagline":"Chrome, smoke and propaganda: the machine age that never ended.","url":"/family/dieselpunk"},{"code":"biopunk","desc":"Flesh & code. Genetic engineering, designer organisms, and the soft-machine future of the body.","era":"Near future, post-genomic","image":"/assets/imgs/punk/biopunk.webp","name":"Biopunk","tagline":"The code is no longer in the machine. It is in you.","url":"/family/biopunk"},{"code":"hydropunk","desc":"Salt & pressure. The retrofuture of the deep sea: submarines, drowned cities, brass-and-glass bathyspheres.","era":"Drowned future, after sea-level rise","image":"/assets/imgs/punk/hydropunk.webp","name":"Hydropunk","tagline":"The coastline moved. Civilisation learned to swim.","url":"/family/hydropunk"},{"code":"atompunk","desc":"Atom & aluminium. Atomic Age retrofuturism: rockets, robots, raygun gothic, mid-century optimism with a Cold War shadow.","era":"Alternate 1945 to 1965, atomic age","image":"/assets/imgs/punk/atompunk.webp","name":"Atompunk","tagline":"Tomorrow, exactly as a 1958 world's fair promised it.","url":"/family/atompunk"},{"code":"spacepunk","desc":"Vacuum & rust. Working-class outer space, rusty freighters, asteroid miners, and the used-future frontier.","era":"Far future, interstellar","image":"/assets/imgs/punk/spacepunk.webp","name":"Spacepunk","tagline":"Blue-collar in the black: the frontier has a payroll.","url":"/family/spacepunk"},{"code":"lunapunk","desc":"Moonlight & rest. The nocturnal counterpart to solarpunk, lunar cycles, bioluminescence, night gardens, and darkness as a value.","era":"Dreamlike, outside time","image":"/assets/imgs/punk/lunapunk.webp","name":"Lunapunk","tagline":"Solarpunk's night shift: the future, by moonlight.","url":"/family/lunapunk"},{"code":"solarpunk","desc":"Solarpunk is a movement in speculative fiction, art, fashion, and activism that seeks to answer and embody the question \"What does a sustainable civilization look like, and how can we get there?\"","era":"Near future, after the ecological transition","image":"/assets/imgs/punk/solarpunk.webp","name":"Solarpunk","tagline":"Not a utopia handed down. A future grown by hand, on purpose.","url":"/family/solarpunk"},{"code":"frostpunk","desc":"The last city on a frozen Earth. Survival, scarcity, the Book of Laws, and the heat of the Generator against an endless winter.","era":"Alternate 19th century, volcanic winter","image":"/assets/imgs/punk/frostpunk.webp","name":"Frostpunk","tagline":"The city must survive. The question is what it becomes.","url":"/family/frostpunk"},{"code":"pyropunk","desc":"Fire & forge. Combustion, ember, molten metal, and the scorched-earth future where flame is the central technology.","era":"Undetermined, worlds forged by fire","image":"/assets/imgs/punk/pyropunk.webp","name":"Pyropunk","tagline":"Everything that burns is fuel. Everything is fuel.","url":"/family/pyropunk"},{"code":"apocapunk","desc":"Dust & rust. Survival after the collapse, scavenged tech, and the stubborn rebuilding of the world from the ruins.","era":"After the collapse","image":"/assets/imgs/punk/apocapunk.webp","name":"Apocapunk","tagline":"The world ended. The engines did not.","url":"/family/apocapunk"},{"code":"psychopunk","desc":"The punk of the mind. Altered consciousness, perception hacking, reality distortion, and the weaponization of the self.","era":"Variable, subjective realities","image":"/assets/imgs/punk/psychopunk.webp","name":"Psychopunk","tagline":"The last frontier is the inside of your skull.","url":"/family/psychopunk"}],"terms":[{"def":"The ocean between roughly 4,000 and 6,000 m: lightless, near-freezing and under hundreds of atmospheres. Where hydropunk keeps its monsters.","families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-abyssal-zone","id":"term-abyssal-zone","term":"Abyssal Zone"},{"def":"A substance once thought to fill space, before relativity. Steampunk keeps it alive as fuel or medium.","families":["steampunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-aether","id":"term-aether","term":"Aether"},{"def":"Of the luminiferous aether: the 19th century's working theory of how light\npropagated through empty space. Disproved in 1887, kept alive in fiction.","families":["steampunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-aetheric","id":"term-aetheric","term":"Aetheric"},{"def":"Lighter-than-air craft, all over steampunk and dieselpunk skies as the symbol of another kind of progress.","families":["steampunk","dieselpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-airship","id":"term-airship","term":"Airship"},{"def":"The fraction of light a body reflects. The moon's is low, it gives back only a little, and that little is enough.","families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-albedo","id":"term-albedo","term":"Albedo"},{"def":"Charles Babbage's never-completed mechanical general-purpose computer, 1837.\nIn steampunk fiction, it always gets built, and the world rearranges\nitself accordingly.","families":["steampunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-analytical-engine","id":"term-analytical-engine","term":"Analytical Engine"},{"def":"Technology scaled to its community: repairable, open, and rooted in place. Small enough to understand, durable enough to pass on.","families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-appropriate-tech","id":"term-appropriate-tech","term":"Appropriate tech"},{"def":"A person who lives in an underwater habitat at ambient pressure. The astronaut's wetter, quieter cousin.","families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-aquanaut","id":"term-aquanaut","term":"Aquanaut"},{"def":"Self-contained megastructure housing tens of thousands. A city in a building. Where the corps live; not where you live.","families":["cyberpunk","solarpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-arcology","id":"term-arcology","term":"Arcology"},{"def":"The defining design language of 1920-1940. Streamlined, ornamented, luxuriously industrial. The look of the diesel age's good days.","families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-art-deco","id":"term-art-deco","term":"Art Deco"},{"def":"What remains when the burning is done. In pyropunk: never an ending, always the bed from which the next fire is lit.","families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-ash","id":"term-ash","term":"Ash"},{"def":"The period from 1945 (Hiroshima) to roughly 1969 (Apollo 11) when nuclear power dominated both fact and fiction. Atompunk's setting and source material.","families":["atompunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-atomic-age","id":"term-atomic-age","term":"Atomic Age"},{"def":"Eisenhower's December 1953 UN speech and the campaign that followed, selling nuclear technology as a civilian gift. The source of the friendly atom.","families":["atompunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-atoms-for-peace","id":"term-atoms-for-peace","term":"Atoms for Peace"},{"def":"Changing the human body with technological, genetic or chemical implants. It always asks what is still human.","families":["cyberpunk","biopunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-augmentation","id":"term-augmentation","term":"Augmentation"},{"def":"A self-moving machine built to imitate a living thing. The Jaquet-Droz figures of the 1770s still write, draw and play music in Neuchâtel; steampunk gives them souls, or at least grievances.","families":["steampunk","frostpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-automaton","id":"term-automaton","term":"Automaton"},{"def":"The explosive burning of superheated gases when fresh oxygen rushes into a starved fire, as when a door is opened. The fire that waits for you.","families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-backdraft","id":"term-backdraft","term":"Backdraft"},{"def":"A free-diving deep submersible: a crew sphere hung beneath a float of petrol. <em>Trieste</em> took one to the Challenger Deep in 1960.","families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-bathyscaphe","id":"term-bathyscaphe","term":"Bathyscaphe"},{"def":"A spherical pressure vessel for deep-sea descent. First crewed in 1930 by Beebe and Barton. The hydropunk dream made of steel.","families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-bathysphere","id":"term-bathysphere","term":"Bathysphere"},{"def":"A human born and raised in the asteroid belt or outer system, lean, low-gravity, and politically at the bottom of the solar pecking order.","families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-belter","id":"term-belter","term":"Belter"},{"def":"The constructed language linguist Nick Farmer built for the <em>Expanse</em> TV series, a creole of the belt, and a flag of identity for people the inner planets look down on.","families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-belter-creole","id":"term-belter-creole","term":"Belter Creole"},{"def":"Of the seabed and the things that live on it. Where the drowned cities lie.","families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-benthic","id":"term-benthic","term":"Benthic"},{"def":"Someone doing biology outside institutions: in a garage, a kitchen, or a community lab. The punk in biopunk.","families":["biopunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-biohacker","id":"term-biohacker","term":"Biohacker"},{"def":"Biological modification outside institutions: DIY gene editing, implants, kitchen labs.","families":["biopunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-biohacking","id":"term-biohacking","term":"Biohacking"},{"def":"Light made by living things. In the deep it is most of the light there is.","families":["hydropunk","lunapunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-bioluminescence","id":"term-bioluminescence","term":"Bioluminescence"},{"def":"An off-the-books lab or hospital that performs illegal or unregulated modifications. The biopunk equivalent of the back-alley chop shop.","families":["biopunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-black-clinic","id":"term-black-clinic","term":"Black clinic"},{"def":"In <em>Dark Souls</em>, the checkpoint where the traveller rests, heals and grows stronger. The campfire as save point, shrine and only safe ground.","families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-bonfire","id":"term-bonfire","term":"Bonfire"},{"def":"The growing legal code of the last city. Each signed law buys order or survival and costs something harder to name. There is no blank page.","families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-book-of-laws","id":"term-book-of-laws","term":"Book of Laws"},{"def":"A nine-step scale of night-sky darkness, from 9 (inner city) to 1 (true dark). Lunapunk measures progress downward.","families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-bortle-scale","id":"term-bortle-scale","term":"Bortle scale"},{"def":"The strand of environmentalism that bets on better design and technology rather than retreat. Solarpunk's most optimistic wing.","families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-bright-green","id":"term-bright-green","term":"Bright green"},{"def":"In <em>Promare</em>, the humans who developed pyrokinesis after a global combustion event, feared and hunted by the state. The pyrokinetic as persecuted minority.","families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-burnish","id":"term-burnish","term":"Burnish"},{"def":"Bottle caps used as money in <em>Fallout</em>. Any currency is just a shared story that people agree to keep telling.","families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-caps","id":"term-caps","term":"Caps"},{"def":"Hip hop delivered in the voice of an English gentleman, all tea, tweed and cricket. Professor Elemental and Mr. B the Gentleman Rhymer are its best-known practitioners.","families":["steampunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-chap-hop","id":"term-chap-hop","term":"Chap Hop"},{"def":"An organism containing tissues with two or more distinct genomes. In biopunk: usually intentional, usually proprietary.","families":["biopunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-chimera","id":"term-chimera","term":"Chimera"},{"def":"Slang for cybernetic body modifications. To &quot;chrome up&quot; is to replace flesh with metal. Too much chrome → cyberpsychosis.","families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-chrome","id":"term-chrome","term":"Chrome"},{"def":"The umbrella term for fallout drills, shelter signs, and survival-pamphlet culture. The atom's shadow in poster form.","families":["atompunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-civil-defence","id":"term-civil-defence","term":"Civil Defence"},{"def":"A sibling genre of springs, gears and Renaissance or early-modern mechanics rather than steam. Jay Lake's <em>Mainspring</em> is its standard text.","families":["steampunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-clockpunk","id":"term-clockpunk","term":"Clockpunk"},{"def":"Gears, springs and escapements. In steampunk, the watchmaker does the job of the electronics engineer.","families":["steampunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-clockwork","id":"term-clockwork","term":"Clockwork"},{"def":"The phylum of jellyfish, corals, and anemones. Hydropunk's preferred non-human cast.","families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-cnidarian","id":"term-cnidarian","term":"Cnidarian"},{"def":"The sudden fall of industrial civilisation. Where apocapunk, frostpunk and pyropunk begin.","families":["apocapunk","frostpunk","pyropunk","hydropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-collapse","id":"term-collapse","term":"Collapse"},{"def":"A resource, land, water, energy, knowledge, held and governed collectively rather than owned privately. The heart of the solarpunk city.","families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-commons","id":"term-commons","term":"Commons"},{"def":"The brain inventing memories to fill gaps and presenting them as true. The unreliable narrator, running on wet hardware.","families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-confabulation","id":"term-confabulation","term":"Confabulation"},{"def":"What a society agrees is real. In psychopunk it is not a given but a contract, and someone always holds the pen.","families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-consensus-reality","id":"term-consensus-reality","term":"Consensus reality"},{"def":"A political system where corporations have replaced governments. A major engine of cyberpunk plots.","families":["cyberpunk","dieselpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-corporatocracy","id":"term-corporatocracy","term":"Corporatocracy"},{"def":"A bacterial immune mechanism repurposed in 2012 as a programmable gene-editing tool. Cheap, precise, terrifying.","families":["biopunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-crispr","id":"term-crispr","term":"CRISPR"},{"def":"From Pondsmith's <em>Cyberpunk</em> RPG: the breakdown that comes from replacing too much of yourself with chrome.","families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-cyberpsychosis","id":"term-cyberpsychosis","term":"Cyberpsychosis"},{"def":"An immersive virtual space where people meet data. Coined by William Gibson in 1982 and made famous by Neuromancer.","families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-cyberspace","id":"term-cyberspace","term":"Cyberspace"},{"def":"The name the producers of <em>Batman: The Animated Series</em> (1992) gave their blend of noir and art deco. A Gotham of police blimps, 1940s cars and no fixed date.","families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-dark-deco","id":"term-dark-deco","term":"Dark Deco"},{"def":"A jurisdiction where information is stored out of reach of the law. Central to Sterling's <em>Islands in the Net</em>.","families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-data-haven","id":"term-data-haven","term":"Data Haven"},{"def":"Short for cyberdeck. The console a runner plugs into to jack into the matrix. In <em>Neuromancer</em> Case's deck is the only thing he owns that matters.","families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-deck","id":"term-deck","term":"DECK"},{"def":"Deco plus decadence: the genre's love of a Jazz Age that never has to end, as defined by <em>Never Was</em> magazine.","families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-decodence","id":"term-decodence","term":"Decodence"},{"def":"Also coalpunk. The shinier, chrome-plated cousin of dieselpunk: same decades, fewer oil stains, more Streamline Moderne.","families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-decopunk","id":"term-decopunk","term":"Decopunk"},{"def":"The idea that wellbeing can rise while material throughput falls. Not poverty, sufficiency, designed on purpose.","families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-degrowth","id":"term-degrowth","term":"Degrowth"},{"def":"The change in velocity a ship can manage with its remaining fuel. In spacepunk, the difference between making port and dying in the dark.","families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-delta-v","id":"term-delta-v","term":"Delta-v"},{"def":"Solarpunk's core idea: a future where people live with nature thanks to sustainable technology.","families":["solarpunk","hydropunk","lunapunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-desirable-future","id":"term-desirable-future","term":"Desirable future"},{"def":"The aesthetic and ideology of combustion engines, art deco and the interwar machine age.","families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-dieselism","id":"term-dieselism","term":"Dieselism"},{"def":"Term coined by Lewis Pollak in 2001 for the RPG <em>Children of the Sun</em>. Steampunk's grown-up, darker, more political younger sibling.","families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-dieselpunk","id":"term-dieselpunk","term":"Dieselpunk"},{"def":"Babbage's earlier, simpler mechanical calculator (1820s). Less ambitious than\nthe Analytical, but the one that gave Gibson &amp; Sterling their title.","families":["steampunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-difference-engine","id":"term-difference-engine","term":"Difference Engine"},{"def":"The pressure of a population that no longer trusts its leader. Let it peak and you are exiled into the snow. The cold's quietest weapon is politics.","families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-discontent","id":"term-discontent","term":"Discontent"},{"def":"An open-bottomed chamber that traps air for working underwater. The oldest diving machine, and the genre's favourite bell-jar.","families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-diving-bell","id":"term-diving-bell","term":"Diving Bell"},{"def":"The civil-defence instruction to drop and shield yourself from a nuclear flash, taught to schoolchildren by Bert the Turtle in the 1952 film of the same name.","families":["atompunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-duck-and-cover","id":"term-duck-and-cover","term":"Duck and Cover"},{"def":"An imagined society where life is harsh by design. The opposite of utopia.","families":["cyberpunk","dieselpunk","frostpunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-dystopia","id":"term-dystopia","term":"Dystopia"},{"def":"Sunlight reflected off Earth onto the Moon's dark side, the faint ashen glow of the old moon in the new moon's arms. Reflected light, reflected again.","families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-earthshine","id":"term-earthshine","term":"Earthshine"},{"def":"A passive-solar, off-grid house built from earth-packed tires, bottles and cans, heating, watering and powering itself.","families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-earthship","id":"term-earthship","term":"Earthship"},{"def":"Stories of a brilliant young inventor and his marvellous machines, named after Thomas Edison. The American dime-novel ancestor of the genre, from <em>The Steam Man of the Prairies</em> on.","families":["steampunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-edisonade","id":"term-edisonade","term":"Edisonade"},{"def":"The temporary dissolution of the boundary between self and world. In psychopunk: sometimes a cure, sometimes a weapon, sometimes a door that won't shut again.","families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-ego-death","id":"term-ego-death","term":"Ego-death"},{"def":"Swing and jazz samples over house and electronic beats. Parov Stelar and Caravan Palace made it the genre's dancefloor.","families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-electro-swing","id":"term-electro-swing","term":"Electro Swing"},{"def":"A glowing fragment of a dying fire, and the seed of the next one. Pyropunk's emblem of memory and the refusal to go out.","families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-ember","id":"term-ember","term":"Ember"},{"def":"A worker whose death is budgeted for. In <em>Mickey 17</em> he is literally reprinted from a clone after every fatal shift.","families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-expendable","id":"term-expendable","term":"Expendable"},{"def":"Radioactive dust that drifts down after a nuclear blast. The slow killer; the reason the vault doors stayed shut.","families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-fallout","id":"term-fallout","term":"Fallout"},{"def":"Land deliberately left unplanted to recover. Lunapunk's word for rest: not waste, but repair.","families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-fallow","id":"term-fallow","term":"Fallow"},{"def":"Six feet (1.8 m). The unit by which depth is measured when measuring matters most.","families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-fathom","id":"term-fathom","term":"Fathom"},{"def":"The Norse three winters with no summer between, prelude to Ragnarök. The genre's first recorded forecast.","families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-fimbulwinter","id":"term-fimbulwinter","term":"Fimbulwinter"},{"def":"Black-market broker. Connects runners with corps, jobs with talent, weapons with buyers. Knows everyone. Trusts no one.","families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-fixer","id":"term-fixer","term":"Fixer"},{"def":"Light pulsing at brainwave frequency to make the closed eye see patterns. The Dreamachine's drug-free door.","families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-flicker","id":"term-flicker","term":"Flicker"},{"def":"A hearth hot enough to reshape metal. The pyropunk altar, where raw matter is made into tool, weapon, or art by fire and hammer.","families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-forge","id":"term-forge","term":"Forge"},{"def":"The white waste beyond the city's walls. Scouts cross it for coal, steel and survivors; every expedition is a bet against the next storm.","families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-frostland","id":"term-frostland","term":"Frostland"},{"def":"Victorian or Edwardian settings where magic stands beside, or instead of, the machine. The term was introduced by Kaja Foglio for <em>Girl Genius</em>.","families":["steampunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-gaslamp-fantasy","id":"term-gaslamp-fantasy","term":"Gaslamp Fantasy"},{"def":"To make a person doubt their own perception until they outsource reality to you. The basic exploit of the genre.","families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-gaslight","id":"term-gaslight","term":"Gaslight"},{"def":"A genetic trick that makes an edited gene spread through a wild population far faster than normal inheritance. Designed to wipe out malaria mosquitoes; capable of much more.","families":["biopunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-gene-drive","id":"term-gene-drive","term":"Gene drive"},{"def":"The coal-fired heat engine at the centre of the city. Everything is built in rings around its warmth. When it stops, the city dies.","families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-generator","id":"term-generator","term":"Generator"},{"def":"In <em>Ghost in the Shell</em>, the irreducible self inside a cybernetic body. Hack it and you can rewrite who someone is.","families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-ghost","id":"term-ghost","term":"Ghost"},{"def":"Protective eyewear for the worker at the forge or the pilot of an open-cockpit\nflying machine. By 2007, also a fashion accessory of dubious utility.","families":["steampunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-goggles","id":"term-goggles","term":"Goggles"},{"def":"The flamboyant mid-century American architecture of coffee shops, motels and bowling alleys. Atompunk's preferred building style.","families":["atompunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-googie","id":"term-googie","term":"Googie"},{"def":"A vertical garden grown on a building facade. Patrick Blanc's living walls made them a signature of the green city.","families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-green-wall","id":"term-green-wall","term":"Green wall"},{"def":"Selling a misleading ecological image. Solarpunk distrusts it and asks for real change.","families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-greenwashing","id":"term-greenwashing","term":"Greenwashing"},{"def":"A costumed torchbearer in Shetland's Up Helly Aa, marching to burn a replica Viking galley. The bonfire keeper as living tradition.","families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-guizer","id":"term-guizer","term":"Guizer"},{"def":"Fuel, in the slang of the <em>Mad Max</em> films. The blood of every war-rig and the reason for most wars.","families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-guzzoline","id":"term-guzzoline","term":"Guzzoline"},{"def":"The trenches below about 6,000 m, named for Hades. The deepest places on Earth.","families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-hadal-zone","id":"term-hadal-zone","term":"Hadal Zone"},{"def":"The radius around the Generator where a structure stays warm enough to be inhabited. Outside it: frostbite, then worse.","families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-heat-zone","id":"term-heat-zone","term":"Heat zone"},{"def":"The phrase that defines cyberpunk: advanced technology inside a society in decay. Progress is not the same as a better life.","families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-high-tech-low-life","id":"term-high-tech-low-life","term":"High tech, low life"},{"def":"The counterweight to discontent. Let it fall to nothing and the city gives up on you, however warm the Generator runs.","families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-hope","id":"term-hope","term":"Hope"},{"def":"Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics: the programs that guard data in cyberspace. Netrunners exist to break them.","families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-ice","id":"term-ice","term":"ICE"},{"def":"Vonnegut's crystal that freezes any water it touches. The flash-freeze reduced to a single seed.","families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-ice-nine","id":"term-ice-nine","term":"Ice-nine"},{"def":"The moment fuel, heat, and oxygen cross the threshold into self-sustaining flame. In pyropunk: the moment a world commits to burning.","families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-ignition","id":"term-ignition","term":"Ignition"},{"def":"In <em>Fire Force</em>, a person consumed by spontaneous human combustion and turned into a living blaze. The fear of fire inside the body.","families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-infernal","id":"term-infernal","term":"Infernal"},{"def":"Ballard's word for the landscape inside the head, the one frontier no rocket reaches.","families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-inner-space","id":"term-inner-space","term":"Inner space"},{"def":"&quot;Healing-type&quot;, a Japanese genre of calm, slow stories meant to soothe. Lunapunk's closest cousin in manga and anime.","families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-iyashikei","id":"term-iyashikei","term":"Iyashikei"},{"def":"The temperate-water equivalent of a rainforest. Vertical, wild, full of cities of small things.","families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-kelp-forest","id":"term-kelp-forest","term":"Kelp Forest"},{"def":"A cascade in which orbital debris collisions create more debris, until orbit becomes a minefield. The reason <em>Planetes</em> needs garbage crews.","families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-kessler-syndrome","id":"term-kessler-syndrome","term":"Kessler syndrome"},{"def":"The July 1959 argument between Nixon and Khrushchev inside a model American kitchen in Moscow. Proof that the Cold War was also fought with appliances.","families":["atompunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-kitchen-debate","id":"term-kitchen-debate","term":"Kitchen Debate"},{"def":"An organism in which a specific gene has been deliberately disabled. Used to study what the gene does, and what life looks like without it.","families":["biopunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-knockout","id":"term-knockout","term":"Knockout"},{"def":"Feeding yourself to the First Flame so the Age of Fire lasts a little longer. Pyropunk's central dilemma as a single act: sacrifice to keep it burning, or let the dark come.","families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-linking-the-fire","id":"term-linking-the-fire","term":"Linking the fire"},{"def":"Aware that the dream is a dream, and able to edit it. The mind-hacker's root access.","families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-lucid","id":"term-lucid","term":"Lucid"},{"def":"The spelling most writers and magazines use for the same idea. Lunapunk and lunarpunk name one night; this almanac answers to both.","families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-lunarpunk","id":"term-lunarpunk","term":"Lunarpunk"},{"def":"One full cycle of phases, new moon to new moon, about 29.5 days. The lunapunk unit of time.","families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-lunation","id":"term-lunation","term":"Lunation"},{"def":"Hacker slang for the physical body. To a console cowboy, the meat is what you leave behind when you jack in.","families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-meat","id":"term-meat","term":"MEAT"},{"def":"A company whose power exceeds that of states. The recurring antagonist of cyberpunk, and the payroll of spacepunk.","families":["cyberpunk","spacepunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-megacorporation","id":"term-megacorporation","term":"Megacorporation"},{"def":"Stephenson's 1992 coinage for a persistent shared virtual world in <em>Snow Crash</em>. Later borrowed by a social network as its new name.","families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-metaverse","id":"term-metaverse","term":"Metaverse"},{"def":"A living being altered genetically, often by radiation or experiments.","families":["biopunk","atompunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-mutant","id":"term-mutant","term":"Mutant"},{"def":"The wider modern revival of Victorian style, manners and fiction. Steampunk is its most mechanical branch.","families":["steampunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-neo-victorian","id":"term-neo-victorian","term":"Neo-Victorian"},{"def":"The signature light of cyberpunk: brilliant surfaces over a decaying world.","families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-neon","id":"term-neon","term":"Neon"},{"def":"Specialist operator capable of &quot;jacking in&quot; to cyberspace via neural interface. Performs intrusion, extraction, and combat across the wire.","families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-netrunner","id":"term-netrunner","term":"Netrunner"},{"def":"The drunken calm that nitrogen brings at depth, known to divers as the rapture of the deep. Hydropunk's preferred hallucination.","families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-nitrogen-narcosis","id":"term-nitrogen-narcosis","term":"Nitrogen Narcosis"},{"def":"A work, in music or painting, whose subject is the night itself. Lunapunk is a nocturne extended into a way of living.","families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-nocturne","id":"term-nocturne","term":"Nocturne"},{"def":"The 1940s American crime style: trench coats, venetian blinds, voiceover, a moral world too tired to be saved. Dieselpunk's emotional centre of gravity.","families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-noir","id":"term-noir","term":"Noir"},{"def":"The modeled cooling after a nuclear war, as smoke from burning cities blocks the sun. Frostpunk's apocalypse with a human trigger.","families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-nuclear-winter","id":"term-nuclear-winter","term":"Nuclear winter"},{"def":"The two roads the Book of Laws can take when hope runs out: guards and propaganda, or chapels and devotion. Push either far enough and it ends in a tyrant.","families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-order-faith","id":"term-order-faith","term":"Order / Faith"},{"def":"A flying machine that flaps its wings like a bird. Leonardo sketched them, the Victorians dreamed of them, and steampunk keeps building them.","families":["steampunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-ornithopter","id":"term-ornithopter","term":"Ornithopter"},{"def":"The optimistic school, named after Nick Ottens of <em>Never Was</em>: the Roaring Twenties carry on unbroken by Depression or war, and the World's Fair future arrives on time.","families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-ottensian","id":"term-ottensian","term":"Ottensian"},{"def":"The study of past visions of the future, and the name of Matt Novak's long-running project on the subject.","families":["atompunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-paleofuture","id":"term-paleofuture","term":"Paleofuture"},{"def":"Of the open sea, away from coast or seabed. Hydropunk's natural habitat.","families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-pelagic","id":"term-pelagic","term":"Pelagic"},{"def":"Designing food systems that behave like natural ecosystems. A practical pillar of solarpunk.","families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-permaculture","id":"term-permaculture","term":"Permaculture"},{"def":"The fire-substance that 17th-century chemists Becher and Stahl believed escaped from anything that burned. Discarded science, perfect for a retro-pyropunk world.","families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-phlogiston","id":"term-phlogiston","term":"Phlogiston"},{"def":"The dark school, named after the writer Piecraft: the world wars never stop, and culture freezes in a permanent state of mobilization.","families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-piecraftian","id":"term-piecraftian","term":"Piecraftian"},{"def":"Thomas Hine's 1986 coinage (popular + luxury) for the tailfin, TV-dinner and starburst consumer culture of the mid-1950s to mid-1960s. Atompunk's shopping list.","families":["atompunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-populuxe","id":"term-populuxe","term":"Populuxe"},{"def":"A setting after a catastrophe has destroyed civilisation as we know it.","families":["apocapunk","frostpunk","pyropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-post-apocalyptic","id":"term-post-apocalyptic","term":"Post-apocalyptic"},{"def":"Living the future you want now, so that the means already look like the ends. Ecovillages, tool libraries and community gardens are its practice.","families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-prefigurative-politics","id":"term-prefigurative-politics","term":"Prefigurative politics"},{"def":"The visual technology of mass persuasion as perfected between 1917 and 1945. Dieselpunk borrows the form on purpose, and asks you to notice.","families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-propaganda","id":"term-propaganda","term":"Propaganda"},{"def":"Cheap-magazine fiction of 1910-1955: ray guns, jungle queens, masked vigilantes, aviator heroes. The narrative grammar dieselpunk inherits.","families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-pulp","id":"term-pulp","term":"Pulp"},{"def":"Historian Stephen J. Pyne's name for the present: an age in which human fire, from wildfire to fossil fuel, shapes the planet. Pyropunk's word for now.","families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-pyrocene","id":"term-pyrocene","term":"Pyrocene"},{"def":"The fictional power to create and control fire with the mind. The Promethean spark relocated from heaven into a single human skull.","families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-pyrokinesis","id":"term-pyrokinesis","term":"Pyrokinesis"},{"def":"Bujold's four-armed, zero-g workers, engineered by a corporation and legally classed as tissue cultures rather than people.","families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-quaddie","id":"term-quaddie","term":"Quaddie"},{"def":"Units of radiation exposure. In the wasteland, the number you count before every drink of water.","families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-rads","id":"term-rads","term":"Rads"},{"def":"Coined by William Gibson. The visual style of finned chrome, antenna spires, and bubble cockpits. Atompunk in three words.","families":["atompunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-raygun-gothic","id":"term-raygun-gothic","term":"Raygun Gothic"},{"def":"Robert Anton Wilson's term for the private filter of beliefs and habits through which each of us sees the world. Everyone lives in one; the hack is noticing yours.","families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-reality-tunnel","id":"term-reality-tunnel","term":"Reality tunnel"},{"def":"A free meetup where neighbors fix each other's broken things. The first opened in Amsterdam in 2009; the solarpunk economy in miniature.","families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-repair-cafe","id":"term-repair-cafe","term":"Repair café"},{"def":"An artificial being biologically identical to a human. The word comes from Blade Runner.","families":["cyberpunk","biopunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-replicant","id":"term-replicant","term":"Replicant"},{"def":"The future as a past era imagined it. Steampunk, dieselpunk and atompunk all live here.","families":["steampunk","dieselpunk","atompunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-retrofuturism","id":"term-retrofuturism","term":"Retrofuturism"},{"def":"Returning land to self-managing wilderness, reintroducing species, removing dams, letting the forest decide. The solarpunk verb.","families":["solarpunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-rewilding","id":"term-rewilding","term":"Rewilding"},{"def":"The mythical lizard said to live unharmed in flame, and the name of the fire engine in <em>Fahrenheit 451</em>. The creature that belongs to the fire.","families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-salamander","id":"term-salamander","term":"Salamander"},{"def":"Stripping a derelict hull for parts and scrap, legally murky, physically lethal, and often the only paying work in the belt.","families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-salvage","id":"term-salvage","term":"Salvage"},{"def":"Living under pressure for weeks so the body stays saturated with gas, then decompressing once at the end. The real life of rig divers.","families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-saturation-diving","id":"term-saturation-diving","term":"Saturation Diving"},{"def":"One who turns the dead world's trash into the living world's tools. The apocapunk protagonist, almost always.","families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-scavenger","id":"term-scavenger","term":"Scavenger"},{"def":"The period's own British name for what we now call science fiction: Wells, Doyle and their contemporaries. Steampunk is, in part, its modern fan fiction.","families":["steampunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-scientific-romance","id":"term-scientific-romance","term":"Scientific Romance"},{"def":"A permanent dwelling at sea, outside any country's land. The floating free city made literal.","families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-seastead","id":"term-seastead","term":"Seastead"},{"def":"The mindset you bring and the room you take it in. The old psychedelic rule that the same dose makes a different world.","families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-set-and-setting","id":"term-set-and-setting","term":"Set and setting"},{"def":"The stepped, ziggurat tower shape driven by New York's 1916 zoning law and romanticized by Hugh Ferriss. The silhouette of every dieselpunk skyline.","families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-setback-skyscraper","id":"term-setback-skyscraper","term":"Setback Skyscraper"},{"def":"Splitting one life into two memories that never meet. The office as a surgical procedure on the self.","families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-severance","id":"term-severance","term":"Severance"},{"def":"Cutting a dead vessel apart for salvage and scrap. Dangerous, underpaid, and the whole job in <em>Hardspace: Shipbreaker</em>.","families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-shipbreaking","id":"term-shipbreaking","term":"Shipbreaking"},{"def":"Simulated stimulation. Recorded sensory experience played back through the nervous system: you feel what the star felt. Gibson's answer to reality TV.","families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-simstim","id":"term-simstim","term":"Simstim"},{"def":"A copy with no original. The psychopunk dread, in a single word: a self that was never real to begin with.","families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-simulacrum","id":"term-simulacrum","term":"Simulacrum"},{"def":"The hypothetical point where machine intelligence overtakes ours and everything after it becomes unpredictable.","families":["cyberpunk","psychopunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-singularity","id":"term-singularity","term":"Singularity"},{"def":"The diffuse brightening of the night sky by scattered artificial light. The reason most people alive have never seen the Milky Way.","families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-skyglow","id":"term-skyglow","term":"Skyglow"},{"def":"The founding text of the movement, asking us to imagine and build fair, sustainable, desirable futures.","families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-solarpunk-manifesto","id":"term-solarpunk-manifesto","term":"Solarpunk Manifesto"},{"def":"The stereo-showcase lounge music of the 1950s and 60s, from Esquivel to exotica. The bachelor pad's soundtrack to the future.","families":["atompunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-space-age-pop","id":"term-space-age-pop","term":"Space Age Pop"},{"def":"A hauler moving freight between ports for the company's cut. The <em>Nostromo</em>'s crew were designed as exactly this.","families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-space-trucker","id":"term-space-trucker","term":"Space trucker"},{"def":"Artificial gravity from a rotating habitat. Cheap, finite, and the first thing the company shuts off when you fall behind on rent.","families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-spin-gravity","id":"term-spin-gravity","term":"Spin gravity"},{"def":"The American panic of October 1957: the Soviets are in space first. Triggers NASA, the space race, and most of the genre's optimism.","families":["atompunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-sputnik-shock","id":"term-sputnik-shock","term":"Sputnik Shock"},{"def":"In <em>Altered Carbon</em>, the implant at the base of the skull that stores consciousness. Bodies are <strong>SLEEVES</strong>; only the stack is you.","families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-stack","id":"term-stack","term":"Stack"},{"def":"A scavenger who guides people into a forbidden Zone for artifacts. From the Strugatsky brothers to <em>S.T.A.L.K.E.R.</em>","families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-stalker","id":"term-stalker","term":"Stalker"},{"def":"Steampunk's prime mover: the steam engine as the dominant technology, never replaced by oil or electricity.","families":["steampunk","frostpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-steam","id":"term-steam","term":"Steam"},{"def":"The late deco subset that made everything <em>aerodynamic</em>: trains, kettles, radios, vacuum cleaners. The aesthetic of momentum.","families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-streamline-moderne","id":"term-streamline-moderne","term":"Streamline Moderne"},{"def":"Augmented mercenary for hire: reflexes wired, blades in the fingers. Molly Millions is the archetype; <em>Shadowrun</em> made it a class.","families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-street-samurai","id":"term-street-samurai","term":"Street Samurai"},{"def":"Engineering living systems from standardized parts, the way electronics are built from components. Biology as a design discipline.","families":["biopunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-synthetic-biology","id":"term-synthetic-biology","term":"Synthetic biology"},{"def":"The point where an alternate branch splits from our timeline. Every -punk has one.","families":["cyberpunk","steampunk","dieselpunk","atompunk","solarpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-temporal-divergence","id":"term-temporal-divergence","term":"Temporal divergence"},{"def":"The moving line between lunar day and night. The edge where the phase is decided, lunapunk lives along it.","families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-terminator","id":"term-terminator","term":"Terminator"},{"def":"Fear of deep or vast water. The genre's oldest emotion.","families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-thalassophobia","id":"term-thalassophobia","term":"Thalassophobia"},{"def":"Spacer slang for the void between ports. Cold, silent, and indifferent. The spacepunk apocalypse, in two words.","families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-the-black","id":"term-the-black","term":"The black"},{"def":"Never just a business. In spacepunk it is landlord, employer, police and air supplier at once, Weyland-Yutani, Lunar Industries, the Earth Company.","families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-the-company","id":"term-the-company","term":"The Company"},{"def":"From <em>The Road</em>: the decency survivors carry and refuse to let go out.","families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-the-fire","id":"term-the-fire","term":"The fire"},{"def":"A contaminated or anomalous area closed off from the world. Abandoned, dangerous, and full of salvage.","families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-the-zone","id":"term-the-zone","term":"The zone"},{"def":"AEC chairman Lewis Strauss's 1954 promise that nuclear electricity would one day be almost free. The genre's most quoted unkept promise.","families":["atompunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-too-cheap-to-meter","id":"term-too-cheap-to-meter","term":"Too Cheap to Meter"},{"def":"Carrying a gene taken from another species. The glowing rabbit, the bug-resistant crop, the goat with spider silk in its milk.","families":["biopunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-transgenic","id":"term-transgenic","term":"Transgenic"},{"def":"Japanese moon-viewing in autumn: offerings, dumplings, pampas grass, and the simple act of sitting outside to look.","families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-tsukimi","id":"term-tsukimi","term":"Tsukimi"},{"def":"A story built on alternate history: what if one event had gone the other way?","families":["steampunk","dieselpunk","atompunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-uchronia","id":"term-uchronia","term":"Uchronia"},{"def":"The worn, scuffed, lived-in look of <em>Star Wars</em> and <em>Alien</em>: machines that have been repaired more often than they have been cleaned.","families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-used-future","id":"term-used-future","term":"Used future"},{"def":"In <em>Fallout</em>, the underground shelters built by Vault-Tec to save (or experiment on) chosen citizens. The fallout shelter, reimagined as a corporate product.","families":["atompunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-vault","id":"term-vault","term":"Vault"},{"def":"A delivery mechanism for genetic material, usually a modified virus. The needle of biopunk.","families":["biopunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-vector","id":"term-vector","term":"Vector"},{"def":"The blue-green patina that forms on copper and brass with time. The signature\ncolour of objects that have been weathered, used, and loved.","families":["steampunk","hydropunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-verdigris","id":"term-verdigris","term":"Verdigris"},{"def":"Global cooling caused by sulfate aerosols from a giant eruption. Tambora gave the world 1816, the Year Without a Summer; Krakatoa gives Frostpunk its 1886.","families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-volcanic-winter","id":"term-volcanic-winter","term":"Volcanic winter"},{"def":"A vehicle welded together from the corpses of other vehicles. Both transport and home. To lose it is to die on foot.","families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-war-rig","id":"term-war-rig","term":"War-rig"},{"def":"Whoever controls the water, the fuel, or the guns. The apocalypse, in a single person.","families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-warlord","id":"term-warlord","term":"Warlord"},{"def":"The Second World War plus the occult, superscience or monsters: from Pinnacle's 2001 RPG of that name to <em>Hellboy</em>, <em>Wolfenstein</em> and <em>Konflikt '47</em>.","families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-weird-war-ii","id":"term-weird-war-ii","term":"Weird War II"},{"def":"The frontier western crossed with horror, fantasy or steam-age gadgetry. <em>The Wild Wild West</em> and <em>Deadlands</em> are its landmarks.","families":["steampunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-weird-west","id":"term-weird-west","term":"Weird West"},{"def":"The biological side of computing: body and brain treated as hardware, halfway between cyberpunk and biopunk.","families":["cyberpunk","biopunk","psychopunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-wetware","id":"term-wetware","term":"Wetware"},{"def":"The killing storm. Temperature plunges, visibility vanishes, and the city survives on whatever heat it banked. The frostpunk apocalypse, in a single word.","families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-whiteout","id":"term-whiteout","term":"Whiteout"},{"def":"Alien life. In spacepunk, meeting it puts our place in the universe into question.","families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-xenoform","id":"term-xenoform","term":"Xenoform"},{"def":"An organ moved from one species to another, such as a gene-edited pig kidney into a human patient. Moreau's island, with consent forms.","families":["biopunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-xenotransplant","id":"term-xenotransplant","term":"Xenotransplant"},{"def":"The general atompunk thesis: the future we were promised, viewed with the knowledge of what we got instead.","families":["atompunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-yesterday-s-tomorrow","id":"term-yesterday-s-tomorrow","term":"Yesterday's Tomorrow"},{"def":"Japanese term for an industrial conglomerate, used by Gibson for the megacorps that run the Sprawl. Corporations as clans that outlive their founders.","families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-zaibatsu","id":"term-zaibatsu","term":"Zaibatsu"},{"def":"The jump of a pathogen from non-human to human host. The biopunk apocalypse, in a single word.","families":["biopunk"],"href":"/glossary#term-zoonosis","id":"term-zoonosis","term":"Zoonosis"}],"works":[{"by":"Pieter Bruegel the Elder","countries":["BE"],"desc":"Hunters come home over a frozen valley, painted as the Little Ice Age's hard winters began. The founding image of winter as a communal struggle.","essential":true,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/the-hunters-in-the-snow-1565","id":"the-hunters-in-the-snow-1565","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-pieter-bruegel-the-elder-hunters-in-the-snow-winter-go-2dde63.webp","medium":"art","themes":["cold","survival"],"title":"The Hunters in the Snow","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunters_in_the_Snow","year":1565},{"by":"Galileo Galilei","countries":["IT"],"desc":"The first published scientific work based on telescope observations, with wash drawings of the Moon's mountains and shadows. The night sky, seen up close for the first time.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/sidereus-nuncius-1610","id":"sidereus-nuncius-1610","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-houghton-ic6-g1333-610sa-sidereus-nuncius-f7df90.webp","medium":"book","themes":["space"],"title":"Sidereus Nuncius","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidereus_Nuncius","year":1610},{"by":"Hendrick Avercamp","countries":["NL"],"desc":"Crowded frozen Dutch canals, painted in one of the coldest stretches of the Little Ice Age. Life carrying on, on the ice.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/winter-landscapes-1610","id":"winter-landscapes-1610","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-hendrick-avercamp-ijs-landschap-ca-1610-0a8b59.webp","medium":"art","themes":["cold"],"title":"Winter landscapes","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendrick_Avercamp","year":1610},{"by":"Diego Velázquez","countries":["ES"],"desc":"The god of light interrupts the smith god's forge. A painting of the moment the furnace learns what the sky knows.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/apollo-in-the-forge-of-vulcan-1630","id":"apollo-in-the-forge-of-vulcan-1630","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-vel-zquez-la-fragua-de-vulcano-museo-del-prado-1630-b6ee3b.webp","medium":"art","themes":["fire","myth"],"title":"Apollo in the Forge of Vulcan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_in_the_Forge_of_Vulcan","year":1630},{"by":"Joseph Wright of Derby","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A glowing ingot lights a smith's family like a holy fire. One of Wright's series on the forge, painted as the Industrial Revolution began.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/an-iron-forge-1772","id":"an-iron-forge-1772","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-joseph-wright-an-iron-forge-google-art-project-53c20e.webp","medium":"art","themes":["fire","machines"],"title":"An Iron Forge","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Iron_Forge","year":1772},{"by":"Hubert Robert","countries":["FR"],"desc":"The painter of ruins imagines the Louvre roofless and crumbling. A precursor: proof that picturing our own institutions in ruin is centuries older than the bomb.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/imaginary-view-of-the-grande-galerie-in-the-louvre-in-ruins-1796","id":"imaginary-view-of-the-grande-galerie-in-the-louvre-in-ruins-1796","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-hubert-robert-imaginary-view-of-the-grande-galerie-in--de1d20.webp","medium":"art","themes":["post-apocalypse","cities"],"title":"Imaginary View of the Grande Galerie in the Louvre in Ruins","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Robert","year":1796},{"by":"Philip James de Loutherbourg","countries":["GB"],"desc":"The furnaces of the Shropshire ironworks blazing against the night sky. The defining image of industry as an inferno.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/coalbrookdale-by-night-1801","id":"coalbrookdale-by-night-1801","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-philipp-jakob-loutherbourg-d-j-002-af3e7d.webp","medium":"art","themes":["fire","night","machines"],"title":"Coalbrookdale by Night","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalbrookdale_by_Night","year":1801},{"by":"Caspar David Friedrich","countries":["DE"],"desc":"Two figures stand with their backs to us beneath a crescent Moon and a dead oak. The founding image of lunapunk's stance: still, looking up.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/two-men-contemplating-the-moon-1819","id":"two-men-contemplating-the-moon-1819","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-caspar-david-friedrich-two-men-contemplating-the-moon--fcd6a9.webp","medium":"art","themes":["night"],"title":"Two Men Contemplating the Moon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Men_Contemplating_the_Moon","year":1819},{"by":"Caspar David Friedrich","countries":["DE"],"desc":"A shipwreck crushed beneath heaped plates of Arctic ice. Romanticism's ultimate image of nature defeating human ambition.","essential":true,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/the-sea-of-ice-1823","id":"the-sea-of-ice-1823","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-caspar-david-friedrich-das-eismeer-hamburger-kunsthall-ac713f.webp","medium":"art","themes":["cold","survival"],"title":"The Sea of Ice","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sea_of_Ice","year":1823},{"by":"J. M. W. Turner","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Turner watched Parliament burn in 1834 and painted it twice: a nation's seat of power dissolving into golden flame.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/the-burning-of-the-houses-of-lords-and-commons-1834","id":"the-burning-of-the-houses-of-lords-and-commons-1834","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-joseph-mallord-william-turner-english-the-burning-of-t-b2ed64.webp","medium":"art","themes":["fire","cities"],"title":"The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burning_of_the_Houses_of_Lords_and_Commons","year":1834},{"by":"Thomas Cole","countries":["US"],"desc":"The last of five paintings tracing a city from wilderness to empire to ruin, with nature reclaiming its columns. The rewilding image, painted long before the genre had a name.","essential":true,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/the-course-of-empire-desolation-1836","id":"the-course-of-empire-desolation-1836","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-asher-b-durand-portrait-of-thomas-cole-google-art-proj-cb81f1.webp","medium":"art","themes":["post-apocalypse","cities"],"title":"The Course of Empire: Desolation","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Course_of_Empire_(paintings)","year":1836},{"by":"John Martin","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Milton's capital of Hell rendered as a burning architectural megastructure. The infernal city as visionary design.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/pandemonium-1841","id":"pandemonium-1841","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-john-martin-le-pandemonium-louvre-9ca35f.webp","medium":"art","themes":["fire","cities","myth"],"title":"Pandemonium","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemonium_(painting)","year":1841},{"by":"John Martin","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Martin's apocalyptic painting of a lone figure above a dead world, on the theme Mary Shelley had made famous. Romantic-era apocapunk.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/the-last-man-1849","id":"the-last-man-1849","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-martin-john-the-last-man-1849-a900a5.webp","medium":"art","themes":["post-apocalypse"],"title":"The Last Man","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Martin_(painter)","year":1849},{"by":"Frederic Edwin Church","countries":["US"],"desc":"A vast canvas from a voyage off Newfoundland and Labrador, with a broken mast in the foreground. The sublime of ice, with a quiet hint of disaster.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/the-icebergs-1861","id":"the-icebergs-1861","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-the-icebergs-frederic-edwin-church-1861-color-7a0378.webp","medium":"art","themes":["cold","ocean"],"title":"The Icebergs","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Icebergs","year":1861},{"by":"Edwin Landseer","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Polar bears tear at the wreckage of Franklin's lost expedition. Victorian Britain's nightmare about the ice, painted in oil.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/man-proposes-god-disposes-1864","id":"man-proposes-god-disposes-1864","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-man-proposes-god-disposes-edwin-landseer-rh-2e4891.webp","medium":"art","themes":["cold","survival"],"title":"Man Proposes, God Disposes","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Proposes,_God_Disposes","year":1864},{"by":"Alphonse de Neuville and Édouard Riou","countries":["FR"],"desc":"The 111 engravings in Hetzel's deluxe edition: the salon window, the diving party, the giant squid. Where the genre's visual vocabulary was drawn.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/illustrations-for-twenty-thousand-leagues-1871","id":"illustrations-for-twenty-thousand-leagues-1871","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-20000-squid-nautilus-viewbay-10d5d7.webp","medium":"art","themes":["ocean","machines","retro-future"],"title":"Illustrations for Twenty Thousand Leagues","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty_Thousand_Leagues_Under_the_Seas","year":1871},{"by":"Adolph Menzel","countries":["DE"],"desc":"Workers wrestle a white-hot iron bloom through a rolling mill. The industrial forge painted as myth, with the Cyclopes in the title.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/the-iron-rolling-mill-modern-cyclopes-1872","id":"the-iron-rolling-mill-modern-cyclopes-1872","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-adolph-menzel-eisenwalzwerk-google-art-project-de0586.webp","medium":"art","themes":["fire","machines"],"title":"The Iron Rolling Mill (Modern Cyclopes)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Rolling_Mill_(Modern_Cyclopes)","year":1872},{"by":"James McNeill Whistler","countries":["US"],"desc":"Fireworks dissolving into a dark Thames fog. Whistler borrowed the musical word 'nocturne' for his night paintings, and sued the critic John Ruskin for libel after Ruskin attacked this one.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/nocturne-in-black-and-gold-the-falling-rocket-1875","id":"nocturne-in-black-and-gold-the-falling-rocket-1875","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-whistler-nocturne-in-black-and-gold-93aa32.webp","medium":"art","themes":["night","fire"],"title":"Nocturne in Black and Gold, The Falling Rocket","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocturne_in_Black_and_Gold_%E2%80%93_The_Falling_Rocket","year":1875},{"by":"Gustave Doré","countries":["FR"],"desc":"Doré's wood engravings of the ship among towering ice. They shaped how readers, including the young Lovecraft, pictured the polar sea.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/illustrations-for-the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner-1876","id":"illustrations-for-the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner-1876","image":"/assets/imgs/works/dore-the-ice-was-all-around-3ac1e0.webp","medium":"art","themes":["cold","ocean","myth"],"title":"Illustrations for The Rime of the Ancient Mariner","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Dor%C3%A9","year":1876},{"by":"Arkhip Kuindzhi","countries":["RU"],"desc":"A river under a moonlit sky so luminous that viewers reportedly looked behind the canvas for a lamp. Reflected light as spectacle.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/moonlit-night-on-the-dnieper-1880","id":"moonlit-night-on-the-dnieper-1880","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-kuindzhi-moonlit-night-on-the-dnieper-1880-grm-x2-97541b.webp","medium":"art","themes":["night"],"title":"Moonlit Night on the Dnieper","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlit_Night_on_the_Dnieper","year":1880},{"by":"Lerwick, Shetland","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A torchlit procession of costumed guizers that ends with a replica Viking galley set alight. A living fire festival.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/up-helly-aa-1881","id":"up-helly-aa-1881","image":"/assets/imgs/works/guisers-at-uyeasound-up-helly-aa-geograph-org-uk-1706010-1229ee.webp","medium":"art","themes":["fire","myth"],"title":"Up Helly Aa","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_Helly_Aa","year":1881},{"by":"Albert Robida","countries":["FR"],"desc":"Robida's illustrated vision of 1950s Paris: aerial houses, flying cabs and airborne traffic. Victorian retrofuturism drawn by an actual Victorian.","essential":true,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/le-vingtieme-siecle-1883","id":"le-vingtieme-siecle-1883","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-aerial-house3-b40ed2.webp","medium":"book","themes":["retro-future","cities","machines"],"title":"Le Vingtième Siècle","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Robida","year":1883},{"by":"Tsukioka Yoshitoshi","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A hundred woodblock prints of myth, history and ghosts, each with the Moon somewhere in it. A complete lunar folklore in images.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/one-hundred-aspects-of-the-moon-1885","id":"one-hundred-aspects-of-the-moon-1885","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-yoshitoshi-100-aspects-of-the-moon-4-ca339a.webp","medium":"art","themes":["night","myth"],"title":"One Hundred Aspects of the Moon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Hundred_Aspects_of_the_Moon","year":1885},{"by":"Wilson Bentley","countries":["US"],"desc":"The first photomicrographs of individual snow crystals, begun in 1885 in Vermont. The lattice of frost, made visible.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/snowflake-photographs-1885","id":"snowflake-photographs-1885","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-bentley-snowflake-565-aae8ed.webp","medium":"art","themes":["cold"],"title":"Snowflake photographs","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_Bentley","year":1885},{"by":"John Atkinson Grimshaw","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Wet cobbles, gaslight and ships' masts under a cold Moon. Grimshaw was the Victorian master of the urban nocturne.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/liverpool-quay-by-moonlight-1887","id":"liverpool-quay-by-moonlight-1887","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-john-atkinson-grimshaw-1836-1893-liverpool-quay-by-moo-212dd6.webp","medium":"art","themes":["night","cities"],"title":"Liverpool Quay by Moonlight","url":"https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/grimshaw-liverpool-quay-by-moonlight-t00902","year":1887},{"by":"Vincent van Gogh","countries":["NL"],"desc":"The view from an asylum window in Saint-Rémy, turned into swirling stars and a blazing crescent. Night as something alive and moving.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/the-starry-night-1889","id":"the-starry-night-1889","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-van-gogh-starry-night-google-art-project-5d8b7a.webp","medium":"art","themes":["night","mind"],"title":"The Starry Night","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Starry_Night","year":1889},{"by":"Alphonse Mucha","countries":["CZ"],"desc":"Whiplash vines, haloed figures and flowers framing every line. Mucha's style is the most borrowed visual vocabulary in solarpunk illustration.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/art-nouveau-posters-1890","id":"art-nouveau-posters-1890","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-photographic-selfportrait-of-alfons-mucha-1928-2-40fd42.webp","medium":"art","themes":["ecology","utopia"],"title":"Art Nouveau posters","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonse_Mucha","year":1890},{"by":"Ernst Haeckel","countries":["DE"],"desc":"A hundred prints of jellyfish, radiolarians and siphonophores, issued from 1899 and collected in 1904. Its medusae shaped Art Nouveau and every bioluminescent creature design since.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/kunstformen-der-natur-1904","id":"kunstformen-der-natur-1904","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-haeckel-discomedusae-8-3b7719.webp","medium":"art","themes":["ocean","ecology"],"title":"Kunstformen der Natur","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunstformen_der_Natur","year":1904},{"by":"F. T. Marinetti","countries":["IT"],"desc":"The Italian movement that worshipped speed, machines and war. Adjacent and uncomfortable: an aesthetic that fed straight into fascism, which is exactly why dieselpunk studies it.","essential":true,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/futurism-1909","id":"futurism-1909","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-gino-severini-1912-dynamic-hieroglyphic-of-the-bal-tab-d0aa37.webp","medium":"art","themes":["machines","war","cities"],"title":"Futurism","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurism","year":1909},{"by":"Herbert Ponting","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Ponting's images from Scott's expedition, including grottoes cut into icebergs. The photographic language of polar heroism and loss.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/terra-nova-photographs-1910","id":"terra-nova-photographs-1910","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-grotto-in-an-iceberg-herbert-george-ponting-original-7e3833.webp","medium":"art","themes":["cold","survival"],"title":"Terra Nova photographs","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Ponting","year":1910},{"by":"Frank Hurley","countries":["AU"],"desc":"Hurley's pictures of Shackleton's ship held and crushed by Weddell Sea ice, including its famous night portrait. The ship as the last warm thing on the ice.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/endurance-photographs-1915","id":"endurance-photographs-1915","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-endurance-night-1915-slnsw-1844d3.webp","medium":"art","themes":["cold","survival"],"title":"Endurance photographs","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Hurley","year":1915},{"by":"Tamara de Lempicka","countries":["PL","FR"],"desc":"Polished, metallic deco portraits of the wealthy and modern. The painter of the diesel age's glamorous face.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/tamara-de-lempicka-1920","id":"tamara-de-lempicka-1920","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-tamara-de-lempicka-autoportrait-tamara-in-a-green-buga-8a5f0d.webp","medium":"art","themes":["identity","cities"],"title":"Tamara de Lempicka","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamara_de_Lempicka","year":1920},{"by":"Hermann Rorschach","countries":["CH"],"desc":"Ten symmetrical blots that turn perception into a diagnostic. The genre's favourite image of a mind projecting itself onto the world.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/rorschach-inkblots-1921","id":"rorschach-inkblots-1921","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-rorschach-blot-01-d25f23.webp","medium":"art","themes":["mind"],"title":"Rorschach inkblots","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_test","year":1921},{"by":"Hugh Ferriss","countries":["US"],"desc":"Charcoal drawings of mountainous, setback skyscrapers lit from below. The single most borrowed source for dieselpunk cityscapes.","essential":true,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/the-metropolis-of-tomorrow-1929","id":"the-metropolis-of-tomorrow-1929","image":"/assets/imgs/works/hughferrissatwork1925-37a231.webp","medium":"art","themes":["cities","retro-future","night"],"title":"The Metropolis of Tomorrow","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Ferriss","year":1929},{"by":"Zdzisław Beksiński","countries":["PL"],"desc":"The Polish painter's dystopian landscapes of decay and bone. Adjacent: more nightmare than aftermath, but a deep influence on wasteland concept art.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/zdzisaw-beksinski-1929","id":"zdzisaw-beksinski-1929","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-zdzis-aw-beksi-ski-i-piotr-dmochowski-28-06-2003-cropp-2fad0e.webp","medium":"art","themes":["post-apocalypse","dystopia"],"title":"Zdzisław Beksiński","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zdzis%C5%82aw_Beksi%C5%84ski","year":1929},{"by":"William Van Alen","countries":["US"],"desc":"The steel-crowned deco skyscraper, briefly the tallest building in the world. A real dieselpunk cathedral.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/chrysler-building-1930","id":"chrysler-building-1930","image":"/assets/imgs/works/chrysler-building-1-4684845155-95543a.webp","medium":"art","themes":["cities","retro-future"],"title":"Chrysler Building","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Building","year":1930},{"by":"Raymond Loewy","countries":["US"],"desc":"Designer of the Pennsylvania Railroad S1 and T1 locomotives, Studebakers and countless products. Streamlining as a career.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/raymond-loewy-1930","id":"raymond-loewy-1930","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-raymond-loewy-circa-1956-a69e79.webp","medium":"art","themes":["machines","retro-future"],"title":"Raymond Loewy","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Loewy","year":1930},{"by":"Norman Bel Geddes","countries":["US"],"desc":"The book that popularised streamlining with teardrop cars, flying wings and ocean-liner fantasies.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/horizons-1932","id":"horizons-1932","image":"/assets/imgs/works/norman-bel-geddes-extracted-670255.webp","medium":"book","themes":["machines","retro-future"],"title":"Horizons","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Bel_Geddes","year":1932},{"by":"Buckminster Fuller","countries":["US"],"desc":"A three-wheeled teardrop prototype shown at the 1933 Chicago fair. Real diesel-era retrofuture you could ride in.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/dymaxion-car-1933","id":"dymaxion-car-1933","image":"/assets/imgs/works/dynamixion-car-by-buckminster-fuller-1933-side-views-a4a87f.webp","medium":"art","themes":["machines","retro-future"],"title":"Dymaxion car","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_car","year":1933},{"by":"Syd Mead","countries":["US"],"desc":"Industrial designer and concept artist whose cities and vehicles for Blade Runner and Tron shaped how the future looks on screen.","descs":{"cyberpunk":"Industrial designer and concept artist whose cities and vehicles for Blade Runner and Tron shaped how the future looks on screen.","spacepunk":"Adjacent: the industrial designer whose film credits include <em>Aliens</em> and <em>Elysium</em>, bringing believable engineering to military and orbital hardware."},"essential":true,"families":["cyberpunk","spacepunk"],"href":"/work/syd-mead-1933","id":"syd-mead-1933","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-syd-mead-lf-c2f695.webp","medium":"art","themes":["cities","machines","retro-future","space"],"title":"Syd Mead","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syd_Mead","year":1933},{"by":"A. M. Cassandre","countries":["FR"],"desc":"Cassandre's poster of the liner's prow looming over the viewer. The archetype of the heroic, monumental machine image.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/normandie-poster-1935","id":"normandie-poster-1935","image":"/assets/imgs/works/portret-van-a-m-cassandre-in-rijksacademie-in-amsterdam-1967-807362.webp","medium":"art","themes":["ocean","machines"],"title":"Normandie poster","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandre","year":1935},{"by":"Henry Dreyfuss","countries":["US"],"desc":"Dreyfuss's streamlined train sets for the New York Central. The deco locomotive as the ultimate dieselpunk vehicle.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/20th-century-limited-1938","id":"20th-century-limited-1938","image":"/assets/imgs/works/test-run-of-streamlined-20th-century-limited-1938-0ebd5c.webp","medium":"art","themes":["machines","retro-future"],"title":"20th Century Limited","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th_Century_Limited","year":1938},{"by":"Norman Bel Geddes","countries":["US"],"desc":"GM's ride over a model world of 1960, with superhighways and towers. The Ottensian promise in diorama form.","essential":true,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/futurama-1939","id":"futurama-1939","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-futurama-diorama-detail-ca75d5.webp","medium":"art","themes":["retro-future","cities","utopia"],"title":"Futurama","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurama_(New_York_World%27s_Fair)","year":1939},{"by":"J. Howard Miller","countries":["US"],"desc":"A Westinghouse factory morale poster that became an icon decades later. Proof that wartime propaganda images keep changing meaning.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/we-can-do-it-1943","id":"we-can-do-it-1943","image":"/assets/imgs/works/we-can-do-it-nara-535413-restoration-2-06524f.webp","medium":"art","themes":["war","identity"],"title":"We Can Do It!","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Can_Do_It!","year":1943},{"by":"Various","countries":["US"],"desc":"The design language of atoms, orbits and molecules applied to clocks, fabrics and furniture. The decorative side of the genre.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/atomic-age-design-1945","id":"atomic-age-design-1945","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-space-needle-at-dusk-2011-02-e29eb5.webp","medium":"art","themes":["nuclear","retro-future"],"title":"Atomic Age design","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_Age_(design)","year":1945},{"by":"Hassan Fathy","countries":["EG"],"desc":"A village near Luxor built from mud brick with domes and courtyards for natural cooling. A founding work of appropriate-technology architecture.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/new-gourna-1946","id":"new-gourna-1946","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-gournah-c57595.webp","medium":"art","themes":["ecology","utopia"],"title":"New Gourna","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurna","year":1946},{"by":"Willy Ley & Chesley Bonestell","countries":["US"],"desc":"Bonestell's photorealistic paintings of other worlds, with Ley's text. The book that showed a generation what space would look like.","essential":true,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/the-conquest-of-space-1949","id":"the-conquest-of-space-1949","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-conquest-of-space-027309.webp","medium":"book","themes":["space","retro-future"],"title":"The Conquest of Space","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conquest_of_Space","year":1949},{"by":"Named by Douglas Haskell","countries":["US"],"desc":"Boomerang roofs, starbursts and tilted glass on coffee shops and motels. The native architecture of atompunk.","essential":true,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/googie-architecture-1952","id":"googie-architecture-1952","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-normsrestaurant-lacienega-7704e0.webp","medium":"art","themes":["retro-future","cities"],"title":"Googie architecture","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googie_architecture","year":1952},{"by":"Collier's / Wernher von Braun","countries":["US"],"desc":"A magazine series laying out von Braun's space station, Moon ship and Mars mission, illustrated by Bonestell and others. It sold the space programme to the public.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/man-will-conquer-space-soon-1952","id":"man-will-conquer-space-soon-1952","image":"","medium":"art","themes":["space","retro-future"],"title":"Man Will Conquer Space Soon!","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Will_Conquer_Space_Soon!","year":1952},{"by":"M. C. Escher","countries":["NL"],"desc":"Staircases governed by three competing gravities. The visual grammar of looping, impossible psychopunk architecture.","essential":true,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/relativity-1953","id":"relativity-1953","image":"/assets/imgs/works/escher-s-relativity-fa081b.webp","medium":"art","themes":["mind"],"title":"Relativity","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_(M._C._Escher)","year":1953},{"by":"Harper Goff","countries":["US"],"desc":"Goff's design for Disney's submarine: riveted, finned, with a great round salon window and an organ. The most copied submarine silhouette in fiction.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/the-nautilus-1954","id":"the-nautilus-1954","image":"","medium":"art","themes":["ocean","machines","retro-future"],"title":"The Nautilus","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harper_Goff","year":1954},{"by":"Walt Disney","countries":["US"],"desc":"Disneyland opened with a land dedicated to the future, complete with a rocket to the Moon. The genre's theme-park headquarters.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/tomorrowland-1955","id":"tomorrowland-1955","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-tomorrowland-logo-svg-a600a6.webp","medium":"art","themes":["retro-future","utopia"],"title":"Tomorrowland","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrowland_(Disney_Parks)","year":1955},{"by":"Ford Motor Company","countries":["US"],"desc":"A concept car meant to run on a small nuclear reactor in the trunk. It never existed beyond a scale model, which makes it perfectly atompunk.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/ford-nucleon-1957","id":"ford-nucleon-1957","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-ford-nucleon-b31f64.webp","medium":"art","themes":["nuclear","machines","retro-future"],"title":"Ford Nucleon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon","year":1957},{"by":"Cai Guo-Qiang","countries":["CN"],"desc":"Gunpowder drawings and explosion events, including the fireworks of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The most celebrated artist working in fire today.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/gunpowder-art-1957","id":"gunpowder-art-1957","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-caiguoqiangspeakingoct10-19a416.webp","medium":"art","themes":["fire"],"title":"Gunpowder art","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cai_Guo-Qiang","year":1957},{"by":"Monsanto / MIT","countries":["US"],"desc":"An all-plastic home in Tomorrowland, open from 1957 to 1967. The push-button future as a walkable exhibit.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/monsanto-house-of-the-future-1957","id":"monsanto-house-of-the-future-1957","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-monsanto-plastics-home-of-the-future-disneyland-1958-1-27e0c5.webp","medium":"art","themes":["retro-future","utopia"],"title":"Monsanto House of the Future","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_House_of_the_Future","year":1957},{"by":"André Waterkeyn","countries":["BE"],"desc":"A steel iron crystal magnified billions of times, built as the centrepiece of Expo 58 in Brussels. Europe's Atomic Age monument.","essential":true,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/atomium-1958","id":"atomium-1958","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-the-atomium-during-civil-twilight-dscf1135-2997bc.webp","medium":"art","themes":["nuclear","retro-future"],"title":"Atomium","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomium","year":1958},{"by":"Arthur Radebaugh","countries":["US"],"desc":"A syndicated Sunday strip of airbrushed predictions: robot doctors, flying cars, push-button classrooms. Five years of the future, weekly.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/closer-than-we-think-1958","id":"closer-than-we-think-1958","image":"","medium":"comics","themes":["retro-future","machines"],"title":"Closer Than We Think!","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Radebaugh","year":1958},{"by":"Brion Gysin & Ian Sommerville","countries":["GB","FR"],"desc":"A slotted cylinder spinning round a bulb that produces visions behind closed eyes. A drug-free hallucination machine from the Burroughs circle.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/dreamachine-1959","id":"dreamachine-1959","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-dreamachine-still-lit-11681b.webp","medium":"art","themes":["mind"],"title":"Dreamachine","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamachine","year":1959},{"by":"Betty Willis","countries":["US"],"desc":"The Googie sign with its eight-pointed star, erected the same decade the city watched test blasts from hotel rooftops.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/welcome-to-fabulous-las-vegas-sign-1959","id":"welcome-to-fabulous-las-vegas-sign-1959","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-welcome-to-fabulous-las-vegas-c78fba.webp","medium":"art","themes":["retro-future","night","cities"],"title":"Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Fabulous_Las_Vegas_sign","year":1959},{"by":"Bridget Riley","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A grid of black and white squares that appears to buckle and fold. Op art proved a flat painting could hack the visual cortex.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/movement-in-squares-1961","id":"movement-in-squares-1961","image":"/assets/imgs/works/bridget-riley-4b0ff8.webp","medium":"art","themes":["mind"],"title":"Movement in Squares","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridget_Riley","year":1961},{"by":"Pereira & Luckman, Paul Williams et al.","countries":["US"],"desc":"The flying-saucer-on-arches at LAX. Space Age design built at airport scale.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/theme-building-1961","id":"theme-building-1961","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-lax-la-46b841.webp","medium":"art","themes":["retro-future"],"title":"Theme Building","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theme_Building","year":1961},{"by":"Yves Klein","countries":["FR"],"desc":"Klein marked the wet silhouettes of models on canvas with a flamethrower. Fire used as a brush.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/fc1-fire-color-1-1962","id":"fc1-fire-color-1-1962","image":"","medium":"art","themes":["fire"],"title":"FC1 (Fire Color 1)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FC1_(Fire_Color_1)","year":1962},{"by":"Century 21 Exposition","countries":["US"],"desc":"Seattle's saucer-topped tower, built for a World's Fair themed on the 21st century. The skyline of tomorrow, still standing.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/space-needle-1962","id":"space-needle-1962","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-space-needle-2011-07-04-bf12b0.webp","medium":"art","themes":["retro-future","space","cities"],"title":"Space Needle","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Needle","year":1962},{"by":"Eero Saarinen","countries":["US"],"desc":"A concrete terminal shaped like a bird in flight at JFK, now a hotel. The jet-age, elegant end of the style.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/twa-flight-center-1962","id":"twa-flight-center-1962","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-ehemaliges-twa-terminal-am-john-f-kennedy-internationa-37f9f7.webp","medium":"art","themes":["retro-future"],"title":"TWA Flight Center","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_Center","year":1962},{"by":"Robert Moses (president)","countries":["US"],"desc":"Futurama II, the Carousel of Progress, rocket parks and pavilions full of tomorrow. The last great Atomic Age fair.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/1964-new-york-world-s-fair-1964","id":"1964-new-york-world-s-fair-1964","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-new-york-world-s-fair-august-1964-6c11d7.webp","medium":"art","themes":["retro-future","utopia"],"title":"1964 New York World's Fair","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_New_York_World%27s_Fair","year":1964},{"by":"Gilmore D. Clarke","countries":["US"],"desc":"The stainless-steel globe ringed by orbit tracks that symbolised the 1964 fair. Still the logo of a future that never quite came.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/unisphere-1964","id":"unisphere-1964","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-unisphere-2-27835155267-1e7575.webp","medium":"art","themes":["retro-future","space"],"title":"Unisphere","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unisphere","year":1964},{"by":"Yayoi Kusama","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Mirrors multiply polka-dotted forms to infinity, drawn from the artist's own hallucinations. Ego-dissolution as an installation.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/infinity-mirror-room-1965","id":"infinity-mirror-room-1965","image":"/assets/imgs/works/yayoi-kusama-in-2005-35e89a.webp","medium":"art","themes":["mind","identity"],"title":"Infinity Mirror Room","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yayoi_Kusama","year":1965},{"by":"Wes Wilson, Victor Moscoso & others","countries":["US"],"desc":"Melting lettering, vibrating colour and op-art patterns from the Fillmore and Avalon ballroom posters gave psychedelia its look.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/psychedelic-poster-art-1966","id":"psychedelic-poster-art-1966","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-psychedelic-eye-88fff2.webp","medium":"art","themes":["mind"],"title":"Psychedelic poster art","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychedelic_art","year":1966},{"by":"William Anders","countries":["US"],"desc":"Earth rising over the lunar horizon, photographed from Apollo 8 on 24 December 1968. Seen from the Moon, the home world becomes the fragile reflected light.","essential":true,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/earthrise-1968","id":"earthrise-1968","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-nasa-apollo8-dec24-earthrise-9241e6.webp","medium":"art","themes":["space","ecology"],"title":"Earthrise","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthrise","year":1968},{"by":"Paolo Soleri","countries":["US"],"desc":"An experimental arcology in the Arizona desert, under construction since 1970, testing a dense, low-impact alternative to sprawl.","essential":true,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/arcosanti-1970","id":"arcosanti-1970","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-arcosanti-cliff-view-cbbaa5.webp","medium":"art","themes":["utopia","cities","ecology"],"title":"Arcosanti","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcosanti","year":1970},{"by":"Chris Foss","countries":["GB"],"desc":"His hulking, striped, industrial spacecraft on 1970s paperback covers, and his concept work on <em>Alien</em>, defined the heavy-freighter look.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/chris-foss-1970","id":"chris-foss-1970","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-chris-foss-utopiales-2014-p960138-dd8d09.webp","medium":"art","themes":["space","machines"],"title":"Chris Foss","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Foss","year":1970},{"by":"Michael Reynolds","countries":["US"],"desc":"Off-grid, passive-solar homes built from earth-packed tires, bottles and cans. The DIY solarpunk house, already standing in Taos and around the world.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/earthship-1970","id":"earthship-1970","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-g2-global-model-earthship-taos-n-m-56d59e.webp","medium":"art","themes":["ecology","utopia","survival"],"title":"Earthship","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship","year":1970},{"by":"Rick Guidice / NASA","countries":["US"],"desc":"NASA Ames paintings of Gerard K. O'Neill's habitats, with suburbs curving up the walls. The utopian baseline spacepunk later dirtied up.","essential":true,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/o-neill-cylinder-interiors-1970","id":"o-neill-cylinder-interiors-1970","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-spacecolony1-a60813.webp","medium":"art","themes":["space","colonies","utopia"],"title":"O'Neill Cylinder Interiors","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder","year":1970},{"by":"Ron Cobb","countries":["US"],"desc":"Concept artist on <em>Dark Star</em>, <em>Star Wars</em> and <em>Alien</em>, whose engineer-minded designs of the <em>Nostromo</em> made ships look like workplaces.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/ron-cobb-1974","id":"ron-cobb-1974","image":"","medium":"art","themes":["space","machines"],"title":"Ron Cobb","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Cobb","year":1974},{"by":"Don Davis / NASA Ames","countries":["US"],"desc":"The 1975 NASA summer study's art imagined space settlements as working towns of 10,000 people. The public-domain mother lode of rotating-habitat imagery.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/stanford-torus-paintings-1975","id":"stanford-torus-paintings-1975","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-stanford-torus-external-view-by-don-davis-ac76-0525-ec2678.webp","medium":"art","themes":["space","colonies"],"title":"Stanford Torus Paintings","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_torus","year":1975},{"by":"Ralph McQuarrie","countries":["US"],"desc":"The concept paintings that sold <em>Star Wars</em> to Fox established the battered, weathered future on screen.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/ralph-mcquarrie-1977","id":"ralph-mcquarrie-1977","image":"/assets/imgs/works/ralph-mcquarrie-6092a8.webp","medium":"art","themes":["space"],"title":"Ralph McQuarrie","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_McQuarrie","year":1977},{"by":"Mark Pauline","countries":["US"],"desc":"San Francisco machine-performance art: flamethrowers, burning pianos and robots built to destroy each other. Pyropunk as live spectacle.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/survival-research-laboratories-1978","id":"survival-research-laboratories-1978","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-survivalresearch2006-5bdb0f.webp","medium":"art","themes":["machines","fire"],"title":"Survival Research Laboratories","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_Research_Laboratories","year":1978},{"by":"H. R. Giger","countries":["CH"],"desc":"Giger's biomechanical style fused flesh and machinery, and his Alien work shared an Academy Award for visual effects. Adjacent, but it shaped the look of organic technology.","essential":true,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/alien-creature-design-1979","id":"alien-creature-design-1979","image":"/assets/imgs/works/hr-giger-2012-55a06f.webp","medium":"art","themes":["body-mod","machines"],"title":"Alien creature design","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._R._Giger","year":1979},{"by":"Jean Giraud","countries":["FR"],"desc":"Mœbius contributed concept designs during his brief stint on <em>Alien</em>, and his comics gave the grimy cosmos its line.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/mbius-1979","id":"mbius-1979","image":"","medium":"art","themes":["space"],"title":"Mœbius","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Giraud","year":1979},{"by":"Kow Yokoyama","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A model-kit universe of battered powered armour and walkers born in <em>Hobby Japan</em>. A key influence on dieselpunk mech design.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/maschinen-krieger-1982","id":"maschinen-krieger-1982","image":"","medium":"art","themes":["war","machines"],"title":"Maschinen Krieger","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maschinen_Krieger_ZbV_3000","year":1982},{"by":"Friedensreich Hundertwasser","countries":["AT"],"desc":"A Vienna apartment block with wavy floors, grass roofs and trees growing out of the windows as tenants. Joyful proof that housing can be alive.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/hundertwasserhaus-1985","id":"hundertwasserhaus-1985","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-wien-hundertwasserhaus-03-ac906f.webp","medium":"art","themes":["ecology","cities","utopia"],"title":"Hundertwasserhaus","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundertwasserhaus","year":1985},{"by":"Larry Harvey & Jerry James","countries":["US"],"desc":"Begun on a San Francisco beach and moved to the Nevada desert: a temporary city that ends by burning its giant wooden effigy.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/burning-man-1986","id":"burning-man-1986","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-temple-du-burning-man-2016-2230ae.webp","medium":"art","themes":["fire","utopia"],"title":"Burning Man","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_Man","year":1986},{"by":"Subculture","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A subculture mixing goth, rave and cyberpunk fashion: goggles, neon and synthetic hair. The genre as clothing.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/cybergoth-1990","id":"cybergoth-1990","image":"/assets/imgs/works/cybergoths-64a187.webp","medium":"art","themes":["identity","body-mod"],"title":"Cybergoth","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybergoth","year":1990},{"by":"Charles Babbage, built by the Science Museum","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Not fiction: Babbage's design, finally built from his plans in London for his bicentenary, and it works. Steampunk's founding what-if, made real.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/difference-engine-no-2-1991","id":"difference-engine-no-2-1991","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-babbage-difference-engine-b2f178.webp","medium":"art","themes":["machines","alt-history"],"title":"Difference Engine No. 2","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_engine","year":1991},{"by":"Hong Kong","countries":["HK"],"desc":"An ungoverned, hyper-dense enclave of stacked buildings that inspired many cyberpunk settings. The real place behind the fantasy of the vertical slum.","essential":true,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/kowloon-walled-city-1993","id":"kowloon-walled-city-1993","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-kowloon-walled-city-1989-aerial-ccf8b5.webp","medium":"art","themes":["cities","dystopia"],"title":"Kowloon Walled City","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City","year":1993},{"by":"François Schuiten","countries":["FR"],"desc":"Paris Metro line 11 platforms clad in riveted copper and portholes, like the inside of the <em>Nautilus</em>, for the Conservatoire's bicentenary.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/arts-et-metiers-station-1994","id":"arts-et-metiers-station-1994","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-line-11-platforms-arts-et-m-tiers-metro-paris-02-4ded80.webp","medium":"art","themes":["machines","retro-future"],"title":"Arts et Métiers station","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arts_et_M%C3%A9tiers_station","year":1994},{"by":"Eduardo Kac","countries":["US"],"desc":"Kac encoded a line from the Book of Genesis into DNA and let gallery visitors mutate it with UV light. Transgenic art as a founding gesture.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/genesis-1999","id":"genesis-1999","image":"","medium":"art","themes":["genetics"],"title":"Genesis","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduardo_Kac","year":1999},{"by":"Eduardo Kac","countries":["US"],"desc":"A rabbit carrying a jellyfish fluorescence gene, presented as an artwork. The most famous and most argued-about piece of bio-art.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/gfp-bunny-alba-2000","id":"gfp-bunny-alba-2000","image":"","medium":"art","themes":["genetics","body-mod"],"title":"GFP Bunny (Alba)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alba_(rabbit)","year":2000},{"by":"teamLab","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A Tokyo collective of artists and engineers whose immersive digital rooms of glowing flowers and light feel like a bioluminescent garden. Adjacent: high-tech, but very close to the lunapunk glow.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/teamlab-2001","id":"teamlab-2001","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-teamlab-logo-rgb-color-09750d.webp","medium":"art","themes":["night","mind"],"title":"teamLab","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeamLab_(art_collective)","year":2001},{"by":"Patricia Piccinini","countries":["AU"],"desc":"A hyperreal sculpture of a creature nursing its young, imagined as bred to grow organs for humans. Tender biopunk you can stand beside.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/the-young-family-2002","id":"the-young-family-2002","image":"","medium":"art","themes":["genetics","body-mod"],"title":"The Young Family","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Piccinini","year":2002},{"by":"Critical Art Ensemble","countries":["US"],"desc":"A performance lab testing supermarket food for genetic modification. In 2004 the FBI investigated CAE co-founder Steve Kurtz for bioterrorism over his art materials.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/free-range-grain-2003","id":"free-range-grain-2003","image":"/assets/imgs/works/cae-halle-germany-2010-ad7e17.webp","medium":"art","themes":["genetics","corporations"],"title":"Free Range Grain","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Art_Ensemble","year":2003},{"by":"Patrick Blanc","countries":["FR"],"desc":"The botanist whose living walls, like the facade of the Quai Branly museum in Paris, made vertical gardens a signature of green cities.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/vertical-gardens-2004","id":"vertical-gardens-2004","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-patrick-blanc-a91e35.webp","medium":"art","themes":["ecology","cities"],"title":"Vertical gardens","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_wall","year":2004},{"by":"Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr","countries":["AU"],"desc":"A tiny jacket grown from living cells on a polymer scaffold, shown at MoMA. The Tissue Culture and Art Project made lab-grown materials into a question.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/victimless-leather-2004","id":"victimless-leather-2004","image":"","medium":"art","themes":["genetics","body-mod"],"title":"Victimless Leather","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victimless_Leather","year":2004},{"by":"Royal de Luxe","countries":["FR"],"desc":"A giant mechanical elephant and a marionette girl that walked through Nantes, London and other cities. Street theatre as steampunk spectacle.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/the-sultan-s-elephant-2005","id":"the-sultan-s-elephant-2005","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-sultan-s-elephant-at-horse-guards-parade-london-14ebd2.webp","medium":"art","themes":["machines","cities"],"title":"The Sultan's Elephant","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sultan%27s_Elephant","year":2005},{"by":"Nantes","countries":["FR"],"desc":"Old shipyards turned into a workshop of wood-and-steel creatures, led by the 12-metre Great Elephant that carries passengers. Living Vernian machinery.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/les-machines-de-l-ile-2007","id":"les-machines-de-l-ile-2007","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-machines-de-l-le-de-nantes-elephant-detail2-8473e8.webp","medium":"art","themes":["machines","cities"],"title":"Les Machines de l'île","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machines_of_the_Isle_of_Nantes","year":2007},{"by":"Vincent Callebaut","countries":["BE"],"desc":"A floating, self-sufficient city for climate refugees, shaped like a lily pad. The hydropunk floating city as architectural proposal.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/lilypad-2008","id":"lilypad-2008","image":"/assets/imgs/works/picture-of-vincent-callebaut-face-77c6d4.webp","medium":"art","themes":["ocean","climate","utopia"],"title":"Lilypad","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_ecopolis","year":2008},{"by":"Jason deCaires Taylor and others","countries":["MX"],"desc":"Hundreds of submerged sculptures meant to become artificial reef. The drowned city made real, and colonised by coral.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/cancun-underwater-museum-2009","id":"cancun-underwater-museum-2009","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-dscn0626-14108251890-6959e4.webp","medium":"art","themes":["ocean","ecology"],"title":"Cancún Underwater Museum","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canc%C3%BAn_Underwater_Museum","year":2009},{"by":"Nathaniel Taylor, Sean Orlando & David Shulman","countries":["US"],"desc":"A giant retro rocket sculpture first built for Burning Man, later shown in San Francisco. The genre's favourite phrase, built as a walk-up sculpture.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/raygun-gothic-rocketship-2009","id":"raygun-gothic-rocketship-2009","image":"","medium":"art","themes":["retro-future","space"],"title":"Raygun Gothic Rocketship","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raygun_Gothic_Rocketship","year":2009},{"by":"Festival","countries":["US"],"desc":"A full-immersion festival in the Mojave Desert, held each September, where thousands arrive in costume and welded vehicles. The genre as a living, handmade culture.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/wasteland-weekend-2010","id":"wasteland-weekend-2010","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-wasteland-main-gate-49685c.webp","medium":"art","themes":["post-apocalypse"],"title":"Wasteland Weekend","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasteland_Weekend","year":2010},{"by":"Oamaru","countries":["NZ"],"desc":"A gallery of contraptions and sculptures in Oamaru's Victorian precinct in New Zealand, which has made the town a steampunk capital.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/steampunk-hq-2011","id":"steampunk-hq-2011","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-steampunk-engine-in-front-of-steampunk-hq-4d770b.webp","medium":"art","themes":["machines","retro-future"],"title":"Steampunk HQ","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk_HQ","year":2011},{"by":"Singapore","countries":["SG"],"desc":"Steel Supertrees wrapped in plants, with solar cells and rainwater collection, beside giant cooled conservatories. The postcard image of a solarpunk city.","essential":true,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/gardens-by-the-bay-2012","id":"gardens-by-the-bay-2012","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-supertree-grove-gardens-by-the-bay-singapore-20120712--e5eea9.webp","medium":"art","themes":["ecology","cities","utopia"],"title":"Gardens by the Bay","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardens_by_the_Bay","year":2012},{"by":"Heather Dewey-Hagborg","countries":["US"],"desc":"3D-printed portraits of strangers, generated from DNA in hair and chewing gum picked up off the street. Genetic surveillance made visible.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/stranger-visions-2012","id":"stranger-visions-2012","image":"","medium":"art","themes":["genetics","surveillance","identity"],"title":"Stranger Visions","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_Dewey-Hagborg","year":2012},{"by":"Boeri Studio","countries":["IT"],"desc":"Two Milan towers whose balconies hold trees and shrubs from more than ninety plant species. The vertical forest that every solarpunk skyline now quotes.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/bosco-verticale-2014","id":"bosco-verticale-2014","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-bosco-verticale-milano-079988.webp","medium":"art","themes":["ecology","cities"],"title":"Bosco Verticale","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosco_Verticale","year":2014},{"by":"Jakub Różalski","countries":["PL"],"desc":"Paintings of mechs walking past Polish farmers and wolves, in the manner of 19th-century realism. The art world behind Scythe and Iron Harvest.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/1920-2016","id":"1920-2016","image":"","medium":"art","themes":["alt-history","war","machines"],"title":"1920+","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakub_R%C3%B3%C5%BCalski","year":2016},{"by":"Luke Jerram","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A seven-metre illuminated Moon that tours cathedrals, parks and pools worldwide. Lets a crowd gather, quietly, under a Moon close enough to touch, Calvino made real.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/museum-of-the-moon-2016","id":"museum-of-the-moon-2016","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-motm-phish-mondegreen-2024-d457b8.webp","medium":"art","themes":["night","space"],"title":"Museum of the Moon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_the_Moon","year":2016},{"by":"Amy Karle","countries":["US"],"desc":"A bioprinted scaffold shaped like a human hand, meant to be seeded with stem cells. Bio-art about growing the body back.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/regenerative-reliquary-2016","id":"regenerative-reliquary-2016","image":"/assets/imgs/works/regenerative-reliquary-by-amy-karle-2016-01-19641e.webp","medium":"art","themes":["body-mod","genetics"],"title":"Regenerative Reliquary","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Karle","year":2016},{"by":"Kris De Decker","countries":["ES"],"desc":"A website served from a small solar-powered server in Barcelona, which goes offline when the weather is bad. Solarpunk web design as working infrastructure.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/low-tech-magazine-solar-website-2018","id":"low-tech-magazine-solar-website-2018","image":"","medium":"art","themes":["ecology","climate"],"title":"Low-Tech Magazine solar website","url":"https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/","year":2018},{"by":"Vincent Callebaut","countries":["TW"],"desc":"A twisting Taipei residential tower wrapped in terraced greenery, completed with a LEED Gold rating. Its Belgian architect is also known for speculative eco-cities such as the floating Lilypad.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/tao-zhu-yin-yuan-2018","id":"tao-zhu-yin-yuan-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-agora-tower-20230309-c7add4.webp","medium":"art","themes":["ecology","cities"],"title":"Tao Zhu Yin Yuan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tao_Zhu_Yin_Yuan","year":2018},{"by":"Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg","countries":["GB"],"desc":"With Ginkgo Bioworks and Sissel Tolaas, Ginsberg reconstructed the possible scents of extinct flowers from herbarium DNA. Synthetic biology as an elegy.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/resurrecting-the-sublime-2019","id":"resurrecting-the-sublime-2019","image":"","medium":"art","themes":["ecology","genetics"],"title":"Resurrecting the Sublime","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Daisy_Ginsberg","year":2019},{"by":"Aerroscape & Lino Zeddies","countries":["DE"],"desc":"An openly licensed aerial vision of Berlin with rooftop solar, trees, airships and walkable streets. A good example of solarpunk art made to be shared.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/utopia-2048-berlin-friedrichstrae-2023","id":"utopia-2048-berlin-friedrichstrae-2023","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-berlin-friedrichstra-e-utopia-2048-small-file-a0040b.webp","medium":"art","themes":["utopia","cities","ecology"],"title":"Utopia 2048: Berlin Friedrichstraße","url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Berlin_Friedrichstra%C3%9Fe_Utopia_2048_small_file.jpg","year":2023},{"by":"The.lemonaut.ukr","countries":["UA"],"desc":"A freely licensed illustration of a retraining center where former miners become wind-turbine technicians. Solarpunk art about the just transition, not just the view.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/solarpunk-community-center-2024","id":"solarpunk-community-center-2024","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-solarpunk-community-center-30caf0.webp","medium":"art","themes":["utopia","ecology"],"title":"Solarpunk community center","url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Solarpunk_community_center.png","year":2024},{"by":"1939","countries":["US"],"desc":"&quot;The World of Tomorrow&quot;, opened months before the war. The phrase Sky Captain borrowed for its title.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/1939-new-york-world-s-fair","id":"1939-new-york-world-s-fair","image":"/assets/imgs/works/joseph-binder-s-poster-for-the-1939-new-york-world-s-fair-70f4ed.webp","medium":"art","themes":["retro-future","utopia","cities"],"title":"1939 New York World's Fair","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_New_York_World%27s_Fair","year":0},{"by":"1920s to 1940s","countries":["FR","US"],"desc":"The defining ornamental style of the diesel age: zigzags, sunbursts, chrome and stepped silhouettes.","essential":true,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/art-deco","id":"art-deco","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-chrysler-building-1-4684845155-05dd77.webp","medium":"art","themes":["cities","retro-future"],"title":"Art Deco","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Deco","year":0},{"by":"Valencia · annual, March","countries":["ES"],"desc":"Huge satirical sculptures built all year, then burned in one night. On UNESCO's intangible heritage list since 2016.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/fallas","id":"fallas","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-natura-mare-2-db6d20.webp","medium":"art","themes":["fire","myth"],"title":"Fallas","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallas","year":0},{"by":"Photographic movement","countries":[],"desc":"The photography of abandoned places, from Detroit to Pripyat. Real-world apocapunk imagery and a staple reference for production designers.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/ruins-photography","id":"ruins-photography","image":"/assets/imgs/works/lossy-page1-500px-large-room-at-the-abandoned-eastern-state--7b26f4.webp","medium":"art","themes":["post-apocalypse","cities"],"title":"Ruins photography","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruins_photography","year":0},{"by":"1930s","countries":["US"],"desc":"Deco stripped for speed: curves, horizontal bands, porthole windows. The aerodynamic everyday that dieselpunk loves.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/streamline-moderne","id":"streamline-moderne","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-sfmaritimemuseum-b8acca.webp","medium":"art","themes":["machines","retro-future"],"title":"Streamline Moderne","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streamline_Moderne","year":0},{"by":"Johannes Kepler","countries":["DE"],"desc":"A dream-voyage in which a daemon carries a young Icelander to the Moon, written by the astronomer to imagine how the sky looks from there. Science and night-vision fused at the very start of lunar fiction.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/somnium-1634","id":"somnium-1634","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-el-sue-o-o-la-astronom-a-de-la-luna-fd889b.webp","medium":"book","themes":["space","night","myth"],"title":"Somnium","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somnium_(novel)","year":1634},{"by":"Cyrano de Bergerac","countries":["FR"],"desc":"A posthumous satire in which the Moon becomes a mirror for questioning Earth's dogmas. The Moon as the place where the rules can be turned upside down.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/comical-history-of-the-states-and-empires-of-the-moon-1657","id":"comical-history-of-the-states-and-empires-of-the-moon-1657","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-cyrano-mond-e3afba.webp","medium":"book","themes":["space","utopia"],"title":"Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comical_History_of_the_States_and_Empires_of_the_Moon","year":1657},{"by":"Samuel Taylor Coleridge","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A ship driven into the polar ice, an albatross shot, a crew punished. The Romantic template for the frozen sea as moral test.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner-1798","id":"the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner-1798","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-dore-i-had-done-a-hellish-thing-b7fcf1.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","cold","myth"],"title":"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rime_of_the_Ancient_Mariner","year":1798},{"by":"Lord Byron","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Written in the Year Without a Summer after Tambora: the sun goes out, people burn their cities for light and warmth, and the world dies cold. Frostpunk's oldest literary ancestor.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/darkness-1816","id":"darkness-1816","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-darknessbyron1816-cf8af3.webp","medium":"book","themes":["post-apocalypse","climate","night"],"title":"Darkness","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkness_(poem)","year":1816},{"by":"Mary Shelley","countries":["GB"],"desc":"The ur-text of the wet lab: a young scientist assembles life from dead tissue and abandons what he made. Biopunk's founding question, who is responsible for a made creature, starts here.","descs":{"biopunk":"The ur-text of the wet lab: a young scientist assembles life from dead tissue and abandons what he made. Biopunk's founding question, who is responsible for a made creature, starts here.","frostpunk":"Conceived during the volcanic Year Without a Summer and framed by a ship trapped in Arctic ice. The creature's last flight across the floes makes the frozen north the place where ambition goes to die.","pyropunk":"The subtitle says it all: science as a new theft of fire. Adjacent rather than core, but it handed the Prometheus myth to the modern laboratory."},"essential":true,"families":["biopunk","frostpunk","pyropunk"],"href":"/work/frankenstein-1818","id":"frankenstein-1818","image":"/assets/imgs/works/christie-s-auction-scan-of-frankenstein-1818-ca7301.webp","medium":"book","themes":["body-mod","identity","cold","fire"],"title":"Frankenstein","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein","year":1818},{"by":"Mary Shelley","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A plague empties late 21st-century Europe until one man is left wandering the ruins of Rome. The founding text of the lone-survivor story, written eight years after <em>Frankenstein</em>.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/the-last-man-1826","id":"the-last-man-1826","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-the-last-man-1st-edition-6d3837.webp","medium":"book","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"The Last Man","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Man","year":1826},{"by":"Alfred Tennyson","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Fifteen lines about a monster sleeping in the abyss until the end of the world. A precursor, but the template for every leviathan since.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/the-kraken-1830","id":"the-kraken-1830","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-alfred-lord-tennyson-by-elliott-fry-original-35d216.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","myth"],"title":"The Kraken","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kraken_(poem)","year":1830},{"by":"Edgar Allan Poe","countries":["US"],"desc":"Poe's only novel drifts from shipwreck and starvation into an uncanny far south of white mist. The polar unknown as a place where reason gives out.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/the-narrative-of-arthur-gordon-pym-of-nantucket-1838","id":"the-narrative-of-arthur-gordon-pym-of-nantucket-1838","image":"/assets/imgs/works/pym-1838-book-title-page-7c8d25.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","cold","survival"],"title":"The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Narrative_of_Arthur_Gordon_Pym_of_Nantucket","year":1838},{"by":"Edgar Allan Poe","countries":["US"],"desc":"A fisherman survives being dragged into a Norwegian whirlpool by watching which objects sink slowest. A precursor: the sea as a machine you survive by reading it.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/a-descent-into-the-maelstrom-1841","id":"a-descent-into-the-maelstrom-1841","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-maelstrom-clarke-8b8dcd.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","survival"],"title":"A Descent into the Maelström","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Descent_into_the_Maelstr%C3%B6m","year":1841},{"by":"Hans Christian Andersen","countries":["DK"],"desc":"A splinter of enchanted mirror freezes a boy's heart and he is carried off to an ice palace. The fairy-tale root of cold as a loss of feeling.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/the-snow-queen-1844","id":"the-snow-queen-1844","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-rudolf-koivu-lumikuningatar-bfc84c.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cold","myth"],"title":"The Snow Queen","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Snow_Queen","year":1844},{"by":"Jules Verne","countries":["FR"],"desc":"A club of idle gunmakers decides to fire a giant shell at the Moon. Adjacent rather than core, pure engineering optimism, but it fixed the Moon as a destination in the modern imagination.","essential":true,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/from-the-earth-to-the-moon-1865","id":"from-the-earth-to-the-moon-1865","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-from-the-earth-to-the-moon-jules-verne-05adca.webp","medium":"book","themes":["space","retro-future","machines"],"title":"From the Earth to the Moon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Earth_to_the_Moon","year":1865},{"by":"Edward S. Ellis","countries":["US"],"desc":"America's first science fiction dime novel: a boy inventor builds a steam-driven giant and drives it across the frontier. The ancestor of every Edisonade and every brass walker.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/the-steam-man-of-the-prairies-1868","id":"the-steam-man-of-the-prairies-1868","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-the-steam-man-of-the-prairies-1868-big-338a1c.webp","medium":"book","themes":["machines","retro-future"],"title":"The Steam Man of the Prairies","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Steam_Man_of_the_Prairies","year":1868},{"by":"Jules Verne","countries":["FR"],"desc":"The original. Nemo, the Nautilus, the genre itself. Every hydropunk story is downstream.","descs":{"hydropunk":"The original. Nemo, the Nautilus, the genre itself. Every hydropunk story is downstream.","steampunk":"Captain Nemo's <em>Nautilus</em> is the template for the steampunk machine: a gentleman's library, an organ and an engine room sealed inside one riveted hull."},"essential":true,"families":["hydropunk","steampunk"],"href":"/work/twenty-thousand-leagues-under-the-sea-1870","id":"twenty-thousand-leagues-under-the-sea-1870","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-houghton-fc8-v5946-869ve-verne-frontispiece-a8d58f.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","machines","rebellion","retro-future"],"title":"Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty_Thousand_Leagues_Under_the_Seas","year":1870},{"by":"Jules Verne","countries":["FR"],"desc":"Verne's castaways find their island quietly managed by a dying benefactor, who turns out to be Nemo. The sequel that gives the genre's founding captain his last port and his secret origin.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/the-mysterious-island-1875","id":"the-mysterious-island-1875","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-ile-mysterieuse-02-228ddd.webp","medium":"book","themes":["survival","ocean"],"title":"The Mysterious Island","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mysterious_Island","year":1875},{"by":"Richard Jefferies","countries":["GB"],"desc":"England after an unexplained collapse: forests swallow the fields and London is a poisoned swamp. The first great rewilding novel, and a blueprint for the genre's ecology of ruin.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/after-london-1885","id":"after-london-1885","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-1905-cover-after-london-21cbe3.webp","medium":"book","themes":["post-apocalypse","ecology"],"title":"After London","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_London","year":1885},{"by":"Jules Verne","countries":["FR"],"desc":"Verne's heavier-than-air flying ship, the <em>Albatross</em>, and its brooding engineer-captain. Proto-steampunk's great argument about who gets to own the sky.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/robur-the-conqueror-1886","id":"robur-the-conqueror-1886","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-robur-the-conqueror-by-l-on-benett-01-5f4a06.webp","medium":"book","themes":["machines","retro-future"],"title":"Robur the Conqueror","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robur_the_Conqueror","year":1886},{"by":"William Morris","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A Victorian socialist wakes in a future England of crafts, gardens and a clean Thames, with money and factories gone. The Arts and Crafts utopia that gave solarpunk its love of handmade beauty.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/news-from-nowhere-1890","id":"news-from-nowhere-1890","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-kelmscott-manor-news-from-nowhere-47be0f.webp","medium":"book","themes":["utopia","ecology"],"title":"News from Nowhere","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_from_Nowhere","year":1890},{"by":"Jules Verne","countries":["FR"],"desc":"A city of millionaires built on a steerable artificial island cruises the Pacific until its own factions tear it apart. The first great floating-city novel, and a warning built into the hull.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/propeller-island-1895","id":"propeller-island-1895","image":"/assets/imgs/works/propeller-island-by-l-on-benett-01-db3210.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","cities","machines"],"title":"Propeller Island","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propeller_Island","year":1895},{"by":"H. G. Wells","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A Victorian gentleman rides a brass and crystal contraption to the year 802,701 and finds class war carried to its end. The source text that Jeter's <em>Morlock Night</em> answers directly.","essential":true,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/the-time-machine-1895","id":"the-time-machine-1895","image":"/assets/imgs/works/timemachinebook-b9f8a0.webp","medium":"book","themes":["machines","dystopia"],"title":"The Time Machine","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine","year":1895},{"by":"H. G. Wells","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A man descends in a steel sphere five miles down and finds a city of luminous, worshipping creatures. Wells imagined the bathysphere and its first contact thirty years early.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/in-the-abyss-1896","id":"in-the-abyss-1896","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-in-the-abyss-by-warwick-goble-4-f0f917.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","myth"],"title":"In the Abyss","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Abyss","year":1896},{"by":"H. G. Wells","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A vivisectionist on a remote island carves animals into crude people. The first great chimera story, and still the template for every rogue-lab horror.","essential":true,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/the-island-of-doctor-moreau-1896","id":"the-island-of-doctor-moreau-1896","image":"/assets/imgs/works/islandofdrmoreau-a4a092.webp","medium":"book","themes":["genetics","body-mod","identity"],"title":"The Island of Doctor Moreau","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_of_Doctor_Moreau","year":1896},{"by":"H. G. Wells","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Unknown deep-sea cephalopods come up to hunt on the Devon coast. A short, dry report from the moment the deep started climbing out.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/the-sea-raiders-1896","id":"the-sea-raiders-1896","image":"/assets/imgs/works/h-g-wells-by-beresford-9d8cfb.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean"],"title":"The Sea Raiders","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sea_Raiders","year":1896},{"by":"H. G. Wells","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Two Englishmen reach the Moon and find the Selenites living deep underground, in a society built around the long lunar night. An early, uneasy portrait of life adapted to darkness.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/the-first-men-in-the-moon-1901","id":"the-first-men-in-the-moon-1901","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-thefirstmeninthemoonhgwells-941589.webp","medium":"book","themes":["space","machines"],"title":"The First Men in the Moon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Men_in_the_Moon","year":1901},{"by":"Begum Rokeya","countries":["IN"],"desc":"In Ladyland, women scientists trap solar power, control the weather and farm without drudgery. A Bengali feminist utopia that imagined solar energy more than a century before the genre had a name.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/sultana-s-dream-1905","id":"sultana-s-dream-1905","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-begum-rokeya-04201e.webp","medium":"book","themes":["utopia","identity"],"title":"Sultana's Dream","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultana%27s_Dream","year":1905},{"by":"Jack London","countries":["US"],"desc":"A newcomer to the Yukon at about seventy-five below, and the single fire he has to keep alive. The purest short story ever written about the thermometer as enemy.","descs":{"frostpunk":"A newcomer to the Yukon at about seventy-five below, and the single fire he has to keep alive. The purest short story ever written about the thermometer as enemy.","pyropunk":"A lone man in the Yukon, seventy-five below, and one match too few. The purest short story about fire as the only thing standing between a body and death."},"essential":false,"families":["frostpunk","pyropunk"],"href":"/work/to-build-a-fire-1908","id":"to-build-a-fire-1908","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-lost-face-1910-face-p088-d785ae.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cold","fire","survival"],"title":"To Build a Fire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Build_a_Fire","year":1908},{"by":"J.-H. Rosny aîné","countries":["FR"],"desc":"A Paleolithic tribe loses its flame and sends three hunters to steal it back. Prehistory written as a war for fire itself.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/the-quest-for-fire-1911","id":"the-quest-for-fire-1911","image":"/assets/imgs/works/thequestforfire-7638b7.webp","medium":"book","themes":["fire","survival","myth"],"title":"The Quest for Fire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quest_for_Fire","year":1911},{"by":"Jack London","countries":["US"],"desc":"An old survivor tries to explain the vanished world to feral grandchildren who no longer believe him. An early study of how fast knowledge dies after a pandemic.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/the-scarlet-plague-1912","id":"the-scarlet-plague-1912","image":"/assets/imgs/works/scarletplague-2b8280.webp","medium":"book","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"The Scarlet Plague","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Plague","year":1912},{"by":"Charlotte Perkins Gilman","countries":["US"],"desc":"Three explorers stumble on an isolated society of women who manage their land like a careful garden. Adjacent rather than core: a feminist utopia whose ecological stewardship anticipates solarpunk.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/herland-1915","id":"herland-1915","image":"/assets/imgs/works/charlotteperkinsgilman-herland-96b61b.webp","medium":"book","themes":["utopia","identity"],"title":"Herland","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herland_(novel)","year":1915},{"by":"H. P. Lovecraft","countries":["US"],"desc":"A castaway finds a stretch of risen seabed and the monolith of something that still worships there. The seed of Lovecraft's undersea mythos.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/dagon-1919","id":"dagon-1919","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-weirdtales-1923-10-dagon-d30920.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","myth"],"title":"Dagon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagon_(short_story)","year":1919},{"by":"Robert Frost","countries":["US"],"desc":"Nine lines weighing whether the world ends in fire or ice. The poem that frames the whole frost-versus-ember question.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/fire-and-ice-1920","id":"fire-and-ice-1920","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-firefrost20-d93b87.webp","medium":"book","themes":["fire","cold","post-apocalypse"],"title":"Fire and Ice","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_and_Ice_(poem)","year":1920},{"by":"Hugo Gernsback","countries":["US"],"desc":"The first magazine devoted only to science fiction. Its painted covers are a primary source for diesel-era visions of rockets, robots and towers.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/amazing-stories-1926","id":"amazing-stories-1926","image":"/assets/imgs/works/amazing-stories-april-1926-volume-1-number-1-b94a45.webp","medium":"book","themes":["retro-future","space"],"title":"Amazing Stories","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazing_Stories","year":1926},{"by":"Julian Huxley","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A biologist held captive uses his lab skills to grow a king's tissue as a sacred relic. Written by a working evolutionary biologist and an early forerunner of the genre.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/the-tissue-culture-king-1926","id":"the-tissue-culture-king-1926","image":"/assets/imgs/works/hux-oxon-72-f4b260.webp","medium":"book","themes":["genetics","body-mod"],"title":"The Tissue-Culture King","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tissue-Culture_King","year":1926},{"by":"Hermann Hesse","countries":["DE"],"desc":"A lonely intellectual is ushered into the Magic Theatre, a hallucinatory carnival where his personality splits into a crowd of selves. A pre-war ancestor of the genre, adjacent rather than core, but every psychedelic generation has rediscovered it.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/steppenwolf-1927","id":"steppenwolf-1927","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-hermann-hesse-der-steppenwolf-1927-38cdba.webp","medium":"book","themes":["mind","identity"],"title":"Steppenwolf","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steppenwolf_(novel)","year":1927},{"by":"Alexander Belyaev","countries":["RU"],"desc":"A surgeon grafts shark gills onto a boy so he can live in the sea off Buenos Aires. Soviet science fiction's undersea classic, about the body rebuilt for the water and the land that will not let it be.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/amphibian-man-1928","id":"amphibian-man-1928","image":"/assets/imgs/works/alexander-belayev-d4e118.webp","medium":"book","themes":["body-mod","ocean"],"title":"Amphibian Man","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphibian_Man","year":1928},{"by":"H. P. Lovecraft","countries":["US"],"desc":"The drowned city of R'lyeh surfaces in the South Pacific and its sleeper stirs. Adjacent cosmic horror, but the sunken city is pure hydropunk iconography.","essential":true,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/the-call-of-cthulhu-1928","id":"the-call-of-cthulhu-1928","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-weirdtales-1928-02-thecallofcthulhu-9ebb9e.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","myth","mind"],"title":"The Call of Cthulhu","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Call_of_Cthulhu","year":1928},{"by":"Arthur Conan Doyle","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A steel diving cage snaps its cable and drops three explorers into a surviving Atlantis on the floor of the Atlantic. Doyle's late bathysphere romance, written the same year the real sphere was being built.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/the-maracot-deep-1929","id":"the-maracot-deep-1929","image":"/assets/imgs/works/maracot-deep-8a028f.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","myth"],"title":"The Maracot Deep","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Maracot_Deep","year":1929},{"by":"Dashiell Hammett","countries":["US"],"desc":"Sam Spade, a statuette, a pack of liars. The hardboiled original behind the trench-coated detective dieselpunk keeps casting.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/the-maltese-falcon-1930","id":"the-maltese-falcon-1930","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-the-maltese-falcon-1st-ed-cover-990f04.webp","medium":"book","themes":["noir","cities"],"title":"The Maltese Falcon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Maltese_Falcon_(novel)","year":1930},{"by":"Walter B. Gibson","countries":["US"],"desc":"The pulp avenger who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men. Source material: the hat, the cape, the city at night that dieselpunk heroes still inherit.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/the-shadow-1931","id":"the-shadow-1931","image":"/assets/imgs/works/charles-coll-the-shadow-annual-pulp-cover-original-art-stree-386361.webp","medium":"book","themes":["noir","cities"],"title":"The Shadow","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow","year":1931},{"by":"Aldous Huxley","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Babies decanted from bottles and conditioned into castes. A precursor rather than biopunk proper, but it fixed the image of reproduction run as an industry.","descs":{"biopunk":"Babies decanted from bottles and conditioned into castes. A precursor rather than biopunk proper, but it fixed the image of reproduction run as an industry.","psychopunk":"A World State keeps its citizens calm with conditioning, sleep-teaching and the pleasure drug soma. The blueprint for every dosed, contented dystopia that followed."},"essential":true,"families":["biopunk","psychopunk"],"href":"/work/brave-new-world-1932","id":"brave-new-world-1932","image":"/assets/imgs/works/bravenewworld-firstedition-dfa0c4.webp","medium":"book","themes":["dystopia","genetics","mind"],"title":"Brave New World","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World","year":1932},{"by":"Lester Dent","countries":["US"],"desc":"Street &amp; Smith's bronze scientist-adventurer, published as Kenneth Robeson. The template for the gadget-carrying pulp hero and his skyscraper headquarters.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/doc-savage-1933","id":"doc-savage-1933","image":"/assets/imgs/works/doc-savage-magazine-march-1933-45d095.webp","medium":"book","themes":["retro-future","machines"],"title":"Doc Savage","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doc_Savage","year":1933},{"by":"Jun'ichirō Tanizaki","countries":["JP"],"desc":"An essay on Japanese aesthetics that defends dimness, lacquer, candlelight and shadow against the glare of electric modernity. Not fiction, but perhaps the clearest statement of lunapunk's taste in light.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/in-praise-of-shadows-1933","id":"in-praise-of-shadows-1933","image":"/assets/imgs/works/in-praise-of-shadows-9e28cc.webp","medium":"book","themes":["night","identity"],"title":"In Praise of Shadows","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Praise_of_Shadows","year":1933},{"by":"H. P. Lovecraft","countries":["US"],"desc":"An Antarctic survey uncovers a dead city older than humanity under the ice. Cosmic horror where the cold preserves what should have stayed buried.","essential":true,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/at-the-mountains-of-madness-1936","id":"at-the-mountains-of-madness-1936","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-at-the-mountains-of-madness-7c1aba.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cold","myth"],"title":"At the Mountains of Madness","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Mountains_of_Madness","year":1936},{"by":"H. P. Lovecraft","countries":["US"],"desc":"A decaying New England port has interbred with the Deep Ones offshore, and the narrator learns he belongs to them. The template for every games-and-film fishing town with a secret under the reef.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/the-shadow-over-innsmouth-1936","id":"the-shadow-over-innsmouth-1936","image":"/assets/imgs/works/shadow-over-innsmouth-dust-jacket-first-edition-9bdb9a.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","myth","identity"],"title":"The Shadow over Innsmouth","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow_over_Innsmouth","year":1936},{"by":"Stephen Vincent Benét","countries":["US"],"desc":"A young priest breaks taboo to explore the 'Place of the Gods', which turns out to be the ruins of New York. The template for the tribe that rediscovers the old world.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/by-the-waters-of-babylon-1937","id":"by-the-waters-of-babylon-1937","image":"/assets/imgs/works/benet-place-of-the-gods-1-11e016.webp","medium":"book","themes":["post-apocalypse","myth"],"title":"By the Waters of Babylon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/By_the_Waters_of_Babylon","year":1937},{"by":"John W. Campbell","countries":["US"],"desc":"An Antarctic camp, a thawed alien and a crew who can no longer trust each other. The source of every <em>Thing</em> adaptation and the blueprint of polar paranoia.","essential":true,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/who-goes-there-1938","id":"who-goes-there-1938","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-14th-wsfs-008-1956-john-campbell-cropped-bbf4f1.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cold","identity","survival"],"title":"Who Goes There?","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Goes_There%3F","year":1938},{"by":"Raymond Chandler","countries":["US"],"desc":"Philip Marlowe's debut in a rain-soaked Los Angeles of rich families and blackmail. The voice of noir, period source rather than retrofuture.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/the-big-sleep-1939","id":"the-big-sleep-1939","image":"/assets/imgs/works/raymondchandler-thebigsleep-3876d0.webp","medium":"book","themes":["noir","cities"],"title":"The Big Sleep","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Sleep","year":1939},{"by":"Laura Ingalls Wilder","countries":["US"],"desc":"<em>Adjacent:</em> a frontier town snowed in through the hard winter of 1880-81, twisting hay for fuel and rationing seed wheat. Real scarcity told plainly, without the apocalypse.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/the-long-winter-1940","id":"the-long-winter-1940","image":"/assets/imgs/works/thelongwinter-8d21d3.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cold","survival"],"title":"The Long Winter","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Winter_(novel)","year":1940},{"by":"Isaac Asimov","countries":["US"],"desc":"On a world lit by suns at all times, the first darkness in two thousand years drives a civilization mad. The cautionary tale of a culture that has forgotten the night.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/nightfall-1941","id":"nightfall-1941","image":"/assets/imgs/works/nightfall-cover-d22816.webp","medium":"book","themes":["night","space","myth"],"title":"Nightfall","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightfall_(Asimov_novelette_and_novel)","year":1941},{"by":"Cleve Cartmill","countries":["US"],"desc":"The pre-history of the genre: an <em>Astounding</em> story that described the still-secret atomic bomb so precisely that it drew a visit from military intelligence.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/deadline-1944","id":"deadline-1944","image":"","medium":"book","themes":["nuclear","war"],"title":"Deadline","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadline_(science_fiction_story)","year":1944},{"by":"Raymond J. Healy & J. Francis McComas (eds.)","countries":["US"],"desc":"One of the first major hardcover anthologies of golden-age pulp SF, published a year after Hiroshima. It brought the magazine imagination to a mainstream readership.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/adventures-in-time-and-space-1946","id":"adventures-in-time-and-space-1946","image":"/assets/imgs/works/adventures-in-time-and-space-7fc62e.webp","medium":"book","themes":["space","retro-future"],"title":"Adventures in Time and Space","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventures_in_Time_and_Space","year":1946},{"by":"Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd","countries":["US"],"desc":"The bedtime classic in which a small rabbit says goodnight to everything in the room, then to the Moon. Lunapunk's simplest ritual: letting the day go, one object at a time.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/goodnight-moon-1947","id":"goodnight-moon-1947","image":"/assets/imgs/works/goodnightmoon-e9ab2d.webp","medium":"book","themes":["night"],"title":"Goodnight Moon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodnight_Moon","year":1947},{"by":"Robert A. Heinlein","countries":["US"],"desc":"Three teenagers and a scientist build a nuclear-powered rocket and fly it to the Moon. The first Heinlein juvenile, and the template for the backyard-rocket dream.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/rocket-ship-galileo-1947","id":"rocket-ship-galileo-1947","image":"/assets/imgs/works/rsg48hc-d35b4b.webp","medium":"book","themes":["space","nuclear","retro-future"],"title":"Rocket Ship Galileo","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Ship_Galileo","year":1947},{"by":"George R. Stewart","countries":["US"],"desc":"A disease wipes out humanity and a small Californian community slowly forgets reading, money, and machines. The genre's patient, generational account of what survives and what does not.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/earth-abides-1949","id":"earth-abides-1949","image":"/assets/imgs/works/earth-abides-1949-small-0baf9b.webp","medium":"book","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival","ecology"],"title":"Earth Abides","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Abides","year":1949},{"by":"Isaac Asimov","countries":["US"],"desc":"Nine stories that invented the modern robot. The Three Laws. The positronic brain. Almost every robot story since.","essential":true,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/i-robot-1950","id":"i-robot-1950","image":"/assets/imgs/works/i-robot-0ac76d.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ai","machines"],"title":"I, Robot","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Robot","year":1950},{"by":"Cordwainer Smith","countries":["US"],"desc":"Space workers have their senses surgically severed to survive the void and read their bodies through instruments. A founding story of radical body modification.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/scanners-live-in-vain-1950","id":"scanners-live-in-vain-1950","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fantasy-book-1950-n6-6f8ea1.webp","medium":"book","themes":["body-mod","space"],"title":"Scanners Live in Vain","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanners_Live_in_Vain","year":1950},{"by":"Ray Bradbury","countries":["US"],"desc":"Silver rockets to Mars, the death of a civilization, atompunk's quietest and most poetic book.","essential":true,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/the-martian-chronicles-1950","id":"the-martian-chronicles-1950","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-the-martian-chronicles-1950-front-cover-first-edition-549c63.webp","medium":"book","themes":["colonies","space","nuclear"],"title":"The Martian Chronicles","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_Chronicles","year":1950},{"by":"Ray Bradbury","countries":["US"],"desc":"An automated house keeps cooking breakfast and reading poetry after its family has been burned onto the wall by the Bomb. The push-button home and the mushroom cloud in one short story.","descs":{"apocapunk":"An automated house keeps cooking breakfast for a family vaporized by a nuclear blast. Collected in <em>The Martian Chronicles</em>, it is the genre's most haunting image of machines outliving us.","atompunk":"An automated house keeps cooking breakfast and reading poetry after its family has been burned onto the wall by the Bomb. The push-button home and the mushroom cloud in one short story."},"essential":false,"families":["atompunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/there-will-come-soft-rains-1950","id":"there-will-come-soft-rains-1950","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-ray-bradbury-1975-cropped-926015.webp","medium":"book","themes":["nuclear","machines","post-apocalypse"],"title":"There Will Come Soft Rains","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Will_Come_Soft_Rains_(short_story)","year":1950},{"by":"John Wyndham","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Mass blindness and carnivorous plants topple Britain overnight. Wyndham's 'cosy catastrophe' asks which rival survivor colonies deserve to rebuild.","essential":true,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/the-day-of-the-triffids-1951","id":"the-day-of-the-triffids-1951","image":"/assets/imgs/works/johnwyndham-thedayofthetriffids-1a54e6.webp","medium":"book","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival","genetics"],"title":"The Day of the Triffids","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_of_the_Triffids","year":1951},{"by":"Ray Bradbury","countries":["US"],"desc":"The Galaxy Science Fiction novella that fused Bradbury's earlier tales into the first draft of the book-burning world, two years before the novel.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/the-fireman-novella-1951","id":"the-fireman-novella-1951","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-ray-bradbury-1975-cropped-951a62.webp","medium":"book","themes":["fire","dystopia"],"title":"The Fireman (novella)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451","year":1951},{"by":"Ray Bradbury","countries":["US"],"desc":"The last of a prehistoric species rises each autumn to answer a lighthouse horn it mistakes for a mate. Bradbury's elegy for the lonely deep, and the basis of <em>The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms</em>.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/the-fog-horn-1951","id":"the-fog-horn-1951","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-ray-bradbury-1975-cropped-951a62.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","myth"],"title":"The Fog Horn","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fog_Horn","year":1951},{"by":"Kurt Vonnegut","countries":["US"],"desc":"Vonnegut drew on his years at General Electric to imagine a fully automated America where machines do the work and people lose their purpose. The robot-servant dream, audited.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/player-piano-1952","id":"player-piano-1952","image":"/assets/imgs/works/playerpianofirsted-acb95e.webp","medium":"book","themes":["machines","corporations","dystopia"],"title":"Player Piano","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_Piano_(novel)","year":1952},{"by":"Frederik Pohl & C. M. Kornbluth","countries":["US"],"desc":"A satire in which advertising agencies run the world and sell the colonisation of Venus. Atompunk optimism read as a sales pitch.","descs":{"atompunk":"A satire in which advertising agencies run the world and sell the colonisation of Venus. Atompunk optimism read as a sales pitch.","spacepunk":"Adjacent forerunner: a satire in which ad agencies and trans-national corporations run the world, and settling Venus is just another campaign to sell. The first hint that the frontier would arrive with a marketing budget."},"essential":false,"families":["atompunk","spacepunk"],"href":"/work/the-space-merchants-1952","id":"the-space-merchants-1952","image":"/assets/imgs/works/spacemerch-b1e2c3.webp","medium":"book","themes":["corporations","dystopia","space"],"title":"The Space Merchants","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Space_Merchants","year":1952},{"by":"Arthur C. Clarke","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Alien Overlords arrive just as the space race begins and hand humanity a peaceful utopia, at a price. A Cold War novel about who gets to own the future.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/childhood-s-end-1953","id":"childhood-s-end-1953","image":"/assets/imgs/works/childhoodsend-1sted-f3d693.webp","medium":"book","themes":["space","utopia","identity"],"title":"Childhood's End","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood%27s_End","year":1953},{"by":"Ray Bradbury","countries":["US"],"desc":"The atompunk fear of its own optimism: a future where the appliances all work and the books all burn.","descs":{"atompunk":"The atompunk fear of its own optimism: a future where the appliances all work and the books all burn.","pyropunk":"Firemen who start fires. Books that burn. The closest thing pyropunk has to a founding novel."},"essential":true,"families":["atompunk","pyropunk"],"href":"/work/fahrenheit-451-1953","id":"fahrenheit-451-1953","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fahrenheit-451-1st-ed-cover-c52a0b.webp","medium":"book","themes":["dystopia","fire","surveillance"],"title":"Fahrenheit 451","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451","year":1953},{"by":"John Wyndham","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Something lands in the deepest trenches and starts melting the ice caps to drown the surface. The British cosy catastrophe goes underwater, and the coastline becomes the front line.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/the-kraken-wakes-1953","id":"the-kraken-wakes-1953","image":"/assets/imgs/works/thekrakenwakes-52d0ec.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","climate","war"],"title":"The Kraken Wakes","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kraken_Wakes","year":1953},{"by":"Jean Giono","countries":["FR"],"desc":"A shepherd quietly plants acorns for decades until a barren valley in Provence becomes a living forest. A short parable that remains the purest statement of patient restoration.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/the-man-who-planted-trees-1953","id":"the-man-who-planted-trees-1953","image":"/assets/imgs/works/l-homme-qui-plantait-des-arbres-d87fc4.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ecology","utopia"],"title":"The Man Who Planted Trees","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Planted_Trees","year":1953},{"by":"Richard Matheson","countries":["US"],"desc":"The last uninfected man barricades himself in a city of the changed. The original blueprint for the lonely post-collapse survivor.","essential":true,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/i-am-legend-1954","id":"i-am-legend-1954","image":"/assets/imgs/works/iamlegend25028-5fadbe.webp","medium":"book","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival","identity"],"title":"I Am Legend","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Legend_(novel)","year":1954},{"by":"Isaac Asimov","countries":["US"],"desc":"Written as Paul French, a juvenile adventure set in domed cities beneath a global Venusian ocean. Obsolete as planetary science, perfect as an image of the undersea colony.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/lucky-starr-and-the-oceans-of-venus-1954","id":"lucky-starr-and-the-oceans-of-venus-1954","image":"/assets/imgs/works/luckystarr3-0a0d6f.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","colonies","space"],"title":"Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Starr_and_the_Oceans_of_Venus","year":1954},{"by":"Isaac Asimov","countries":["US"],"desc":"A detective novel set in domed megacities, pairing a human cop with a robot partner. Serialised in <em>Galaxy</em>, it is Asimov at his most mid-century.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/the-caves-of-steel-1954","id":"the-caves-of-steel-1954","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-caves-of-steel-doubleday-cover-2d32ec.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ai","cities","noir"],"title":"The Caves of Steel","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Caves_of_Steel","year":1954},{"by":"Tom Godwin","countries":["US"],"desc":"A short story in which an emergency ship carries fuel for exactly one pilot, and a stowaway tips the mass budget. Spacepunk's cruel arithmetic of margins and payload starts here.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/the-cold-equations-1954","id":"the-cold-equations-1954","image":"","medium":"book","themes":["space","survival"],"title":"The Cold Equations","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cold_Equations","year":1954},{"by":"Aldous Huxley","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A few grams of mescaline, one afternoon, and the founding field report of the interior universe.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/the-doors-of-perception-1954","id":"the-doors-of-perception-1954","image":"/assets/imgs/works/doorsofperception-3efbe4.webp","medium":"book","themes":["mind"],"title":"The Doors of Perception","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doors_of_Perception","year":1954},{"by":"J.R.R. Tolkien","countries":["GB"],"desc":"The forges of Mordor and the fires of Mount Doom: the One Ring made in flame can only be unmade in flame.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/the-lord-of-the-rings-1954","id":"the-lord-of-the-rings-1954","image":"/assets/imgs/works/first-single-volume-edition-of-the-lord-of-the-rings-4b6b30.webp","medium":"book","themes":["myth","war","fire"],"title":"The Lord of the Rings","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings","year":1954},{"by":"Victor Appleton II (house name)","countries":["US"],"desc":"Over thirty boys-adventure novels about a teenage inventor of atomic subs, flying labs and space stations. Pure, uncomplicated Atomic Age wish-fulfilment.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/tom-swift-jr-1954","id":"tom-swift-jr-1954","image":"/assets/imgs/works/tom-swift-and-the-visitor-from-planet-x-dust-jacket-project--246749.webp","medium":"book","themes":["retro-future","machines"],"title":"Tom Swift Jr.","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Swift_Jr.","year":1954},{"by":"Frank Herbert","countries":["US"],"desc":"A four-man nuclear subtug slips through enemy waters to steal oil from beneath the seabed while its crew comes apart under pressure. Herbert's first novel, and the genre's sharpest study of submarine psychology.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/the-dragon-in-the-sea-1956","id":"the-dragon-in-the-sea-1956","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-dragon-in-the-sea-5b9dd0.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","war","mind"],"title":"The Dragon in the Sea","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dragon_in_the_Sea","year":1956},{"by":"Alfred Bester","countries":["US"],"desc":"Gully Foyle, left to die in a wrecked freighter, teleports his way back through a corporate solar system on pure vengeance.","essential":true,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/the-stars-my-destination-1956","id":"the-stars-my-destination-1956","image":"/assets/imgs/works/alfred-bester-tiger-tiger-cover-uk-1956-d726ee.webp","medium":"book","themes":["space","body-mod","rebellion"],"title":"The Stars My Destination","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stars_My_Destination","year":1956},{"by":"Nevil Shute","countries":["AU"],"desc":"After a nuclear war in the north, the people of Melbourne wait calmly for the radiation cloud to reach them. The quietest and most devastating Bomb novel of the decade.","descs":{"apocapunk":"Melbourne waits for the radioactive cloud that has already killed the northern hemisphere. Pre-apocalypse rather than post, but it defined the nuclear dread the genre grew out of.","atompunk":"After a nuclear war in the north, the people of Melbourne wait calmly for the radiation cloud to reach them. The quietest and most devastating Bomb novel of the decade."},"essential":true,"families":["atompunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/on-the-beach-1957","id":"on-the-beach-1957","image":"/assets/imgs/works/onthebeach-fddb37.webp","medium":"book","themes":["nuclear","post-apocalypse"],"title":"On the Beach","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Beach_(novel)","year":1957},{"by":"Arthur C. Clarke","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A future in which submarine wardens herd whales like cattle to feed a crowded planet. Clarke, a lifelong diver, imagines the ocean as working farmland, then lets his hero doubt the whole arrangement.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/the-deep-range-1957","id":"the-deep-range-1957","image":"/assets/imgs/works/deeprange-dafd16.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","ecology"],"title":"The Deep Range","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deep_Range","year":1957},{"by":"Robert A. Heinlein","countries":["US"],"desc":"A teenager wins a used space suit in a soap-company contest and ends up defending humanity before a galactic tribunal. Heinlein juvenile energy at full throttle.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/have-space-suit-will-travel-1958","id":"have-space-suit-will-travel-1958","image":"/assets/imgs/works/have-space-suit-152913.webp","medium":"book","themes":["space","retro-future"],"title":"Have Space Suit, Will Travel","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Have_Space_Suit%E2%80%94Will_Travel","year":1958},{"by":"Walter M. Miller Jr.","countries":["US"],"desc":"Monks in a post-nuclear desert preserve the scraps of a lost technological age, and watch civilisation rebuild the Bomb all over again. The genre's great cycle of ruin.","descs":{"apocapunk":"Monks preserve the fragments of lost science across a thousand years of collapse and rebirth. Apocapunk's meditation on memory.","atompunk":"Monks in a post-nuclear desert preserve the scraps of a lost technological age, and watch civilisation rebuild the Bomb all over again. The genre's great cycle of ruin."},"essential":true,"families":["atompunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/a-canticle-for-leibowitz-1959","id":"a-canticle-for-leibowitz-1959","image":"/assets/imgs/works/a-canticle-for-leibowitz-first-edition-second-printing-dust--46e0c1.webp","medium":"book","themes":["nuclear","post-apocalypse","myth"],"title":"A Canticle for Leibowitz","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Canticle_for_Leibowitz","year":1959},{"by":"Pat Frank","countries":["US"],"desc":"A small Florida town survives a nuclear exchange and learns to live without electricity, money or news. An early and very influential post-nuclear survival novel.","descs":{"apocapunk":"A small Florida town survives a nuclear exchange and has to relearn farming, medicine, and self-government. The Cold War's practical, community-first survival manual in novel form.","atompunk":"A small Florida town survives a nuclear exchange and learns to live without electricity, money or news. An early and very influential post-nuclear survival novel."},"essential":false,"families":["atompunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/alas-babylon-1959","id":"alas-babylon-1959","image":"/assets/imgs/works/alasbabylon-1sted-233900.webp","medium":"book","themes":["nuclear","survival","post-apocalypse"],"title":"Alas, Babylon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alas,_Babylon","year":1959},{"by":"William S. Burroughs","countries":["US"],"desc":"A non-linear string of addict routines where control systems, bureaucracies and bodies melt into each other. Language itself starts to hallucinate.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/naked-lunch-1959","id":"naked-lunch-1959","image":"/assets/imgs/works/nakedlunch1stedition-1b57a1.webp","medium":"book","themes":["mind","identity"],"title":"Naked Lunch","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Lunch","year":1959},{"by":"Richard Condon","countries":["US"],"desc":"A decorated war hero has been brainwashed into a sleeper assassin triggered by a playing card. The Cold War fear of the programmable mind, in thriller form.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/the-manchurian-candidate-1959","id":"the-manchurian-candidate-1959","image":"/assets/imgs/works/manchuriancandidate-c31101.webp","medium":"book","themes":["mind","war"],"title":"The Manchurian Candidate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manchurian_Candidate","year":1959},{"by":"Anthony Burgess","countries":["GB"],"desc":"The state cures a violent teenager with the Ludovico technique, aversion conditioning that wires nausea to his own impulses. Is a self that cannot choose still a self?","essential":true,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/a-clockwork-orange-1962","id":"a-clockwork-orange-1962","image":"/assets/imgs/works/clockwork-orange-5b4b52.webp","medium":"book","themes":["dystopia","mind","rebellion"],"title":"A Clockwork Orange","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clockwork_Orange_(novel)","year":1962},{"by":"Aldous Huxley","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Huxley answers his own <em>Brave New World</em> with Pala, an island society that adopts only the technology that serves wellbeing. Proto-solarpunk in its insistence on appropriate, chosen technology.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/island-1962","id":"island-1962","image":"/assets/imgs/works/island-d0ec1d.webp","medium":"book","themes":["utopia","mind"],"title":"Island","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_(Huxley_novel)","year":1962},{"by":"Ken Kesey","countries":["US"],"desc":"Narrated by a patient whose perception of the ward is itself shaped by fog and medication, it turns the asylum into a machine that manufactures sanity on command.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/one-flew-over-the-cuckoo-s-nest-1962","id":"one-flew-over-the-cuckoo-s-nest-1962","image":"/assets/imgs/works/one-flew-over-the-cuckoo-s-nest-1962-front-cover-first-editi-f0ef66.webp","medium":"book","themes":["mind","rebellion"],"title":"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Flew_Over_the_Cuckoo's_Nest_(novel)","year":1962},{"by":"J. G. Ballard","countries":["GB"],"desc":"London under thirty metres of warm tropical water. Climate-hydropunk before climate had a name.","descs":{"apocapunk":"Solar heat melts the ice caps and London becomes a tropical lagoon. An early climate-collapse novel more interested in the strange inner life of the survivors than in rescue.","hydropunk":"London under thirty metres of warm tropical water. Climate-hydropunk before climate had a name."},"essential":true,"families":["hydropunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/the-drowned-world-1962","id":"the-drowned-world-1962","image":"/assets/imgs/works/thedrownedworld-1sted-d625df.webp","medium":"book","themes":["climate","ocean","post-apocalypse"],"title":"The Drowned World","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Drowned_World","year":1962},{"by":"Philip K. Dick","countries":["US"],"desc":"The founding text of the Axis-victory alternate history. Less about machines than about what living inside the wrong timeline does to ordinary people.","descs":{"atompunk":"Alternate history in which the Axis won the war. Its 1962 setting is a warped Atomic Age, complete with rocket travel and nuclear standoff.","dieselpunk":"The founding text of the Axis-victory alternate history. Less about machines than about what living inside the wrong timeline does to ordinary people."},"essential":true,"families":["dieselpunk","atompunk"],"href":"/work/the-man-in-the-high-castle-1962","id":"the-man-in-the-high-castle-1962","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-the-man-in-the-high-castle-1962-691410.webp","medium":"book","themes":["alt-history","war"],"title":"The Man in the High Castle","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_High_Castle","year":1962},{"by":"John Christopher","countries":["GB"],"desc":"The sun dims, a new ice age takes Europe, and British refugees end up in the slums of Lagos. A cold apocalypse that flips the colonial order on its head.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/the-world-in-winter-1962","id":"the-world-in-winter-1962","image":"/assets/imgs/works/theworldinwinter-25c336.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cold","climate","survival"],"title":"The World in Winter","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_in_Winter","year":1962},{"by":"Kurt Vonnegut","countries":["US"],"desc":"A satire built around the fictional &quot;father of the atomic bomb&quot; and an even worse invention, ice-nine. Atomic science treated as a very dark joke.","descs":{"atompunk":"A satire built around the fictional &quot;father of the atomic bomb&quot; and an even worse invention, ice-nine. Atomic science treated as a very dark joke.","frostpunk":"<em>Ice-nine</em>, a crystal that freezes any water it touches, ends the world in an afternoon. Satire about science, religion and the arms race, with the oceans as collateral."},"essential":true,"families":["atompunk","frostpunk"],"href":"/work/cat-s-cradle-1963","id":"cat-s-cradle-1963","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-cat-s-cradle-1st-ed-cover-vonnegut-3449eb.webp","medium":"book","themes":["nuclear","cold","post-apocalypse"],"title":"Cat's Cradle","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat%27s_Cradle","year":1963},{"by":"Arthur C. Clarke","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A runaway boy is carried by dolphins to a Great Barrier Reef research station studying their language. Clarke's young-adult hydropunk, built around the idea that the sea already has minds in it.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/dolphin-island-1963","id":"dolphin-island-1963","image":"/assets/imgs/works/dolphinisland-421586.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","ecology"],"title":"Dolphin Island","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolphin_Island_(novel)","year":1963},{"by":"J. G. Ballard","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Industrial pollution breaks the water cycle and the world dries out under a white sun. Revised in 1965 as <em>The Drought</em>; Ballard's scorched counterpart to his drowned world.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/the-burning-world-1964","id":"the-burning-world-1964","image":"/assets/imgs/works/theburningworld-1sted-f77338.webp","medium":"book","themes":["fire","climate","post-apocalypse"],"title":"The Burning World","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burning_World_(novel)","year":1964},{"by":"Italo Calvino","countries":["IT"],"desc":"Includes &quot;The Distance of the Moon&quot;, the lyric, weightless heart of the lunapunk imagination.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/cosmicomics-1965","id":"cosmicomics-1965","image":"/assets/imgs/works/cosmicomiche-4aae49.webp","medium":"book","themes":["space","myth"],"title":"Cosmicomics","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmicomics","year":1965},{"by":"Philip K. Dick","countries":["US"],"desc":"Full title: <em>or How We Got Along After the Bomb</em>. A small California community muddles through after nuclear war, while a lone astronaut circles overhead as their DJ.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/dr-bloodmoney-1965","id":"dr-bloodmoney-1965","image":"/assets/imgs/works/drbloodmoney-1sted-39dbfc.webp","medium":"book","themes":["nuclear","post-apocalypse"],"title":"Dr. Bloodmoney","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Bloodmoney","year":1965},{"by":"Frank Herbert","countries":["US"],"desc":"A desert planet where heat is the antagonist, water is scripture, and the universe's most precious substance is wrung from a world that burns.","essential":true,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/dune-1965","id":"dune-1965","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-dune-by-frank-herbert-first-edition-cover-cf8099.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ecology","myth","rebellion"],"title":"Dune","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(novel)","year":1965},{"by":"Philip K. Dick","countries":["US"],"desc":"Colonists escape Mars through a shared drug fantasy until a rival substance, Chew-Z, traps users in a reality owned by a single godlike entrepreneur.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/the-three-stigmata-of-palmer-eldritch-1965","id":"the-three-stigmata-of-palmer-eldritch-1965","image":"/assets/imgs/works/thethreestigmataofpalmereldritch-1sted-c31ded.webp","medium":"book","themes":["mind","colonies","corporations"],"title":"The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Stigmata_of_Palmer_Eldritch","year":1965},{"by":"J.G. Ballard","countries":["GB"],"desc":"The world crystallises into jewelled, frozen stillness. A serene, terminal cold, beautiful and absolutely lethal.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/the-crystal-world-1966","id":"the-crystal-world-1966","image":"/assets/imgs/works/crystal-world-528ec0.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cold","ecology","mind"],"title":"The Crystal World","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crystal_World","year":1966},{"by":"Michael Moorcock","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Far-future Earth under a second ice age, where cities of ice and whalebone cling to a frozen plain and land-ships sail the ice. A caste society built around the cold, frostpunk avant la lettre.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/the-ice-schooner-1966","id":"the-ice-schooner-1966","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-michael-moorcock-2012-cropped-0a2bf3.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cold","ocean","survival"],"title":"The Ice Schooner","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ice_Schooner","year":1966},{"by":"Robert A. Heinlein","countries":["US"],"desc":"Lunar penal colonists rise against the Authority that ships their grain to Earth. Adjacent (it belongs to lunapunk too), but its colony-versus-metropole revolt is the template every Belter uprising follows.","descs":{"lunapunk":"A self-governing lunar society in revolt, the moon as a place to build a different polity. A foundational lunar text.","spacepunk":"Lunar penal colonists rise against the Authority that ships their grain to Earth. Adjacent (it belongs to lunapunk too), but its colony-versus-metropole revolt is the template every Belter uprising follows."},"essential":true,"families":["spacepunk","lunapunk"],"href":"/work/the-moon-is-a-harsh-mistress-1966","id":"the-moon-is-a-harsh-mistress-1966","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-moon-is-a-harsh-mistress-book-50d587.webp","medium":"book","themes":["rebellion","ai","colonies"],"title":"The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress","year":1966},{"by":"Philip K. Dick","countries":["US"],"desc":"A clerk buys a fake memory of a trip to Mars and discovers the implant is covering a real one. The short story behind <em>Total Recall</em>.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/we-can-remember-it-for-you-wholesale-1966","id":"we-can-remember-it-for-you-wholesale-1966","image":"","medium":"book","themes":["mind","identity"],"title":"We Can Remember It for You Wholesale","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Can_Remember_It_for_You_Wholesale","year":1966},{"by":"ed. Harlan Ellison","countries":["US"],"desc":"The New Wave's landmark anthology, home to Dick's <em>Faith of Our Fathers</em>, in which an anti-hallucinogen reveals what the state's leader truly looks like.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/dangerous-visions-1967","id":"dangerous-visions-1967","image":"/assets/imgs/works/dangerousvisions-1sted-559b30.webp","medium":"book","themes":["mind"],"title":"Dangerous Visions","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dangerous_Visions","year":1967},{"by":"Harlan Ellison","countries":["US"],"desc":"A war computer destroys humanity and keeps five survivors alive to torment them. The bleakest possible answer to who holds power after the end.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/i-have-no-mouth-and-i-must-scream-1967","id":"i-have-no-mouth-and-i-must-scream-1967","image":"/assets/imgs/works/ihavenomouth-135126.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ai","post-apocalypse"],"title":"I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_No_Mouth,_and_I_Must_Scream","year":1967},{"by":"Anna Kavan","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A dream-logic apocalypse of advancing glaciation, pursuit, and a closing white wall. Cold as hallucination.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/ice-1967","id":"ice-1967","image":"/assets/imgs/works/ice-kavan-cover-779177.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cold","post-apocalypse","mind"],"title":"Ice","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_(Kavan_novel)","year":1967},{"by":"Philip K. Dick","countries":["US"],"desc":"A bounty hunter questions what separates humans from androids in a post-nuclear world. The philosophical foundation for everything that came after.","descs":{"cyberpunk":"A bounty hunter questions what separates humans from androids in a post-nuclear world. The philosophical foundation for everything that came after.","psychopunk":"Mood organs dial in emotions by number and an empathy test decides who counts as human. Feelings become a setting, and identity a quiz you can fail."},"essential":true,"families":["cyberpunk","psychopunk"],"href":"/work/do-androids-dream-of-electric-sheep-1968","id":"do-androids-dream-of-electric-sheep-1968","image":"/assets/imgs/works/doandroidsdream-57f257.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ai","identity","post-apocalypse"],"title":"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Androids_Dream_of_Electric_Sheep%3F","year":1968},{"by":"Tom Wolfe","countries":["US"],"desc":"Nonfiction, but essential context: the Merry Pranksters' bus tour and Acid Tests rendered in hallucinatory New Journalism prose.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/the-electric-kool-aid-acid-test-1968","id":"the-electric-kool-aid-acid-test-1968","image":"/assets/imgs/works/koolaid-1stused-front-252b3a.webp","medium":"book","themes":["mind","rebellion"],"title":"The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Electric_Kool-Aid_Acid_Test","year":1968},{"by":"Harlan Ellison","countries":["US"],"desc":"A scavenging teen and his telepathic dog roam the irradiated surface above sealed underground towns. A savage satire of the wasteland and the vault alike.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/a-boy-and-his-dog-1969","id":"a-boy-and-his-dog-1969","image":"/assets/imgs/works/vic-and-blood-10e198.webp","medium":"book","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"A Boy and His Dog","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Boy_and_His_Dog","year":1969},{"by":"Roger Zelazny","countries":["US"],"desc":"An outlaw biker drives an armored car across a storm-wracked, irradiated America to deliver a vaccine. The road-warrior quest years before Mad Max.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/damnation-alley-1969","id":"damnation-alley-1969","image":"/assets/imgs/works/damnationalley-1sted-8aaae1.webp","medium":"book","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"Damnation Alley","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnation_Alley","year":1969},{"by":"Philip K. Dick","countries":["US"],"desc":"A businessman learns he is a robot whose reality is fed in from a punched tape in his chest, then starts editing the tape. Perception hacking as self-surgery.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/the-electric-ant-1969","id":"the-electric-ant-1969","image":"","medium":"book","themes":["identity","mind","machines"],"title":"The Electric Ant","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Electric_Ant","year":1969},{"by":"Ursula K. Le Guin","countries":["US"],"desc":"An envoy on Gethen, a planet its visitors simply call Winter. The great sledge crossing of the Gobrin ice is one of science fiction's defining survival journeys.","essential":true,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/the-left-hand-of-darkness-1969","id":"the-left-hand-of-darkness-1969","image":"/assets/imgs/works/thelefthandofdarkness1sted-9911d0.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cold","identity"],"title":"The Left Hand of Darkness","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Left_Hand_of_Darkness","year":1969},{"by":"Philip K. Dick","countries":["US"],"desc":"Reality regresses, decays, and rewrites itself around a team who may already be dead. The purest psychopunk novel ever written.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/ubik-1969","id":"ubik-1969","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-ubik-1969-front-cover-first-edition-893831.webp","medium":"book","themes":["mind","corporations"],"title":"Ubik","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubik","year":1969},{"by":"J. G. Ballard","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Fragmented condensed novels set inside the mind of a breaking-down psychiatrist, where media images, car crashes and celebrity fuse into private mythology. Ballard's inner space at its most radical.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/the-atrocity-exhibition-1970","id":"the-atrocity-exhibition-1970","image":"/assets/imgs/works/theatrocityexhibition-c27b17.webp","medium":"book","themes":["mind"],"title":"The Atrocity Exhibition","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atrocity_Exhibition","year":1970},{"by":"Robert Silverberg (ed.)","countries":["US"],"desc":"The canon of short SF chosen by the Science Fiction Writers of America, heavy on the 1940s and 50s. The quickest way to read the Atomic Age's best stories in one book.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/the-science-fiction-hall-of-fame-volume-one-1970","id":"the-science-fiction-hall-of-fame-volume-one-1970","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-science-fiction-hall-of-fame-volume-one-1929-1964-075b4b.webp","medium":"book","themes":["retro-future","space"],"title":"The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Science_Fiction_Hall_of_Fame,_Volume_One,_1929%E2%80%931964","year":1970},{"by":"Hunter S. Thompson","countries":["US"],"desc":"Gonzo reportage dissolved in ether, mescaline and paranoia. Adjacent rather than science fiction, but its chemically warped Las Vegas is pure psychopunk terrain.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/fear-and-loathing-in-las-vegas-1971","id":"fear-and-loathing-in-las-vegas-1971","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fear-and-loathing-in-las-vegas-bf29bd.webp","medium":"book","themes":["mind"],"title":"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Loathing_in_Las_Vegas","year":1971},{"by":"T. J. Bass","countries":["US"],"desc":"An overcrowded future Earth where engineered, four-toed humans live packed underground in a hive society. Di Filippo names Bass among biopunk's direct ancestors.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/half-past-human-1971","id":"half-past-human-1971","image":"/assets/imgs/works/halfpasthuman-1sted-b50d8f.webp","medium":"book","themes":["genetics","dystopia","cities"],"title":"Half Past Human","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_Past_Human","year":1971},{"by":"Stanisław Lem","countries":["PL"],"desc":"Ijon Tichy wakes in a future where pharmacology paints a pleasant illusion over a starving world. Lem's black comedy of a society living entirely on hallucinogens.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/the-futurological-congress-1971","id":"the-futurological-congress-1971","image":"/assets/imgs/works/futurological-congress-cover-e6a91b.webp","medium":"book","themes":["mind","dystopia"],"title":"The Futurological Congress","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Futurological_Congress","year":1971},{"by":"Ursula K. Le Guin","countries":["US"],"desc":"A man's dreams change reality retroactively, and his ambitious psychiatrist starts steering them. A quiet masterpiece on who gets to edit the world through someone else's mind.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/the-lathe-of-heaven-1971","id":"the-lathe-of-heaven-1971","image":"/assets/imgs/works/thelatheofheaven-1sted-506aa8.webp","medium":"book","themes":["mind","climate"],"title":"The Lathe of Heaven","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lathe_of_Heaven","year":1971},{"by":"Michael Moorcock","countries":["GB"],"desc":"An Edwardian soldier falls into an alternate 1973 of imperial airships where the Great War never happened. An early modern novel to turn retro-Victorian technology into political critique.","descs":{"dieselpunk":"A 1973 in which the Great War never happened and imperial airships rule the sky. An early proto-retrofuture, usually filed with steampunk, that put airship empires on the map.","steampunk":"An Edwardian soldier falls into an alternate 1973 of imperial airships where the Great War never happened. An early modern novel to turn retro-Victorian technology into political critique."},"essential":false,"families":["steampunk","dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/the-warlord-of-the-air-1971","id":"the-warlord-of-the-air-1971","image":"/assets/imgs/works/warlord-of-the-air-af17cf.webp","medium":"book","themes":["alt-history","war","retro-future"],"title":"The Warlord of the Air","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Warlord_of_the_Air","year":1971},{"by":"James Tiptree Jr.","countries":["US"],"desc":"A disfigured young woman remotely operates a perfect body built to sell products. Proto-cyberpunk about media, bodies and corporate ownership; Hugo Award winner.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/the-girl-who-was-plugged-in-1973","id":"the-girl-who-was-plugged-in-1973","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-girl-who-was-plugged-in-3d4376.webp","medium":"book","themes":["body-mod","corporations","identity"],"title":"The Girl Who Was Plugged In","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_Who_Was_Plugged_In","year":1973},{"by":"Philip K. Dick","countries":["US"],"desc":"A celebrity wakes up in a world where he has never existed. A drug that alters perception of space and time turns out to be the hinge of the whole nightmare.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/flow-my-tears-the-policeman-said-1974","id":"flow-my-tears-the-policeman-said-1974","image":"/assets/imgs/works/flowmytearsthepolicemansaid-1sted-cb54c4.webp","medium":"book","themes":["identity","surveillance","dystopia"],"title":"Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_My_Tears,_the_Policeman_Said","year":1974},{"by":"Ursula K. Le Guin","countries":["US"],"desc":"An anarchist moon-colony and the physicist who bridges two worlds. The philosophical heart of lunapunk's gentle politics.","descs":{"lunapunk":"An anarchist moon-colony and the physicist who bridges two worlds. The philosophical heart of lunapunk's gentle politics.","solarpunk":"A sustainable anarchist world rendered in full, honest detail, scarcity, solidarity, and the cost of an idea worth living by."},"essential":true,"families":["lunapunk","solarpunk"],"href":"/work/the-dispossessed-1974","id":"the-dispossessed-1974","image":"/assets/imgs/works/thedispossed-1stedhardcover-c77879.webp","medium":"book","themes":["utopia","space"],"title":"The Dispossessed","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dispossessed","year":1974},{"by":"Joe Haldeman","countries":["US"],"desc":"A conscript fights an endless interstellar war and returns, time and again, to a future that no longer remembers him.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/the-forever-war-1974","id":"the-forever-war-1974","image":"/assets/imgs/works/theforeverwar-1sted-555e0f.webp","medium":"book","themes":["war","space"],"title":"The Forever War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forever_War","year":1974},{"by":"Robert C. O'Brien","countries":["US"],"desc":"A teenage girl alone in a sheltered valley meets the one other survivor, and learns he may be the greater danger. Intimate, tense, and widely taught.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/z-for-zachariah-1974","id":"z-for-zachariah-1974","image":"/assets/imgs/works/zforzachariah-ae988a.webp","medium":"book","themes":["nuclear","survival","post-apocalypse"],"title":"Z for Zachariah","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_for_Zachariah","year":1974},{"by":"Ernest Callenbach","countries":["US"],"desc":"A journalist reports from the Pacific Northwest after it secedes to build a steady-state, recycling, car-light nation. One of the first ecological utopias, and a direct ancestor of the genre.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/ecotopia-1975","id":"ecotopia-1975","image":"/assets/imgs/works/ecotopia-first-edition-f7bf9a.webp","medium":"book","themes":["utopia","ecology"],"title":"Ecotopia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecotopia","year":1975},{"by":"Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson","countries":["US"],"desc":"A sprawling, comic conspiracy epic built on acid, numerology and competing reality tunnels. It made paranoia playful and turned the reader into a suspect.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/the-illuminatus-trilogy-1975","id":"the-illuminatus-trilogy-1975","image":"/assets/imgs/works/illuminatus1sted-165925.webp","medium":"book","themes":["mind","surveillance"],"title":"The Illuminatus! Trilogy","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Illuminatus!_Trilogy","year":1975},{"by":"John Brunner","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A proto-cyberpunk novel about a fugitive who rewrites his identity through the data net. It gave computing the word &quot;worm&quot; nearly a decade before Gibson arrived.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/the-shockwave-rider-1975","id":"the-shockwave-rider-1975","image":"/assets/imgs/works/theshockwaverider-1sted-bd39d6.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cyberspace","surveillance","rebellion"],"title":"The Shockwave Rider","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shockwave_Rider","year":1975},{"by":"Marge Piercy","countries":["US"],"desc":"A woman confined to a psychiatric ward makes contact with Mattapoisett, a small egalitarian, ecological village of the future. A feminist utopia that treats the good future as something to fight for.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/woman-on-the-edge-of-time-1976","id":"woman-on-the-edge-of-time-1976","image":"/assets/imgs/works/woman-on-the-edge-of-time-book-cover-6fa918.webp","medium":"book","themes":["utopia","mind","identity"],"title":"Woman on the Edge of Time","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman_on_the_Edge_of_Time","year":1976},{"by":"Philip K. Dick","countries":["US"],"desc":"A narcotics agent surveils himself after a designer drug splits his identity in two. Devastating, funny, and broken-hearted.","essential":true,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/a-scanner-darkly-1977","id":"a-scanner-darkly-1977","image":"/assets/imgs/works/ascannerdarkly-1sted-39cab8.webp","medium":"book","themes":["mind","surveillance","identity"],"title":"A Scanner Darkly","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scanner_Darkly","year":1977},{"by":"Frederik Pohl","countries":["US"],"desc":"Poor prospectors bet their lives on abandoned alien ships with unknown destinations, hoping for a payout before the station's fees eat them alive. A Hugo and Nebula winner about risk as the price of escaping poverty.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/gateway-1977","id":"gateway-1977","image":"/assets/imgs/works/gatewaynovel-12dd49.webp","medium":"book","themes":["space","mind"],"title":"Gateway","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_(novel)","year":1977},{"by":"Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle","countries":["US"],"desc":"A comet strike shatters civilization and a California enclave fights to keep a nuclear plant and its engineers alive. The genre's loudest argument that technology is worth defending.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/lucifer-s-hammer-1977","id":"lucifer-s-hammer-1977","image":"/assets/imgs/works/lucifershammer-b33aa0.webp","medium":"book","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"Lucifer's Hammer","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer%27s_Hammer","year":1977},{"by":"Len Deighton","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A Scotland Yard detective keeps working his cases in a London occupied after a successful German invasion. Grey, procedural, collaborationist noir.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/ss-gb-1978","id":"ss-gb-1978","image":"/assets/imgs/works/ss-gb-cover-65f9fb.webp","medium":"book","themes":["alt-history","war","noir"],"title":"SS-GB","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS-GB","year":1978},{"by":"Stephen King","countries":["US"],"desc":"A weaponized flu kills most of humanity and the survivors split into a fragile democracy in Boulder and a tyranny in Las Vegas. The commune-versus-warlord drama at epic scale.","essential":true,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/the-stand-1978","id":"the-stand-1978","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-the-stand-1978-front-cover-first-edition-cc9b2b.webp","medium":"book","themes":["post-apocalypse","myth"],"title":"The Stand","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stand","year":1978},{"by":"K. W. Jeter","countries":["US"],"desc":"Wells's Morlocks steal the time machine and invade late-Victorian London. One of the three books Jeter had in mind when he coined the word in 1987.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/morlock-night-1979","id":"morlock-night-1979","image":"/assets/imgs/works/morlocknight-593e7b.webp","medium":"book","themes":["retro-future","machines"],"title":"Morlock Night","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morlock_Night","year":1979},{"by":"Stephen King","countries":["US"],"desc":"A child who can ignite anything with her mind. Pyrokinesis as gift, weapon, and the Promethean spark turned inward. The book that popularized the word itself.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/firestarter-1980","id":"firestarter-1980","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-firestarter-1980-front-cover-first-edition-f8a54e.webp","medium":"book","themes":["fire","mind","surveillance"],"title":"Firestarter","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firestarter_(novel)","year":1980},{"by":"Russell Hoban","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Two thousand years after a nuclear war, a boy in Kent pieces together the past from myths and a broken, invented English. The genre's boldest experiment in how language decays with knowledge.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/riddley-walker-1980","id":"riddley-walker-1980","image":"/assets/imgs/works/riddley-walker-cover-7d2404.webp","medium":"book","themes":["post-apocalypse","nuclear","myth"],"title":"Riddley Walker","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riddley_Walker","year":1980},{"by":"Norman Spinrad","countries":["US"],"desc":"After a nuclear catastrophe, the people of Aquaria live by sun, wind and muscle and outlaw anything else. Often cited as the first solarpunk text, decades before the word.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/songs-from-the-stars-1980","id":"songs-from-the-stars-1980","image":"/assets/imgs/works/songs-from-the-stars-c12731.webp","medium":"book","themes":["utopia","ecology"],"title":"Songs from the Stars","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songs_from_the_Stars","year":1980},{"by":"George R. R. Martin","countries":["US"],"desc":"A girl born in the deepest freeze befriends a dragon whose breath is cold. A small, sad winter fable from the future author of <em>A Song of Ice and Fire</em>.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/the-ice-dragon-1980","id":"the-ice-dragon-1980","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-ice-dragon-e32fe5.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cold","myth"],"title":"The Ice Dragon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ice_Dragon","year":1980},{"by":"C. J. Cherryh","countries":["US"],"desc":"Refugees, merchanters and a stressed station crew caught between the Earth Company and Union. Hugo winner that treats interstellar war as logistics and overcrowded docks.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/downbelow-station-1981","id":"downbelow-station-1981","image":"/assets/imgs/works/downbelowstation-1sted-6d445b.webp","medium":"book","themes":["space","war","colonies"],"title":"Downbelow Station","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downbelow_Station","year":1981},{"by":"William Gibson","countries":["US"],"desc":"A data courier with storage in his head, a cyborg bodyguard, and the Yakuza on his tail. Gibson's first Sprawl story and the debut of Molly.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/johnny-mnemonic-1981","id":"johnny-mnemonic-1981","image":"/assets/imgs/works/johnny-mnemonic-short-story-2ea411.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cyberspace","body-mod","corporations"],"title":"Johnny Mnemonic","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Mnemonic","year":1981},{"by":"William Gibson","countries":["US"],"desc":"A photographer sent to document futuristic 1930s architecture starts seeing the unbuilt future itself. The story that named <strong>raygun Gothic</strong> and taught the punk genres to look back.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/the-gernsback-continuum-1981","id":"the-gernsback-continuum-1981","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-william-gibson-60th-birthday-portrait-3x4-cropped-ea890f.webp","medium":"book","themes":["retro-future"],"title":"The Gernsback Continuum","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gernsback_Continuum","year":1981},{"by":"Vernor Vinge","countries":["US"],"desc":"A novella about hackers who meet as avatars in a shared virtual world and guard their real names like their lives. One of the first fully realized pictures of cyberspace.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/true-names-1981","id":"true-names-1981","image":"/assets/imgs/works/true-names-cover-3d5b85.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cyberspace","ai"],"title":"True Names","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Names","year":1981},{"by":"Philip K. Dick","countries":["US"],"desc":"Dick splits himself into narrator and character to process his own 1974 visions of a pink beam of information. Gnostic, autobiographical, and unsure of its own sanity.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/valis-1981","id":"valis-1981","image":"/assets/imgs/works/valis-1sted-8179ff.webp","medium":"book","themes":["mind","myth"],"title":"Valis","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valis_(novel)","year":1981},{"by":"Kim Stanley Robinson","countries":["US"],"desc":"A boatman in a sunken Venice dives for treasures to sell to foreign collectors. The quiet ancestor of <em>New York 2140</em>, first published in <em>Universe 11</em>.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/venice-drowned-1981","id":"venice-drowned-1981","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-kim-stanley-robinson-by-christopher-michel-3-19-254299-cf3a93.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","climate","cities"],"title":"Venice Drowned","url":"https://writingatlas.com/story/2723/kim-stanley-robinson-venice-drowned","year":1981},{"by":"William Gibson","countries":["US"],"desc":"Two hackers break into a crime boss's ice. The story where the word &quot;cyberspace&quot; first appeared in print, later the title of Gibson's 1986 collection.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/burning-chrome-1982","id":"burning-chrome-1982","image":"","medium":"book","themes":["cyberspace","noir"],"title":"Burning Chrome","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_Chrome","year":1982},{"by":"C. J. Cherryh","countries":["US"],"desc":"A broke, half-legal captain running a ghost ship alone meets the crew of a great family freighter. Cherryh's merchanters are a whole culture of people who live and die aboard their haulers.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/merchanter-s-luck-1982","id":"merchanter-s-luck-1982","image":"/assets/imgs/works/cherryhmerchantersluckcover-214c20.webp","medium":"book","themes":["space"],"title":"Merchanter's Luck","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchanter%27s_Luck","year":1982},{"by":"Rudy Rucker","countries":["US"],"desc":"Robots on the Moon offer their creator immortality by downloading his mind into a new body. Gonzo, mathematical and funny; it won the first Philip K. Dick Award.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/software-1982","id":"software-1982","image":"/assets/imgs/works/software-novel-9ea3fa.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ai","machines","identity"],"title":"Software","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_(novel)","year":1982},{"by":"Greg Bear","countries":["US"],"desc":"The original Analog story that became the novel, winner of both the Hugo and the Nebula. The tighter, scarier first draft of biopunk's big idea.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/blood-music-novelette-1983","id":"blood-music-novelette-1983","image":"","medium":"book","themes":["genetics","body-mod"],"title":"Blood Music (novelette)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Music_(short_story)","year":1983},{"by":"Bruce Bethke","countries":["US"],"desc":"A story about teenage hackers in Amazing Stories that gave the whole movement its name. Bethke built the word from &quot;cybernetics&quot; plus &quot;punk&quot;.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/cyberpunk-1983","id":"cyberpunk-1983","image":"/assets/imgs/works/cyberpunk-bethke-9ebbb7.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cyberspace","rebellion"],"title":"Cyberpunk","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk_(short_story)","year":1983},{"by":"Tim Powers","countries":["US"],"desc":"A modern academic is hurled back to 1810 London, into a city of body-swappers, were-creatures, and a beggar-magician king. Pure dark steampunk.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/the-anubis-gates-1983","id":"the-anubis-gates-1983","image":"/assets/imgs/works/theanubisgates-1sted-c3ce2a.webp","medium":"book","themes":["alt-history","myth"],"title":"The Anubis Gates","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anubis_Gates","year":1983},{"by":"Octavia E. Butler","countries":["US"],"desc":"Humans on an alien world carry the eggs of their hosts in their bodies. Butler's Hugo and Nebula winner about bodies, consent and biological debt.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/bloodchild-1984","id":"bloodchild-1984","image":"/assets/imgs/works/bloodchildbutler-41a52b.webp","medium":"book","themes":["body-mod","colonies"],"title":"Bloodchild","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodchild_and_Other_Stories","year":1984},{"by":"William Gibson","countries":["US"],"desc":"Case, a washed-up hacker, is hired for one last heist in cyberspace. The novel that launched the genre and invented half its vocabulary.","essential":true,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/neuromancer-1984","id":"neuromancer-1984","image":"/assets/imgs/works/neuromancer-book-f2ec8a.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cyberspace","ai","corporations"],"title":"Neuromancer","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromancer","year":1984},{"by":"Ursula K. Le Guin","countries":["US"],"desc":"A future people of California told through songs, recipes, maps and fragments rather than a plot. A slow, cyclical, post-growth culture, the anthropology of a world that learned to rest.","descs":{"lunapunk":"A future people of California told through songs, recipes, maps and fragments rather than a plot. A slow, cyclical, post-growth culture, the anthropology of a world that learned to rest.","solarpunk":"Not a novel so much as an ethnography of the future: songs, recipes, maps and stories of the Kesh, a people living lightly in a post-industrial Napa Valley. The deepest root of solarpunk worldbuilding."},"essential":false,"families":["lunapunk","solarpunk"],"href":"/work/always-coming-home-1985","id":"always-coming-home-1985","image":"/assets/imgs/works/achnavalleyorig-2912b2.webp","medium":"book","themes":["utopia","ecology","myth"],"title":"Always Coming Home","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Always_Coming_Home","year":1985},{"by":"Greg Bear","countries":["US"],"desc":"A rogue geneticist injects himself with intelligent lymphocytes. The cells learn. The cells multiply. The cells become a civilization.","essential":true,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/blood-music-1985","id":"blood-music-1985","image":"/assets/imgs/works/bloodmusic-1sted-afbf5d.webp","medium":"book","themes":["genetics","body-mod"],"title":"Blood Music","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Music_(novel)","year":1985},{"by":"Kurt Vonnegut","countries":["US"],"desc":"After a global collapse, a handful of castaways evolve over a million years into small, furred, fish-eating swimmers. Adjacent rather than core: a satire in which humanity's escape route is simply back into the sea.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/galapagos-1985","id":"galapagos-1985","image":"/assets/imgs/works/galapagos-vonnegut-7a3602.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","post-apocalypse"],"title":"Galápagos","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gal%C3%A1pagos_(novel)","year":1985},{"by":"Bruce Sterling","countries":["US"],"desc":"Shapers (gene-hackers) against Mechanists (cyborgs) across a fractured solar system. Sterling's post-human epic takes cyberpunk's body politics into deep space.","descs":{"biopunk":"Sterling's Shapers, who remake themselves through genetic engineering, fight the cybernetic Mechanists across the solar system. The book where cyberpunk turns biological.","cyberpunk":"Shapers (gene-hackers) against Mechanists (cyborgs) across a fractured solar system. Sterling's post-human epic takes cyberpunk's body politics into deep space.","spacepunk":"Cyberpunk's chief ideologue moves the movement into orbit: gene-tweaked Shapers versus machine-augmented Mechanists, habitat politics and cartels in the belt. Cyberpunk in vacuum."},"essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk","biopunk","spacepunk"],"href":"/work/schismatrix-1985","id":"schismatrix-1985","image":"/assets/imgs/works/schismatrix-1sted-2ee235.webp","medium":"book","themes":["body-mod","genetics","space"],"title":"Schismatrix","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schismatrix","year":1985},{"by":"David Brin","countries":["US"],"desc":"A drifter puts on a dead mail carrier's uniform and his lie about a restored United States starts to come true. A fable about the power of a shared story to rebuild a society.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/the-postman-1985","id":"the-postman-1985","image":"/assets/imgs/works/thepostman-1sted-fd85ed.webp","medium":"book","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"The Postman","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Postman","year":1985},{"by":"William Gibson","countries":["US"],"desc":"The second Sprawl novel braids three plots, a corporate defector, a rookie hacker, an art hunter, and finds the old AIs of the matrix reborn as voodoo loa. Proof that Neuromancer was a world, not a one-off.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/count-zero-1986","id":"count-zero-1986","image":"/assets/imgs/works/countzero-1sted-9b4535.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cyberspace","ai","corporations"],"title":"Count Zero","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_Zero","year":1986},{"by":"Walter Jon Williams","countries":["US"],"desc":"A jacked-in smuggler pilot and a cyborg street fighter wage war on the orbital corporations that rule a balkanized Earth. Pure, fast, hardware-heavy cyberpunk.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/hardwired-1986","id":"hardwired-1986","image":"/assets/imgs/works/hardwire-book-cover-optimized-x1-cf2b48.webp","medium":"book","themes":["body-mod","corporations","rebellion"],"title":"Hardwired","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardwired_(novel)","year":1986},{"by":"James P. Blaylock","countries":["US"],"desc":"Blaylock's comic London of eccentric scientists, airships and a tiny alien in a box. The middle book of his loose Langdon St. Ives sequence, and the third name in Jeter's famous letter.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/homunculus-1986","id":"homunculus-1986","image":"/assets/imgs/works/homunculusnovel-eca0f9.webp","medium":"book","themes":["retro-future","machines"],"title":"Homunculus","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus_(novel)","year":1986},{"by":"ed. Bruce Sterling","countries":["US"],"desc":"The movement's founding anthology, with Gibson, Cadigan, Rucker, Shiner, Shirley, Greg Bear and others, and Sterling's preface as its manifesto.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/mirrorshades-the-cyberpunk-anthology-1986","id":"mirrorshades-the-cyberpunk-anthology-1986","image":"/assets/imgs/works/mirrorshades1sted-4d36d8.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cyberspace","body-mod"],"title":"Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirrorshades","year":1986},{"by":"George Alec Effinger","countries":["US"],"desc":"A hustler in the Budayeen, a ghetto of a future Middle Eastern city, where people plug in personality modules to become someone else. Noir with removable selves.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/when-gravity-fails-1986","id":"when-gravity-fails-1986","image":"/assets/imgs/works/marid-audran-when-gravity-fails-14ca32.webp","medium":"book","themes":["body-mod","noir","cities"],"title":"When Gravity Fails","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Gravity_Fails","year":1987},{"by":"K. W. Jeter","countries":["US"],"desc":"A hapless watchmaker's son inherits a shop full of his father's uncanny clockwork. Published the year the genre got its name, and a key early text of it.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/infernal-devices-1987","id":"infernal-devices-1987","image":"/assets/imgs/works/nfnldv1987b-e6745f.webp","medium":"book","themes":["machines","retro-future"],"title":"Infernal Devices","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infernal_Devices_(Jeter_novel)","year":1987},{"by":"Octavia E. Butler","countries":["US"],"desc":"Earth's survivors are offered survival in exchange for genetic merger with an alien species. Biopunk's most humane and most unflinching novel.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/lilith-s-brood-1987","id":"lilith-s-brood-1987","image":"/assets/imgs/works/xexogenesisoctaviabutler-1f8691.webp","medium":"book","themes":["genetics","post-apocalypse","identity"],"title":"Lilith's Brood","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilith%27s_Brood","year":1987},{"by":"Pat Cadigan","countries":["US"],"desc":"Cadigan's debut novel imagines therapists who literally enter other people's minds. Identity as a shared, editable space.","descs":{"cyberpunk":"Cadigan's debut novel imagines therapists who literally enter other people's minds. Identity as a shared, editable space.","psychopunk":"A woman caught using an illegal madcap becomes a licensed mind-player who enters other people's psyches for therapy and art. The professional psychonaut, invented."},"essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk","psychopunk"],"href":"/work/mindplayers-1987","id":"mindplayers-1987","image":"/assets/imgs/works/mindplayers-83a1d0.webp","medium":"book","themes":["mind","identity"],"title":"Mindplayers","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindplayers","year":1987},{"by":"Michael Crichton","countries":["US"],"desc":"A team in a pressurised habitat a thousand feet down investigates a vast craft resting on the Pacific floor. Saturation diving, habitat claustrophobia and a mystery that answers back.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/sphere-1987","id":"sphere-1987","image":"/assets/imgs/works/big-sphere-072fd5.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","mind"],"title":"Sphere","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_(novel)","year":1987},{"by":"Robert R. McCammon","countries":["US"],"desc":"A post-nuclear horror epic in which a girl with the power to make things grow crosses a ruined America. Bram Stoker Award winner and a cult rival to <em>The Stand</em>.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/swan-song-1987","id":"swan-song-1987","image":"/assets/imgs/works/swan-song-cover-cd5f9b.webp","medium":"book","themes":["nuclear","post-apocalypse"],"title":"Swan Song","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swan_Song_(McCammon_novel)","year":1987},{"by":"George Turner","countries":["AU"],"desc":"Melbourne in a greenhouse future, its poor living in flooding tower blocks while the rich stay on high ground. An early, unsparing climate novel about who gets left at the waterline.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/the-sea-and-summer-1987","id":"the-sea-and-summer-1987","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-sea-and-summer-9441ec.webp","medium":"book","themes":["climate","ocean","cities"],"title":"The Sea and Summer","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sea_and_Summer","year":1987},{"by":"C. J. Cherryh","countries":["US"],"desc":"A Hugo-winning epic of cloning, psychological programming and the engineered azi labour class. The most rigorous novel ever written about growing a person to specification.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/cyteen-1988","id":"cyteen-1988","image":"/assets/imgs/works/cherryhcyteencover-9b9404.webp","medium":"book","themes":["genetics","identity"],"title":"Cyteen","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyteen","year":1988},{"by":"Lois McMaster Bujold","countries":["US"],"desc":"A corporation engineers four-armed workers for zero gravity, then decides they are obsolete inventory. Biopunk's labour-rights novel.","descs":{"biopunk":"A corporation engineers four-armed workers for zero gravity, then decides they are obsolete inventory. Biopunk's labour-rights novel.","spacepunk":"A corporation engineers four-armed Quaddies for zero-g labor and legally classes them as tissue cultures, not people. When their contract becomes obsolete, the workers take the habitat and run."},"essential":false,"families":["biopunk","spacepunk"],"href":"/work/falling-free-1988","id":"falling-free-1988","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fallingfreenovel-f01ad9.webp","medium":"book","themes":["genetics","corporations","space"],"title":"Falling Free","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falling_Free","year":1988},{"by":"Bruce Sterling","countries":["US"],"desc":"A corporate negotiator is pulled into the world of data havens and info-pirates on a networked globe. Campbell Award winner and an early look at offshore internet politics.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/islands-in-the-net-1988","id":"islands-in-the-net-1988","image":"/assets/imgs/works/islandsinthenet-1sted-a36013.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cyberspace","corporations"],"title":"Islands in the Net","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islands_in_the_Net","year":1988},{"by":"William Gibson","countries":["US"],"desc":"Closes the Sprawl trilogy with a sim-stim star, a kidnapped heiress and a mind adrift in cyberspace. The ending turns the matrix itself into something like a god looking for company.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/mona-lisa-overdrive-1988","id":"mona-lisa-overdrive-1988","image":"/assets/imgs/works/monalisaoverdrive-1sted-0cc6ed.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cyberspace","ai"],"title":"Mona Lisa Overdrive","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa_Overdrive","year":1988},{"by":"Rudy Rucker","countries":["US"],"desc":"A robot plots to seed Earth with meatbops, human-robot hybrids whose software is written into their genes. Co-winner of the Philip K. Dick Award and an early landmark of biopunk.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/wetware-1988","id":"wetware-1988","image":"/assets/imgs/works/wetware-novel-374a4f.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ai","body-mod"],"title":"Wetware","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wetware_(novel)","year":1988},{"by":"Michael Crichton","countries":["US"],"desc":"De-extinction as a theme park, built by a company that cut corners on containment. The most popular biotech cautionary tale ever printed.","essential":true,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/jurassic-park-1990","id":"jurassic-park-1990","image":"/assets/imgs/works/jurassic-park-book-cover-47e532.webp","medium":"book","themes":["genetics","corporations"],"title":"Jurassic Park","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic_Park_(novel)","year":1990},{"by":"Kim Stanley Robinson","countries":["US"],"desc":"The utopian third panel of the Three Californias: a small-town Orange County where the hard part of a green future is zoning meetings, water rights and softball. Proof that utopia can be mundane.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/pacific-edge-1990","id":"pacific-edge-1990","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-kim-stanley-robinson-by-christopher-michel-3-19-254299-a0c198.webp","medium":"book","themes":["utopia","ecology"],"title":"Pacific Edge","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Californias_Trilogy","year":1990},{"by":"Gibson & Sterling","countries":["US"],"desc":"An alternate 1855 in which Babbage's mechanical computer works, and a full-blown Victorian information age has resulted. The manifesto in novel form.","essential":true,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/the-difference-engine-1990","id":"the-difference-engine-1990","image":"/assets/imgs/works/thedifferenceengine-1sted-57704c.webp","medium":"book","themes":["alt-history","machines","retro-future"],"title":"The Difference Engine","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Difference_Engine","year":1990},{"by":"Marge Piercy","countries":["US"],"desc":"A cyborg built to defend a free town, set against corporate enclaves in a ruined America. A feminist answer to the genre; Arthur C. Clarke Award winner.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/he-she-and-it-1991","id":"he-she-and-it-1991","image":"/assets/imgs/works/he-she-and-it-book-cover-6654a5.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ai","corporations","identity"],"title":"He, She and It","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He,_She_and_It","year":1991},{"by":"C. J. Cherryh","countries":["US"],"desc":"Belt miners versus ASTEX, the mining arm of the Earth Company: claim disputes, corruption and prospectors squeezed to breaking. Cherryh's most direct asteroid-labor novel (collected in <em>Devil to the Belt</em>).","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/heavy-time-1991","id":"heavy-time-1991","image":"","medium":"book","themes":["space","corporations"],"title":"Heavy Time","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_to_the_Belt","year":1991},{"by":"Pat Cadigan","countries":["US"],"desc":"Musicians, hackers and a media conglomerate collide when direct brain-to-network sockets go on sale, and a digital virus follows. Prescient about media saturation and addiction to the feed.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/synners-1991","id":"synners-1991","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-portrait-photoshoot-at-worldcon-75-helsinki-before-the-9d8eae.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cyberspace","mind"],"title":"Synners","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synners","year":1991},{"by":"Robert Harris","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A detective procedural set in a 1964 Berlin where the Reich won. The model for the noir investigator walking through a victorious fascist monument city.","essential":true,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/fatherland-1992","id":"fatherland-1992","image":"/assets/imgs/works/robertharris-fatherland-0a96f6.webp","medium":"book","themes":["alt-history","noir","war"],"title":"Fatherland","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatherland_(novel)","year":1992},{"by":"James P. Blaylock","countries":["US"],"desc":"Langdon St. Ives races a villain to a machine that can reverse the Earth's magnetic field. Gaslit adventure written with Blaylock's trademark warmth.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/lord-kelvin-s-machine-1992","id":"lord-kelvin-s-machine-1992","image":"/assets/imgs/works/lord-kelvins-machine-cf4c6a.webp","medium":"book","themes":["machines","retro-future"],"title":"Lord Kelvin's Machine","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Kelvin%27s_Machine","year":1992},{"by":"Kim Stanley Robinson","countries":["US"],"desc":"The first hundred settlers watch transnational corporations turn Mars into a resource colony, and the colonists answer with revolution. Book one of the Mars trilogy, labor history written in regolith.","essential":true,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/red-mars-1992","id":"red-mars-1992","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-kim-stanley-robinson-by-christopher-michel-3-19-254299-a0c198.webp","medium":"book","themes":["colonies","space"],"title":"Red Mars","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_trilogy","year":1992},{"by":"Neal Stephenson","countries":["US"],"desc":"A pizza delivery driver / hacker navigates a corporate-fragmented America and a virtual Metaverse. Predicts most of 2020s tech.","descs":{"cyberpunk":"A pizza delivery driver / hacker navigates a corporate-fragmented America and a virtual Metaverse. Predicts most of 2020s tech.","psychopunk":"A drug, a computer virus and an ancient Sumerian language virus are all the same thing. Mostly cyberpunk, but its idea of a neurolinguistic hack is central to psychopunk."},"essential":true,"families":["cyberpunk","psychopunk"],"href":"/work/snow-crash-1992","id":"snow-crash-1992","image":"/assets/imgs/works/snowcrash-0b039d.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cyberspace","corporations","mind"],"title":"Snow Crash","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash","year":1992},{"by":"Nancy Kress","countries":["US"],"desc":"Children engineered to never need sleep grow up into a new elite, and an old society resents them. A sharp study of what genetic advantage does to fairness.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/beggars-in-spain-1993","id":"beggars-in-spain-1993","image":"/assets/imgs/works/beggarsinspain-1sted-251719.webp","medium":"book","themes":["genetics","identity"],"title":"Beggars in Spain","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beggars_in_Spain","year":1993},{"by":"Yasutaka Tsutsui","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A psychiatric device lets therapists enter patients' dreams, until stolen prototypes start bleeding dreams into waking life. The source of Satoshi Kon's film.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/paprika-1993","id":"paprika-1993","image":"/assets/imgs/works/paprika-by-yasutaka-tsutsui-d084af.webp","medium":"book","themes":["mind"],"title":"Paprika","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paprika_(novel)","year":1993},{"by":"Octavia E. Butler","countries":["US"],"desc":"Solarpunk born from collapse: a young woman builds community and a new faith from seeds and stubborn care in a broken California.","descs":{"apocapunk":"A climate-wrecked, privatized California burns, and a young woman walks north founding a new faith built on adaptation. Uncannily prophetic and central to modern apocapunk.","pyropunk":"A climate-wrecked California where walled enclaves burn and addicts of a drug called pyro set fires for the high. The most prophetic burning-world novel in the canon.","solarpunk":"Solarpunk born from collapse: a young woman builds community and a new faith from seeds and stubborn care in a broken California."},"essential":true,"families":["solarpunk","pyropunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/parable-of-the-sower-1993","id":"parable-of-the-sower-1993","image":"/assets/imgs/works/parableofthesower-1sted-52c644.webp","medium":"book","themes":["climate","survival","fire"],"title":"Parable of the Sower","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Sower_(novel)","year":1993},{"by":"Starhawk","countries":["US"],"desc":"An eco-pagan utopian San Francisco defends itself without becoming its enemy. Cited by lunarpunk writers as a model for magic and ritual inside climate fiction.","descs":{"lunapunk":"An eco-pagan utopian San Francisco defends itself without becoming its enemy. Cited by lunarpunk writers as a model for magic and ritual inside climate fiction.","solarpunk":"An ecofeminist San Francisco, rebuilt around water, gardens and shared work, faces an authoritarian neighbor to the south. A pagan, permacultural vision that solarpunk readers keep rediscovering."},"essential":false,"families":["lunapunk","solarpunk"],"href":"/work/the-fifth-sacred-thing-1993","id":"the-fifth-sacred-thing-1993","image":"/assets/imgs/works/5thsacredthing-ce5dd1.webp","medium":"book","themes":["utopia","ecology"],"title":"The Fifth Sacred Thing","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Sacred_Thing","year":1993},{"by":"William Gibson","countries":["US"],"desc":"Opens the Bridge trilogy in a post-earthquake California where squatters have turned the Bay Bridge into a shanty town. Gibson turns from cyberspace to the street.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/virtual-light-1993","id":"virtual-light-1993","image":"/assets/imgs/works/virtual-light-uk-cover-1bdb13.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cyberspace","cities"],"title":"Virtual Light","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Light","year":1993},{"by":"Jeff Noon","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Manchester gangs chase dreams through hallucinogenic feathers that open shared virtual worlds. A drug-soaked British variant of the form; Arthur C. Clarke Award winner.","descs":{"cyberpunk":"Manchester gangs chase dreams through hallucinogenic feathers that open shared virtual worlds. A drug-soaked British variant of the form; Arthur C. Clarke Award winner.","psychopunk":"Colour-coded feathers deliver shared dreams you can get lost inside, and lose people inside, too. Psychedelic, grieving, electric."},"essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk","psychopunk"],"href":"/work/vurt-1993","id":"vurt-1993","image":"/assets/imgs/works/vurtnovel-c0c0b4.webp","medium":"book","themes":["mind","cyberspace"],"title":"Vurt","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vurt","year":1993},{"by":"Melissa Scott","countries":["US"],"desc":"A retired hacker returns to the net when someone starts using her name. Queer protagonists at the center of the genre, a Lambda Literary Award winner.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/trouble-and-her-friends-1994","id":"trouble-and-her-friends-1994","image":"/assets/imgs/works/trouble-and-her-friends-cover-40a1dd.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cyberspace","identity"],"title":"Trouble and Her Friends","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trouble_and_Her_Friends","year":1994},{"by":"Greg Egan","countries":["AU"],"desc":"Stories of neural implants that rewrite your beliefs, your ethics or your love on purchase. The coldest, most precise treatment of the editable self.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/axiomatic-1995","id":"axiomatic-1995","image":"/assets/imgs/works/axiomaticegan-5e8b6a.webp","medium":"book","themes":["mind","identity"],"title":"Axiomatic","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiomatic_(short_story_collection)","year":1995},{"by":"Philip Pullman","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Adjacent rather than core: a parallel Oxford of zeppelins, anbaric light and a church-run science. Its gyptian boats and armoured bears gave a generation of readers a gaslit fantasy.","descs":{"frostpunk":"<em>Adjacent:</em> Lyra's journey to a Svalbard of armoured bears and an Arctic research station hiding a cruelty. The north as frontier of science and power.","steampunk":"Adjacent rather than core: a parallel Oxford of zeppelins, anbaric light and a church-run science. Its gyptian boats and armoured bears gave a generation of readers a gaslit fantasy."},"essential":false,"families":["steampunk","frostpunk"],"href":"/work/northern-lights-1995","id":"northern-lights-1995","image":"/assets/imgs/works/northern-lights-novel-cover-e2d9cc.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cold","myth"],"title":"Northern Lights","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Lights_(Pullman_novel)","year":1995},{"by":"Hideaki Sena","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A pharmacologist's debut in which the mitochondria in human cells wake up and want independence. Japanese biohorror written from inside the lab, later spun into Square's game.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/parasite-eve-1995","id":"parasite-eve-1995","image":"/assets/imgs/works/parasiteeye-c87548.webp","medium":"book","themes":["genetics","body-mod"],"title":"Parasite Eve","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasite_Eve_(novel)","year":1995},{"by":"Jeff Noon","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Noon's sequel to <em>Vurt</em>, where the dream world invades Manchester as a hay-fever plague. Shared hallucination becomes a weather system.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/pollen-1995","id":"pollen-1995","image":"/assets/imgs/works/pollen1995-8c9683.webp","medium":"book","themes":["mind","ecology"],"title":"Pollen","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollen_(novel)","year":1995},{"by":"Neal Stephenson","countries":["US"],"desc":"Nanotech, neo-Victorian phyles and an interactive book that raises a poor girl. A key postcyberpunk novel, Hugo and Locus Award winner.","descs":{"cyberpunk":"Nanotech, neo-Victorian phyles and an interactive book that raises a poor girl. A key postcyberpunk novel, Hugo and Locus Award winner.","steampunk":"Adjacent: a nanotech future whose ruling class has chosen to live as neo-Victorians. A sharp study of why the 19th century keeps being restaged as a lifestyle."},"essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk","steampunk"],"href":"/work/the-diamond-age-1995","id":"the-diamond-age-1995","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-diamond-age-2ef35b.webp","medium":"book","themes":["machines","retro-future"],"title":"The Diamond Age","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age","year":1995},{"by":"Paul Di Filippo","countries":["US"],"desc":"Three gleefully strange novellas: a newt-replaced Queen Victoria, a Lovecraftian New England and Walt Whitman meeting Emily Dickinson. One of the first books to carry the genre's name in its title.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/the-steampunk-trilogy-1995","id":"the-steampunk-trilogy-1995","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-paul-di-filippo-2009-94c106.webp","medium":"book","themes":["alt-history","retro-future"],"title":"The Steampunk Trilogy","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Di_Filippo","year":1995},{"by":"George R. R. Martin","countries":["US"],"desc":"Dragons, wildfire, fire priests and a dynasty that conquered a continent by burning it. Fire as the oldest argument for power.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/a-song-of-ice-and-fire-1996","id":"a-song-of-ice-and-fire-1996","image":"/assets/imgs/works/a-song-of-ice-and-fire-book-collection-box-set-cover-69eadb.webp","medium":"book","themes":["fire","war","myth"],"title":"A Song of Ice and Fire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Song_of_Ice_and_Fire","year":1996},{"by":"Chuck Palahniuk","countries":["US"],"desc":"An insomniac narrator invents his own liberator without knowing it. Adjacent, but its dissociated narrator is one of the genre's great unreliable selves.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/fight-club-1996","id":"fight-club-1996","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fightclubcvr-a0107e.webp","medium":"book","themes":["mind","identity","rebellion"],"title":"Fight Club","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight_Club_(novel)","year":1996},{"by":"William Gibson","countries":["US"],"desc":"A rock star plans to marry a virtual idol in post-quake Tokyo. Gibson on celebrity, data patterns and synthetic personalities, decades before virtual influencers.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/idoru-1996","id":"idoru-1996","image":"/assets/imgs/works/idoru-uk-cover-2e9a42.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ai","cyberspace"],"title":"Idoru","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idoru","year":1996},{"by":"Paul Di Filippo","countries":["US"],"desc":"The story collection that tried to name the genre: gleeful, satirical tales of a world where biotech has replaced every machine. Followed by his 1998 manifesto.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/ribofunk-1996","id":"ribofunk-1996","image":"/assets/imgs/works/paul-di-filippo-2009-2bb35a.webp","medium":"book","themes":["genetics","body-mod"],"title":"Ribofunk","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Di_Filippo_bibliography","year":1996},{"by":"Stephen Baxter","countries":["GB"],"desc":"An alternate history in which Kennedy survives and NASA aims for Mars instead of stopping after Apollo. The road not taken, told as hard engineering.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/voyage-1996","id":"voyage-1996","image":"/assets/imgs/works/voyage-stephen-baxter-0d16b9.webp","medium":"book","themes":["alt-history","space"],"title":"Voyage","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_(novel)","year":1996},{"by":"Kim Stanley Robinson","countries":["US"],"desc":"<em>Adjacent:</em> research stations, eco-saboteurs and the politics of the last unowned continent. The ice as a place where society has to be invented again.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/antarctica-1997","id":"antarctica-1997","image":"/assets/imgs/works/antarctica-kim-stanley-robinson-novel-cover-d47f64.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cold","ecology"],"title":"Antarctica","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica_(novel)","year":1997},{"by":"Maggie Gee","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Late 21st-century Britain falls into a new ice age after a spell of warming, and society fractures along lines of sex and power. Literary cli-fi that runs cold.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/the-ice-people-1998","id":"the-ice-people-1998","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-ice-people-12c60f.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cold","climate"],"title":"The Ice People","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ice_People_(Gee_novel)","year":1998},{"by":"Greg Bear","countries":["US"],"desc":"A dormant retrovirus in the human genome switches on and begins rewriting the next generation. Bear's Nebula winner treats evolution itself as the outbreak.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/darwin-s-radio-1999","id":"darwin-s-radio-1999","image":"/assets/imgs/works/darwinsradio-1sted-88c878.webp","medium":"book","themes":["genetics"],"title":"Darwin's Radio","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin%27s_Radio","year":1999},{"by":"Peter Watts","countries":["CA"],"desc":"Damaged people are surgically rebuilt to work on the deep-sea floor, and something ancient wakes in the vents. Opens the Rifters trilogy, the hardest-science biopunk around.","descs":{"biopunk":"Damaged people are surgically rebuilt to work on the deep-sea floor, and something ancient wakes in the vents. Opens the Rifters trilogy, the hardest-science biopunk around.","hydropunk":"Damaged people are surgically adapted to staff a geothermal power station on the Juan de Fuca Ridge, and the abyss suits them better than the surface did. The opening of the Rifters trilogy, released free by its author."},"essential":false,"families":["biopunk","hydropunk"],"href":"/work/starfish-1999","id":"starfish-1999","image":"/assets/imgs/works/peter-watts-fulbeskuren-2e4f90.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","body-mod"],"title":"Starfish","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Watts_(author)","year":1999},{"by":"Marcus Sedgwick","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Rising seas have turned Norwich into an island and a girl sets out by rowing boat to find her parents. A spare, award-winning children's book about a flooded England.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/floodland-2000","id":"floodland-2000","image":"/assets/imgs/works/floodland-marcussedgwick-7aef27.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","climate"],"title":"Floodland","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floodland_(novel)","year":2000},{"by":"Mark Z. Danielewski","countries":["US"],"desc":"A house that is bigger inside than out, told through footnotes that slowly unravel their own narrator. Typography itself becomes a symptom.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/house-of-leaves-2000","id":"house-of-leaves-2000","image":"/assets/imgs/works/house-of-leaves-e0d4ac.webp","medium":"book","themes":["mind"],"title":"House of Leaves","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Leaves","year":2000},{"by":"China Miéville","countries":["GB"],"desc":"New Crobuzon: a city of soot, steam, alien races, and political menace. The novel that proves steampunk can be properly literary.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/perdido-street-station-2000","id":"perdido-street-station-2000","image":"/assets/imgs/works/perdidostreetstation-1sted-c2a211.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cities","machines"],"title":"Perdido Street Station","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perdido_Street_Station","year":2000},{"by":"Alastair Reynolds","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Adjacent: gothic space opera, but its decaying lighthugger crews, plague-wrecked cities and patched ships give the far future a deeply used texture.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/revelation-space-2000","id":"revelation-space-2000","image":"/assets/imgs/works/revelation-space-cover-amazon-5fa7fb.webp","medium":"book","themes":["space","ai"],"title":"Revelation Space","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revelation_Space","year":2000},{"by":"Michael Chabon","countries":["US"],"desc":"Two cousins invent a Golden Age superhero to fight Hitler on paper. Not speculative, but the best novel about the pulp and comic-book imagination dieselpunk is built on.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/the-amazing-adventures-of-kavalier-clay-2000","id":"the-amazing-adventures-of-kavalier-clay-2000","image":"/assets/imgs/works/amazingadventuresbook-747492.webp","medium":"book","themes":["retro-future","war"],"title":"The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amazing_Adventures_of_Kavalier_%26_Clay","year":2000},{"by":"Philip Reeve","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A far-future Earth where entire cities roll on tracks and devour each other. Steampunk grown vast, brutal, and lyrical.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/mortal-engines-2001","id":"mortal-engines-2001","image":"/assets/imgs/works/mortal-engines-a38e74.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cities","machines","post-apocalypse"],"title":"Mortal Engines","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_Engines","year":2001},{"by":"Richard K. Morgan","countries":["GB"],"desc":"In a future where consciousness can be stored and transferred between bodies, death is just an inconvenience for the rich.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/altered-carbon-2002","id":"altered-carbon-2002","image":"/assets/imgs/works/altered-carbon-cover-1-amazon-43b0ac.webp","medium":"book","themes":["body-mod","identity","noir"],"title":"Altered Carbon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_Carbon","year":2002},{"by":"Albert Sánchez Piñol","countries":["ES"],"desc":"A weather officer on a sub-Antarctic island is besieged nightly by creatures from the sea, sharing a lighthouse with a man who will not let him in. Survival as a negotiation over who gets shelter.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/cold-skin-2002","id":"cold-skin-2002","image":"/assets/imgs/works/cold-skin-book-cover-73a093.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cold","ocean","myth"],"title":"Cold Skin","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Skin_(novel)","year":2002},{"by":"Ted Chiang","countries":["US"],"desc":"A campus debates calliagnosia, a voluntary procedure that switches off the perception of facial beauty. Perception hacking framed as civic policy.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/liking-what-you-see-a-documentary-2002","id":"liking-what-you-see-a-documentary-2002","image":"/assets/imgs/works/liking-what-you-see-a-documentary-1913cc.webp","medium":"book","themes":["mind","identity"],"title":"Liking What You See: A Documentary","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liking_What_You_See:_A_Documentary","year":2002},{"by":"Dmitry Glukhovsky","countries":["RU"],"desc":"After a nuclear war, Moscow's survivors live in metro stations that have become rival mini-states. First published online, it grew into a novel series and the game franchise.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/metro-2033-2002","id":"metro-2033-2002","image":"/assets/imgs/works/metro-2033-russian-book-front-cover-0eb440.webp","medium":"book","themes":["post-apocalypse","nuclear","survival"],"title":"Metro 2033","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_2033_(novel)","year":2002},{"by":"China Miéville","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Armada, the floating pirate city. A novel that moves like a fleet under sail.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/the-scar-2002","id":"the-scar-2002","image":"/assets/imgs/works/thescar-1sted-fb9eaf.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","cities"],"title":"The Scar","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scar_(novel)","year":2002},{"by":"Christopher Priest","countries":["GB"],"desc":"An alternate WWII told through twin brothers who took opposite sides. A novel that takes the diesel era's moral weight seriously.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/the-separation-2002","id":"the-separation-2002","image":"/assets/imgs/works/separation-priest-019408.webp","medium":"book","themes":["alt-history","war"],"title":"The Separation","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Separation_(Priest_novel)","year":2002},{"by":"Margaret Atwood","countries":["CA"],"desc":"The last man on a post-genetic Earth tells the story of how it happened. The biopunk modern canon.","descs":{"apocapunk":"A lone survivor tends a tribe of gentle bioengineered humans after a designed plague. Biopunk-adjacent, but its ruined corporate compounds are pure aftermath.","biopunk":"The last man on a post-genetic Earth tells the story of how it happened. The biopunk modern canon."},"essential":true,"families":["biopunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/oryx-and-crake-2003","id":"oryx-and-crake-2003","image":"/assets/imgs/works/oryxandcrake-ae12e8.webp","medium":"book","themes":["genetics","corporations","post-apocalypse"],"title":"Oryx and Crake","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oryx_and_Crake","year":2003},{"by":"Kenneth Oppel","countries":["CA"],"desc":"A cabin boy on a luxury passenger airship hunts a legendary sky creature. Golden-age airship romance for young readers, and a wide gateway into the genre.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/airborn-2004","id":"airborn-2004","image":"/assets/imgs/works/oppel-airborn-coverart-8954d9.webp","medium":"book","themes":["retro-future","machines"],"title":"Airborn","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborn_(novel)","year":2004},{"by":"S. M. Stirling","countries":["US"],"desc":"Electricity, engines, and gunpowder all stop working at once, and Oregon rebuilds with bows, horses, and feudal warlords. Opens the long-running Emberverse series.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/dies-the-fire-2004","id":"dies-the-fire-2004","image":"/assets/imgs/works/dies-the-fire-499982.webp","medium":"book","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"Dies the Fire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dies_the_Fire","year":2004},{"by":"Philip Roth","countries":["US"],"desc":"Charles Lindbergh, the aviator hero of the diesel age, wins the 1940 election. Adjacent rather than core: no retro tech, but the genre's political nightmare told from a kitchen table in Newark.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/the-plot-against-america-2004","id":"the-plot-against-america-2004","image":"/assets/imgs/works/plot-against-usa-e0a5f6.webp","medium":"book","themes":["alt-history"],"title":"The Plot Against America","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plot_Against_America","year":2004},{"by":"Adam Roberts","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Snow falls until the Earth is buried miles deep, and a militarized new society forms on top of it. Close to the frostpunk template: what politics grows in the cold.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/the-snow-2004","id":"the-snow-2004","image":"/assets/imgs/works/thesnownovel-e483ea.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cold","post-apocalypse"],"title":"The Snow","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Snow_(novel)","year":2004},{"by":"Frank Schätzing","countries":["DE"],"desc":"Whales attack ships, worms riddle the continental slope and a hidden intelligence in the deep starts to push back against humanity. A huge European bestseller and a thriller-sized version of the genre's central fear.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/the-swarm-2004","id":"the-swarm-2004","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-swarm-us-cover-ac648d.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","ecology"],"title":"The Swarm","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swarm_(Sch%C3%A4tzing_novel)","year":2004},{"by":"Kim Stanley Robinson","countries":["US"],"desc":"A stalled Gulf Stream brings a brutal winter to Washington, D.C. Climate science as thriller, and an early fictional take on Atlantic circulation collapse.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/fifty-degrees-below-2005","id":"fifty-degrees-below-2005","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fifty-degrees-below-kim-stanley-robinson-novel-cover-f5d658.webp","medium":"book","themes":["climate","cold"],"title":"Fifty Degrees Below","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty_Degrees_Below","year":2005},{"by":"Kazuo Ishiguro","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Boarding-school children slowly learn they were cloned to be organ donors. The quietest and saddest biopunk novel, shortlisted for the Booker.","essential":true,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/never-let-me-go-2005","id":"never-let-me-go-2005","image":"/assets/imgs/works/never-let-me-go-first-edition-cover-cbca55.webp","medium":"book","themes":["genetics","identity"],"title":"Never Let Me Go","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Let_Me_Go_(novel)","year":2005},{"by":"Paolo Bacigalupi","countries":["US"],"desc":"The Theodore Sturgeon Award winning story that first built the world of The Windup Girl: patented crops and companies that own the calories.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/the-calorie-man-2005","id":"the-calorie-man-2005","image":"","medium":"book","themes":["genetics","corporations"],"title":"The Calorie Man","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paolo_Bacigalupi","year":2005},{"by":"Peter Watts","countries":["CA"],"desc":"First contact with an intelligence that has no consciousness at all, crewed by humans with heavily modified brains. It asks whether awareness is even useful.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/blindsight-2006","id":"blindsight-2006","image":"/assets/imgs/works/blindsight-book-cover-50ef04.webp","medium":"book","themes":["mind","space","ai"],"title":"Blindsight","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight_(Watts_novel)","year":2006},{"by":"Daniel Suarez","countries":["US"],"desc":"A dead game designer's distributed program starts reshaping the world. A techno-thriller that plays cyberpunk ideas straight in the present day.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/daemon-2006","id":"daemon-2006","image":"/assets/imgs/works/daemon-novel-cover-d1c1f7.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ai","cyberspace"],"title":"Daemon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_(novel)","year":2006},{"by":"Jo Walton","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A country-house murder in a 1949 Britain that made peace with Hitler. The first of the <em>Small Change</em> trilogy, and a quiet study of how democracies slide.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/farthing-2006","id":"farthing-2006","image":"/assets/imgs/works/farthing-small-e5dcd9.webp","medium":"book","themes":["alt-history","noir"],"title":"Farthing","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farthing_(novel)","year":2006},{"by":"Charles Stross","countries":["GB"],"desc":"After a war, a man with an edited memory volunteers for an experimental society that turns out to be a behavioural prison.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/glasshouse-2006","id":"glasshouse-2006","image":"/assets/imgs/works/stross-glasshouse-hb-402757.webp","medium":"book","themes":["mind","identity"],"title":"Glasshouse","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasshouse_(novel)","year":2006},{"by":"Philip Reeve","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Victorian children aboard a house that orbits the Moon, in a solar system Britain has colonised by aether ship. Reeve playing the genre for laughs and wonder at once.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/larklight-2006","id":"larklight-2006","image":"/assets/imgs/works/larklight-fb4195.webp","medium":"book","themes":["space","retro-future"],"title":"Larklight","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larklight","year":2006},{"by":"Brandon Sanderson","countries":["US"],"desc":"A world where ash falls from the sky every day and nothing grows green. Adjacent: the fire is spent, and the story lives in its fallout.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/mistborn-the-final-empire-2006","id":"mistborn-the-final-empire-2006","image":"/assets/imgs/works/mistborn-cover-4c8a61.webp","medium":"book","themes":["rebellion","myth"],"title":"Mistborn: The Final Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistborn:_The_Final_Empire","year":2006},{"by":"Michael Crichton","countries":["US"],"desc":"A satire of gene patents, tissue ownership and transgenic animals, written as a near-present thriller. The patented-self pillar, played for dark laughs.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/next-2006","id":"next-2006","image":"/assets/imgs/works/next-book-cover-afcc62.webp","medium":"book","themes":["genetics","corporations"],"title":"Next","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_(Crichton_novel)","year":2006},{"by":"Paul Malmont","countries":["US"],"desc":"The real pulp writers Walter Gibson and Lester Dent become the heroes of their own pulp adventure in 1937 New York. A love letter to the magazines dieselpunk grew from.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/the-chinatown-death-cloud-peril-2006","id":"the-chinatown-death-cloud-peril-2006","image":"","medium":"book","themes":["retro-future","noir"],"title":"The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Malmont","year":2006},{"by":"Cormac McCarthy","countries":["US"],"desc":"A father and son walk south through a freezing, ash-grey ruin, carrying the fire. Survival reduced to love and one bullet.","descs":{"apocapunk":"A father and son walk a dead highway toward a coast that may hold nothing. The benchmark for post-apocalyptic literary fiction.","frostpunk":"A father and son walk south through a freezing, ash-grey ruin, carrying the fire. Survival reduced to love and one bullet."},"essential":true,"families":["frostpunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/the-road-2006","id":"the-road-2006","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-the-road-9039b3.webp","medium":"book","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival","cold"],"title":"The Road","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road","year":2006},{"by":"Max Brooks","countries":["US"],"desc":"An oral history of a global zombie war, told by survivors after the fact. Its interest in logistics and governments makes it unusually clear-eyed about how societies break and recover.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/world-war-z-2006","id":"world-war-z-2006","image":"/assets/imgs/works/world-war-z-book-cover-5f0704.webp","medium":"book","themes":["post-apocalypse","war"],"title":"World War Z","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_Z","year":2006},{"by":"Jacek Dukaj","countries":["PL"],"desc":"Polish alternate history in which a frozen matter spreads from Tunguska, locking the Russian Empire into endless winter. 11 bit studios named it as the inspiration for Frostpunk's setting.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/ice-2007","id":"ice-2007","image":"/assets/imgs/works/lod-cover-bcfce0.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cold","alt-history"],"title":"Ice","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_(Dukaj_novel)","year":2007},{"by":"Jay Lake","countries":["US"],"desc":"A world that literally runs on clockwork, with a brass gear track girdling the equator. The defining clockpunk novel.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/mainspring-2007","id":"mainspring-2007","image":"/assets/imgs/works/mainspringnovel-b2a039.webp","medium":"book","themes":["machines","myth"],"title":"Mainspring","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainspring_(novel)","year":2007},{"by":"ed. James Patrick Kelly & John Kessel","countries":["US"],"desc":"A survey of what came after: Sterling, Gibson, Cadigan, Stross, Egan, Bacigalupi and Doctorow writing in the world cyberpunk predicted.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/rewired-the-post-cyberpunk-anthology-2007","id":"rewired-the-post-cyberpunk-anthology-2007","image":"/assets/imgs/works/cover-of-rewired-9cbcdd.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cyberspace","ai"],"title":"Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rewired:_The_Post-Cyberpunk_Anthology","year":2007},{"by":"Stephen Hunt","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Orphans on the run in the Jackelian kingdom, where steam men, sorcery and a secret aerial watchtower collide. British steampunk fantasy at full boil.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/the-court-of-the-air-2007","id":"the-court-of-the-air-2007","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-court-of-the-air-b036e3.webp","medium":"book","themes":["machines","retro-future"],"title":"The Court of the Air","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Court_of_the_Air","year":2007},{"by":"Dan Simmons","countries":["US"],"desc":"The Franklin expedition, locked in Arctic ice for years, hunted by the cold and by something worse out on the floes.","essential":true,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/the-terror-2007","id":"the-terror-2007","image":"/assets/imgs/works/terror-simmons-0d0304.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cold","survival"],"title":"The Terror","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terror_(novel)","year":2007},{"by":"Michael Chabon","countries":["US"],"desc":"A hardboiled murder case in a Jewish refuge district in Alaska that history never closed. Pure noir voice in an alternate world built from a real 1940 proposal.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/the-yiddish-policemen-s-union-2007","id":"the-yiddish-policemen-s-union-2007","image":"/assets/imgs/works/yiddishpol-7faaa8.webp","medium":"book","themes":["alt-history","noir"],"title":"The Yiddish Policemen's Union","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yiddish_Policemen%27s_Union","year":2007},{"by":"Stephen Baxter","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Subterranean reservoirs break open and the sea rises without stopping, decade after decade, until there is no land left. Hard science fiction that follows the drowning to its logical end.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/flood-2008","id":"flood-2008","image":"/assets/imgs/works/floodbaxter-50f721.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","climate"],"title":"Flood","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_(Baxter_novel)","year":2008},{"by":"Cory Doctorow","countries":["US"],"desc":"Teen hackers fight a surveillance crackdown in San Francisco after a terror attack. Young-adult cyberpunk with working instructions for privacy and resistance.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/little-brother-2008","id":"little-brother-2008","image":"/assets/imgs/works/little-brother-01711e.webp","medium":"book","themes":["surveillance","rebellion"],"title":"Little Brother","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Brother_(Doctorow_novel)","year":2008},{"by":"eds. Ann & Jeff VanderMeer","countries":["US"],"desc":"The anthology that gathered the genre's history in one volume, from early pulp to Moorcock, Lansdale and new voices. A World Fantasy Award nominee and the best single sampler.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/steampunk-2008","id":"steampunk-2008","image":"/assets/imgs/works/steampunk-anthology-f96d35.webp","medium":"book","themes":["retro-future","machines"],"title":"Steampunk","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk_(anthology)","year":2008},{"by":"Ekaterina Sedia","countries":["US"],"desc":"An automaton woman owned by her maker is drawn into a workers' revolution. Steampunk asking the right question: what does the machine itself want?","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/the-alchemy-of-stone-2008","id":"the-alchemy-of-stone-2008","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-alchemy-of-stone-085595.webp","medium":"book","themes":["machines","identity"],"title":"The Alchemy of Stone","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Alchemy_of_Stone","year":2008},{"by":"Félix J. Palma","countries":["ES"],"desc":"H. G. Wells himself is pulled into a Victorian London obsessed with time-travel tourism. Spanish literary steampunk that plays games with fact and fiction.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/the-map-of-time-2008","id":"the-map-of-time-2008","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-map-of-time-042c4b.webp","medium":"book","themes":["retro-future","machines"],"title":"The Map of Time","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Map_of_Time","year":2008},{"by":"ed. John Joseph Adams","countries":["US"],"desc":"Twenty-two post-apocalyptic stories by writers including Stephen King, Octavia Butler, and George R. R. Martin. The best single-volume tour of the short form.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/wastelands-stories-of-the-apocalypse-2008","id":"wastelands-stories-of-the-apocalypse-2008","image":"/assets/imgs/works/wastelands-ed-adams-cover-art-664e1b.webp","medium":"book","themes":["post-apocalypse"],"title":"Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wastelands:_Stories_of_the_Apocalypse","year":2008},{"by":"Cherie Priest","countries":["US"],"desc":"A walled-off, gas-choked Seattle during a Civil War that never ends. The Locus Award winner that launched the Clockwork Century and the American wave of the genre.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/boneshaker-2009","id":"boneshaker-2009","image":"/assets/imgs/works/cover-of-boneshaker-2b9588.webp","medium":"book","themes":["alt-history","machines"],"title":"Boneshaker","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boneshaker_(novel)","year":2009},{"by":"Suzanne Collins","countries":["US"],"desc":"The girl on fire becomes the spark of a revolution. Adjacent, but its central image is pure pyropunk: a costume of flame turned into a rebellion.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/catching-fire-2009","id":"catching-fire-2009","image":"/assets/imgs/works/catching-fire-suzanne-collins-novel-cover-art-ee8a9b.webp","medium":"book","themes":["dystopia","rebellion","fire"],"title":"Catching Fire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catching_Fire","year":2009},{"by":"Scott Westerfeld","countries":["US"],"desc":"World War I fought between diesel walkers and fabricated living airships, illustrated by Keith Thompson. The best-known young adult steampunk series.","descs":{"dieselpunk":"A 1914 of diesel-powered German walkers versus British living airships. Westerfeld calls it steampunk, but its Great War machines sit right on the dieselpunk border.","steampunk":"World War I fought between diesel walkers and fabricated living airships, illustrated by Keith Thompson. The best-known young adult steampunk series."},"essential":false,"families":["steampunk","dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/leviathan-2009","id":"leviathan-2009","image":"/assets/imgs/works/leviathan-westerfeld-de78c3.webp","medium":"book","themes":["alt-history","war","genetics"],"title":"Leviathan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(Westerfeld_novel)","year":2009},{"by":"Gail Carriger","countries":["US"],"desc":"A soulless spinster with a parasol takes on vampires, werewolves and mad scientists. The book that made steampunk comedy of manners a bestselling form.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/soulless-2009","id":"soulless-2009","image":"/assets/imgs/works/soulless-by-gail-carriger-1st-edition-cover-1f7025.webp","medium":"book","themes":["alt-history","myth"],"title":"Soulless","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soulless_(novel)","year":2009},{"by":"Paolo Bacigalupi","countries":["US"],"desc":"Calorie companies own the patented seed, gene-hacked plagues wipe out crops, and an engineered woman is treated as property in a future Bangkok. Hugo and Nebula winner, and the defining biopunk novel of its decade.","essential":true,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/the-windup-girl-2009","id":"the-windup-girl-2009","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-windup-girl-paolo-bacigalupi-novel-cover-art-131179.webp","medium":"book","themes":["genetics","corporations","climate"],"title":"The Windup Girl","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Windup_Girl","year":2009},{"by":"Margaret Atwood","countries":["CA"],"desc":"The same engineered apocalypse as Oryx and Crake, seen from below by the eco-cult God's Gardeners. Biopunk from the perspective of the people the corporations ignored.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/the-year-of-the-flood-2009","id":"the-year-of-the-flood-2009","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-year-of-the-flood-cover-1sted-hc-a57070.webp","medium":"book","themes":["genetics","ecology","post-apocalypse"],"title":"The Year of the Flood","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Year_of_the_Flood","year":2009},{"by":"Ian Tregillis","countries":["US"],"desc":"First book of the <em>Milkweed Triptych</em>: Nazi supermen built in a farmhouse laboratory versus British warlocks bargaining with things outside time. Weird World War II at its grimmest.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/bitter-seeds-2010","id":"bitter-seeds-2010","image":"","medium":"book","themes":["alt-history","war"],"title":"Bitter Seeds","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Tregillis","year":2010},{"by":"Michelle Paver","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A 1937 Arctic expedition, a man alone through the polar night, and something on the shore. A ghost story built entirely out of isolation and darkness.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/dark-matter-2010","id":"dark-matter-2010","image":"/assets/imgs/works/darkmatternovel-65913d.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cold","night"],"title":"Dark Matter","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Matter_(Paver_novel)","year":2010},{"by":"China Miéville","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A preserved giant squid vanishes from London's Natural History Museum and the city's cults go to war over it. Adjacent rather than core: an urban fantasy whose god is a cephalopod.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/kraken-2010","id":"kraken-2010","image":"/assets/imgs/works/kraken-novel-cover-b82de3.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","myth","cities"],"title":"Kraken","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraken_(novel)","year":2010},{"by":"Paolo Bacigalupi","countries":["US"],"desc":"On a drowned Gulf Coast, child labourers strip copper from wrecked tankers to survive. Young-adult salvage-punk set after the oil age and the floods it caused.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/ship-breaker-2010","id":"ship-breaker-2010","image":"/assets/imgs/works/shipbreakerpaolobacigalupi-04b6c5.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","climate"],"title":"Ship Breaker","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_Breaker","year":2010},{"by":"Lavie Tidhar","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A counter-Victorian Britain ruled by lizard queens and terrorized by an anarchist bomber. Adjacent: its era is steampunk, but its attitude is smart-mouthed modern genre fiction.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/the-bookman-2010","id":"the-bookman-2010","image":"","medium":"book","themes":["alt-history","retro-future"],"title":"The Bookman","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavie_Tidhar","year":2010},{"by":"Mark Hodder","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Richard Burton and Algernon Swinburne investigate in a Victorian Britain bent by a time traveller. Winner of the Philip K. Dick Award.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/the-strange-affair-of-spring-heeled-jack-2010","id":"the-strange-affair-of-spring-heeled-jack-2010","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-strange-affair-of-spring-heeled-jack-ab5f38.webp","medium":"book","themes":["alt-history","machines"],"title":"The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strange_Affair_of_Spring-Heeled_Jack","year":2010},{"by":"Kameron Hurley","countries":["US"],"desc":"A desert planet whose technology runs on insects, and a bounty hunter in a holy war. Hurley calls her Bel Dame Apocrypha &quot;bugpunk&quot;.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/god-s-war-2011","id":"god-s-war-2011","image":"/assets/imgs/works/portrait-photoshoot-at-worldcon-75-helsini-before-the-hugo-a-aceba2.webp","medium":"book","themes":["genetics","body-mod","war"],"title":"God's War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kameron_Hurley","year":2011},{"by":"Larry Correia","countries":["US"],"desc":"Opens the <em>Grimnoir Chronicles</em>: a 1930s America of magically gifted gangsters, zeppelins and Imperial Japanese superweapons. Explicitly cited as dieselpunk.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/hard-magic-2011","id":"hard-magic-2011","image":"/assets/imgs/works/larry-correia-e4a1c6.webp","medium":"book","themes":["alt-history","noir"],"title":"Hard Magic","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Correia","year":2011},{"by":"James S.A. Corey","countries":["US"],"desc":"A missing girl, a dead ice-hauler, and a system on the edge of war. Book one of <em>The Expanse</em>, the spacepunk modern canon.","essential":true,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/leviathan-wakes-2011","id":"leviathan-wakes-2011","image":"/assets/imgs/works/leviathan-wakes-21fb2b.webp","medium":"book","themes":["space","colonies","noir"],"title":"Leviathan Wakes","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_Wakes","year":2011},{"by":"Erin Morgenstern","countries":["US"],"desc":"A black-and-white circus that opens only at dusk and closes at dawn. Adjacent, a fantasy romance, not an ecological one, but its nocturnal wonder is pure lunapunk mood.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/the-night-circus-2011","id":"the-night-circus-2011","image":"/assets/imgs/works/thenightcircus-f39aaf.webp","medium":"book","themes":["night","myth"],"title":"The Night Circus","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Circus","year":2011},{"by":"Hugh Howey","countries":["US"],"desc":"A self-published story about a sealed underground silo whose residents are forbidden to ask what lies outside. It became the Silo trilogy and an Apple TV+ series.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/wool-2011","id":"wool-2011","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-hugh-howey-by-christopher-michel-16-106270.webp","medium":"book","themes":["post-apocalypse","dystopia"],"title":"Wool","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silo_(series)","year":2011},{"by":"C. J. Sansom","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Early 1950s Britain as a German satellite state, smog and all. A resistance thriller that takes the bureaucracy of collaboration seriously.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/dominion-2012","id":"dominion-2012","image":"/assets/imgs/works/dominion-book-cover-4d888e.webp","medium":"book","themes":["alt-history","war"],"title":"Dominion","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_(Sansom_novel)","year":2012},{"by":"ed. Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro","countries":["BR"],"desc":"The first explicitly solarpunk anthology, published in Brazil and translated into English by Fábio Fernandes in 2018. Nine stories, first written in Portuguese, imagine renewable futures.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/solarpunk-ecological-and-fantastical-stories-in-a-sustainable-world-2012","id":"solarpunk-ecological-and-fantastical-stories-in-a-sustainable-world-2012","image":"","medium":"book","themes":["utopia","ecology"],"title":"Solarpunk: Ecological and Fantastical Stories in a Sustainable World","url":"https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780998702292","year":2012},{"by":"Paolo Bacigalupi","countries":["US"],"desc":"The sequel to <em>Ship Breaker</em>, set among warlords and child soldiers in the flooded ruins of the American east coast. The drowned city as a war zone rather than a postcard.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/the-drowned-cities-2012","id":"the-drowned-cities-2012","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-drowned-cities-a97564.webp","medium":"book","themes":["war","climate"],"title":"The Drowned Cities","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Drowned_Cities","year":2012},{"by":"Margaret Atwood","countries":["CA"],"desc":"The closing volume of the trilogy: survivors, pigoons and the engineered Crakers try to build a shared world after the plague.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/maddaddam-2013","id":"maddaddam-2013","image":"/assets/imgs/works/maddaddamcover-14ab37.webp","medium":"book","themes":["genetics","post-apocalypse"],"title":"MaddAddam","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MaddAddam","year":2013},{"by":"Charles Stross","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Interstellar colonies are financed with slow money, debt that takes centuries to mature, and every new world is born owing its founders. Spacepunk as a novel about the bond market.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/neptune-s-brood-2013","id":"neptune-s-brood-2013","image":"/assets/imgs/works/neptune-s-brood-uk-cover-02d083.webp","medium":"book","themes":["space","ocean"],"title":"Neptune's Brood","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neptune%27s_Brood","year":2013},{"by":"Chen Qiufan","countries":["CN"],"desc":"Migrant workers sort e-waste on a toxic island off southern China until one of them is changed by what she touches. Chinese cyberpunk at the bottom of the global supply chain.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/waste-tide-2013","id":"waste-tide-2013","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-waste-tide-6e4bb0.webp","medium":"book","themes":["corporations","body-mod","ecology"],"title":"Waste Tide","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Tide","year":2013},{"by":"Lavie Tidhar","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A down-at-heel private eye named Wolf works the streets of 1930s London. A savage noir pastiche about fascism, dreams and who gets to tell the story.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/a-man-lies-dreaming-2014","id":"a-man-lies-dreaming-2014","image":"/assets/imgs/works/lavietidhar-c09f5f.webp","medium":"book","themes":["alt-history","noir"],"title":"A Man Lies Dreaming","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_Lies_Dreaming","year":2014},{"by":"Jeff VanderMeer","countries":["US"],"desc":"An anonymous expedition enters Area X. The biology there is doing something unaccountable. Nobody comes back unchanged.","descs":{"biopunk":"An anonymous expedition enters Area X. The biology there is doing something unaccountable. Nobody comes back unchanged.","lunapunk":"Four women enter Area X, where nature is rewriting itself into glowing, unreadable forms. The source of the luminous, indifferent ecology lunapunk borrows.","psychopunk":"An expedition into Area X, where the landscape rewrites the minds of those who enter. Weird fiction first, but its unreliable, contaminated narrator is deeply psychopunk."},"essential":true,"families":["biopunk","psychopunk","lunapunk"],"href":"/work/annihilation-2014","id":"annihilation-2014","image":"/assets/imgs/works/annihilation-by-jeff-vandermeer-a528ba.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ecology","mind","genetics"],"title":"Annihilation","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annihilation_(VanderMeer_novel)","year":2014},{"by":"ed. Ed Finn & Kathryn Cramer","countries":["US"],"desc":"Born from Neal Stephenson's call for ambitious, buildable science fiction, this ASU anthology launched a project whose website also published an early solarpunk manifesto. Techno-optimism with engineering notes attached.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/hieroglyph-stories-and-visions-for-a-better-future-2014","id":"hieroglyph-stories-and-visions-for-a-better-future-2014","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-neal-stephenson-in-2019-a-021-5044e1.webp","medium":"book","themes":["utopia"],"title":"Hieroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future","url":"https://csi.asu.edu/books/hieroglyph/","year":2014},{"by":"Emily St. John Mandel","countries":["CA"],"desc":"A traveling Shakespeare company crosses a post-pandemic world under one motto: survival is insufficient. The genre's gentlest hope.","essential":true,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/station-eleven-2014","id":"station-eleven-2014","image":"/assets/imgs/works/station-eleven-cover-eba2e9.webp","medium":"book","themes":["post-apocalypse"],"title":"Station Eleven","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Station_Eleven","year":2014},{"by":"ed. John Joseph Adams & Hugh Howey","countries":["US"],"desc":"Three anthologies (<em>The End is Nigh</em>, <em>The End is Now</em>, <em>The End Has Come</em>) that follow the same story worlds before, during, and after collapse.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/the-apocalypse-triptych-2014","id":"the-apocalypse-triptych-2014","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-apocalypse-triptych-logo-2d0bc6.webp","medium":"book","themes":["post-apocalypse"],"title":"The Apocalypse Triptych","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apocalypse_Triptych","year":2014},{"by":"M. R. Carey","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A fungal infection has turned most of humanity into hungry hosts, and the scientists study the children who seem different. Adjacent to biopunk: more outbreak than engineering.","descs":{"apocapunk":"A fungal plague has remade England, and a gifted infected child may be the next stage rather than the enemy. A sharp twist on who inherits the ruins.","biopunk":"A fungal infection has turned most of humanity into hungry hosts, and the scientists study the children who seem different. Adjacent to biopunk: more outbreak than engineering."},"essential":false,"families":["biopunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/the-girl-with-all-the-gifts-2014","id":"the-girl-with-all-the-gifts-2014","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-girl-with-all-the-gifts-7b96f1.webp","medium":"book","themes":["post-apocalypse","genetics"],"title":"The Girl with All the Gifts","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_with_All_the_Gifts","year":2014},{"by":"Becky Chambers","countries":["US"],"desc":"A diverse, patched-together crew on a tunnelling ship navigating a corporate galaxy. Spacepunk's most humane and hopeful novel.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/the-long-way-2014","id":"the-long-way-2014","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-long-way-to-a-small-angry-planet-0f7d20.webp","medium":"book","themes":["space"],"title":"The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Way_to_a_Small,_Angry_Planet","year":2014},{"by":"William Gibson","countries":["US"],"desc":"A near-future gamer in rural America and a post-collapse London linked by a server that reaches into the past. Gibson's late return to fully futuristic fiction.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/the-peripheral-2014","id":"the-peripheral-2014","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-peripheral-1st-ed-cover-william-gibson-6c3c4d.webp","medium":"book","themes":["cyberspace","climate"],"title":"The Peripheral","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peripheral_(novel)","year":2014},{"by":"Adrian Tchaikovsky","countries":["GB"],"desc":"An uplift virus meant for monkeys lands on spiders instead, and a civilization evolves over millennia. Biopunk on a geological timescale.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/children-of-time-2015","id":"children-of-time-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/children-of-time-novel-29a65d.webp","medium":"book","themes":["genetics","space"],"title":"Children of Time","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Time_(novel)","year":2015},{"by":"Elizabeth Bear","countries":["US"],"desc":"A gold-rush Pacific Northwest seen through the eyes of a young woman working in a brothel, with a sewing-machine exoskeleton. Steampunk from the margins of the frontier.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/karen-memory-2015","id":"karen-memory-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/karen-memory-book-cover-90e265.webp","medium":"book","themes":["machines","alt-history"],"title":"Karen Memory","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Memory","year":2015},{"by":"Ian McDonald","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Five corporate dynasties feud on a Moon where air, water and carbon are billed by the breath. Adjacent: the dark mirror of a lunar society, everything lunapunk wants to avoid.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/luna-new-moon-2015","id":"luna-new-moon-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/luna-2015-uk-cover-e21a3b.webp","medium":"book","themes":["colonies","corporations"],"title":"Luna: New Moon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna:_New_Moon","year":2015},{"by":"Neal Stephenson","countries":["US"],"desc":"The Moon shatters without warning and humanity has two years to get off the planet. Adjacent, hard SF survival, but a powerful meditation on how much the Moon holds up.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/seveneves-2015","id":"seveneves-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/seveneves-book-cover-3708e1.webp","medium":"book","themes":["space","survival"],"title":"Seveneves","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seveneves","year":2015},{"by":"Jim Butcher","countries":["US"],"desc":"Airship duels between towering spire-cities, crystal-powered tech and sapient cats. Big-budget naval adventure in the sky.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/the-aeronaut-s-windlass-2015","id":"the-aeronaut-s-windlass-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/book-cover-of-the-aeronaut-s-windlass-872003.webp","medium":"book","themes":["machines"],"title":"The Aeronaut's Windlass","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aeronaut%27s_Windlass","year":2015},{"by":"N. K. Jemisin","countries":["US"],"desc":"<em>Adjacent:</em> a supercontinent battered by recurring 'Seasons' of climate catastrophe, where communities live by stockpiles and hard lore. Survival law written into a whole civilization.","descs":{"apocapunk":"On a continent where civilization-ending 'Seasons' recur, communities survive by stockpiling and strict lore. Secondary-world fantasy rather than core apocapunk, but its survival culture is the genre's finest worldbuilding.","frostpunk":"<em>Adjacent:</em> a supercontinent battered by recurring 'Seasons' of climate catastrophe, where communities live by stockpiles and hard lore. Survival law written into a whole civilization."},"essential":false,"families":["frostpunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/the-fifth-season-2015","id":"the-fifth-season-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-fifth-season-novel-ffacf5.webp","medium":"book","themes":["post-apocalypse","climate"],"title":"The Fifth Season","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Season_(novel)","year":2015},{"by":"ed. Sean Wallace","countries":["US"],"desc":"A doorstop anthology devoted to the genre, gathering short fiction about war machines, diesel cities and alternate wars into one fat volume.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/the-mammoth-book-of-dieselpunk-2015","id":"the-mammoth-book-of-dieselpunk-2015","image":"","medium":"book","themes":["retro-future","war"],"title":"The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk","url":"https://hachette.co.uk/titles/sean-wallace/the-mammoth-book-of-dieselpunk/9781472118752","year":2015},{"by":"Natasha Pulley","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A Home Office clerk and a Japanese watchmaker in 1880s London, with a clockwork octopus named Katsu. Quiet, tender, Betty Trask Award-winning clockpunk.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/the-watchmaker-of-filigree-street-2015","id":"the-watchmaker-of-filigree-street-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-natasha-pulley-2017-c01b0d.webp","medium":"book","themes":["machines"],"title":"The Watchmaker of Filigree Street","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natasha_Pulley","year":2015},{"by":"Paolo Bacigalupi","countries":["US"],"desc":"The American Southwest fights over the last of the Colorado River. Hydropunk inverted: the crisis is too little water, and the people who control it.","descs":{"hydropunk":"The American Southwest fights over the last of the Colorado River. Hydropunk inverted: the crisis is too little water, and the people who control it.","pyropunk":"A drought-wrecked American Southwest where water rights are fought over with guns. Adjacent climate fiction from the same scorched landscape."},"essential":false,"families":["hydropunk","pyropunk"],"href":"/work/the-water-knife-2015","id":"the-water-knife-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/book-cover-of-the-water-knife-ec8661.webp","medium":"book","themes":["climate","noir"],"title":"The Water Knife","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Water_Knife","year":2015},{"by":"ed. Jonathan Strahan","countries":["AU"],"desc":"Sixteen stories of flooded futures from Ken Liu, Nalo Hopkinson, Charlie Jane Anders, Paul McAuley, Sam J. Miller and others, with Robinson's &quot;Venice Drowned&quot; reprinted. The genre's best single-volume anthology.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/drowned-worlds-2016","id":"drowned-worlds-2016","image":"/assets/imgs/works/jonathan-strahan-dc5b59.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","climate"],"title":"Drowned Worlds","url":"https://www.jonathanstrahan.com.au/wp/?p=4837","year":2016},{"by":"Nisi Shawl","countries":["US"],"desc":"An alternate Congo where socialists and African nations use steam technology to resist Leopold II. The genre's most direct answer to its own imperial roots.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/everfair-2016","id":"everfair-2016","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-nisi-shawl-2009-144dac.webp","medium":"book","themes":["alt-history"],"title":"Everfair","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisi_Shawl","year":2016},{"by":"Joe Hill","countries":["US"],"desc":"A spore called Dragonscale makes its hosts burst into flame, and a few learn to carry the fire without dying. Pandemic fiction as pyrokinetic apocalypse.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/the-fireman-2016","id":"the-fireman-2016","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-fireman-novel-5d7de8.webp","medium":"book","themes":["fire","post-apocalypse"],"title":"The Fireman","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fireman_(novel)","year":2016},{"by":"Martha Wells","countries":["US"],"desc":"A security cyborg rented out by a penny-pinching company hacks its own governor module and would rather watch soap operas than kill. Book one of the Murderbot Diaries: labor, contracts and personhood.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/all-systems-red-2017","id":"all-systems-red-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/all-systems-red-the-murderbot-diaries-1-cover-94ef5b.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ai","space"],"title":"All Systems Red","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Systems_Red","year":2017},{"by":"Andy Weir","countries":["US"],"desc":"A porter and part-time smuggler in the Moon's only city chases one big job to climb out of debt. Adjacent (lunapunk), but very much the economics of a company town in vacuum.","descs":{"lunapunk":"Life inside a Moon city, smuggling, survival, and the small economics of living off-world. The lived-in lunar everyday.","spacepunk":"A porter and part-time smuggler in the Moon's only city chases one big job to climb out of debt. Adjacent (lunapunk), but very much the economics of a company town in vacuum."},"essential":false,"families":["spacepunk","lunapunk"],"href":"/work/artemis-2017","id":"artemis-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/artemis-andy-weir-2017-f94d30.webp","medium":"book","themes":["colonies","space"],"title":"Artemis","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_(novel)","year":2017},{"by":"Annalee Newitz","countries":["US"],"desc":"A drug pirate reverse-engineers patented pharmaceuticals for people who cannot pay. One of the recent books Di Filippo lists alongside the genre's classics.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/autonomous-2017","id":"autonomous-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/autonomous-hardcover-58a1f1.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ai","genetics","corporations"],"title":"Autonomous","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_(novel)","year":2017},{"by":"Jeff VanderMeer","countries":["US"],"desc":"A scavenger finds a strange organism in the fur of a giant flying bear, in a city ruined by a biotech company. Lush, weird and full of discarded products that are still alive.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/borne-2017","id":"borne-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/borne-book-cover-b70864.webp","medium":"book","themes":["genetics","post-apocalypse"],"title":"Borne","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borne_(novel)","year":2017},{"by":"Adrian Tchaikovsky","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Rex is a bioengineered war dog who wants to be a good boy. The first book of the Bioforms trilogy asks whether made weapons can be moral persons.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/dogs-of-war-2017","id":"dogs-of-war-2017","image":"","medium":"book","themes":["genetics","war"],"title":"Dogs of War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogs_of_War_(2017_novel)","year":2017},{"by":"Mira Grant","countries":["US"],"desc":"A research ship heads to the Mariana Trench to prove that the mermaids which killed an earlier crew are real. Deep-sea horror with marine biology done properly.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/into-the-drowning-deep-2017","id":"into-the-drowning-deep-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/into-the-drowning-deep-cover-art-de29d7.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean"],"title":"Into the Drowning Deep","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_Drowning_Deep","year":2017},{"by":"Kim Stanley Robinson","countries":["US"],"desc":"Half-submerged Manhattan, traded in skybridges and water-taxis. Hydropunk realism.","descs":{"hydropunk":"Half-submerged Manhattan, traded in skybridges and water-taxis. Hydropunk realism.","solarpunk":"A drowned Manhattan of canals, skybridges and rooftop farms, where tenants of a co-op tower take on the finance industry. Climate adaptation as a story about who owns the city."},"essential":false,"families":["hydropunk","solarpunk"],"href":"/work/new-york-2140-2017","id":"new-york-2140-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/new-york-2140-a64a63.webp","medium":"book","themes":["climate","ocean","cities"],"title":"New York 2140","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_2140","year":2017},{"by":"ed. Phoebe Wagner & Brontë Christopher Wieland","countries":["US"],"desc":"A crowdfunded collection of solarpunk stories, poems and art that helped turn a Tumblr aesthetic into a literary scene.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/sunvault-stories-of-solarpunk-and-eco-speculation-2017","id":"sunvault-stories-of-solarpunk-and-eco-speculation-2017","image":"","medium":"book","themes":["ecology","utopia"],"title":"Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation","url":"https://upperrubberboot.com/sunvault/","year":2017},{"by":"Cory Doctorow","countries":["CA"],"desc":"People abandon a surveillance economy to build a post-scarcity gift culture with 3D printers and open designs. The maker-hero side of solarpunk, fighting for the right to simply leave.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/walkaway-2017","id":"walkaway-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/walkaway-a-cory-doctorow-novel-book-cover-beb0e4.webp","medium":"book","themes":["utopia"],"title":"Walkaway","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkaway_(Doctorow_novel)","year":2017},{"by":"Sam J. Miller","countries":["US"],"desc":"Qaanaaq, a floating city in the warming Arctic, run by algorithms and shareholders, is shaken by a woman who arrives riding an orca. The floating-refuge city at its most political.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/blackfish-city-2018","id":"blackfish-city-2018","image":"","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","climate","cities"],"title":"Blackfish City","url":"https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/miller_sam_j","year":2018},{"by":"ed. Sarena Ulibarri","countries":["US"],"desc":"Two companion anthologies from World Weaver Press, one sunlit and one snowbound, that showed solarpunk works in every season and climate.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/glass-and-gardens-solarpunk-summers-solarpunk-winters-2018","id":"glass-and-gardens-solarpunk-summers-solarpunk-winters-2018","image":"","medium":"book","themes":["ecology","utopia"],"title":"Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers / Solarpunk Winters","url":"https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781732254688","year":2018},{"by":"Becky Chambers","countries":["US"],"desc":"Ordinary lives aboard the aging generation ships of the Exodus Fleet: recycling, maintenance, funerals, and whether to stay. The quiet domestic side of the used future.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/record-of-a-spaceborn-few-2018","id":"record-of-a-spaceborn-few-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/record-of-a-spaceborn-few-bfd574.webp","medium":"book","themes":["space"],"title":"Record of a Spaceborn Few","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Record_of_a_Spaceborn_Few","year":2018},{"by":"Kim Stanley Robinson","countries":["US"],"desc":"Political intrigue and revolution on a colonized Moon. The serious, governed side of the lunar future.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/red-moon-2018","id":"red-moon-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/red-moon-novel-book-cover-53a012.webp","medium":"book","themes":["colonies","space"],"title":"Red Moon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Moon_(novel)","year":2018},{"by":"Mary Robinette Kowal","countries":["US"],"desc":"A meteorite strike in 1952 forces a crash space programme, and a woman mathematician fights to fly. The <em>Lady Astronaut</em> series is atompunk rewritten with the people who were left out.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/the-calculating-stars-2018","id":"the-calculating-stars-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/thecalculatingstars-3df954.webp","medium":"book","themes":["alt-history","space"],"title":"The Calculating Stars","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Calculating_Stars","year":2018},{"by":"Simon Stålenhag","countries":["SE"],"desc":"An illustrated novel of a ruined, robot-littered alternate America. Set in the 1990s rather than the 1950s, so adjacent rather than core, but steeped in the same retro-tech melancholy.","descs":{"apocapunk":"An illustrated novel of a teenager and robot crossing a ruined, alternate 1990s America littered with giant dead machines. Adjacent: post-collapse in a quieter key.","atompunk":"An illustrated novel of a ruined, robot-littered alternate America. Set in the 1990s rather than the 1950s, so adjacent rather than core, but steeped in the same retro-tech melancholy."},"essential":false,"families":["atompunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/the-electric-state-2018","id":"the-electric-state-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-electric-state-book-cover-707003.webp","medium":"book","themes":["machines","post-apocalypse"],"title":"The Electric State","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Electric_State","year":2018},{"by":"Richard Powers","countries":["US"],"desc":"Nine lives braided around trees and the fight to save old-growth forests. Adjacent: ecological fiction rather than solarpunk, but essential to its way of seeing.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/the-overstory-2018","id":"the-overstory-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-overstory-powers-novel-c8a64c.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ecology"],"title":"The Overstory","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Overstory","year":2018},{"by":"R. F. Kuang","countries":["US"],"desc":"A war orphan discovers she can channel the fire of the Phoenix god. Grimdark fantasy about what happens when a person becomes a weapon of flame.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/the-poppy-war-2018","id":"the-poppy-war-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-poppy-war-1st-cover-8ad0e1.webp","medium":"book","themes":["war","fire"],"title":"The Poppy War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Poppy_War","year":2018},{"by":"Adrian Tchaikovsky","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Uplifted octopuses build a civilisation in an alien ocean, thinking in colour and argument. Space opera by setting, but its heart is the cephalopod mind.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/children-of-ruin-2019","id":"children-of-ruin-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/children-of-ruin-2019-cover-art-8a580e.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","genetics"],"title":"Children of Ruin","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Ruin","year":2019},{"by":"Daniel Suarez","countries":["US"],"desc":"A billionaire recruits cave divers and adventurers to crew the first asteroid-mining expedition, and the bill is paid in lives. A near-future techno-thriller about who does the dangerous work.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/delta-v-2019","id":"delta-v-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-daniel-suarez-cropped-1e2d5f.webp","medium":"book","themes":["space","corporations"],"title":"Delta-v","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Suarez_(author)","year":2019},{"by":"Rivers Solomon","countries":["US"],"desc":"The water-breathing descendants of African women thrown from slave ships keep their history in a single chosen memory-keeper. Built from the Drexciya myth and the clipping. song, it won the Lambda Literary Award.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/the-deep-2019","id":"the-deep-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-deep-c2b9a2.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","identity"],"title":"The Deep","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deep_(novella)","year":2019},{"by":"ed. Joey Eschrich & Clark A. Miller","countries":["US"],"desc":"Stories, art and essays by writers and solar researchers imagining how solar energy could reshape daily life. Free to download, and followed by <em>Cities of Light</em> in 2020.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/the-weight-of-light-a-collection-of-solar-futures-2019","id":"the-weight-of-light-a-collection-of-solar-futures-2019","image":"","medium":"book","themes":["climate","utopia"],"title":"The Weight of Light: A Collection of Solar Futures","url":"https://csi.asu.edu/books/weight/","year":2019},{"by":"Susanna Clarke","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A gentle man lives alone in an endless house of statues and tides, keeping journals of the Moon and the floods. Stillness, attention and wonder as a whole way of being.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/piranesi-2020","id":"piranesi-2020","image":"/assets/imgs/works/piranesi-susanna-clarke-9b2077.webp","medium":"book","themes":["myth","mind"],"title":"Piranesi","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piranesi_(novel)","year":2020},{"by":"Kim Stanley Robinson","countries":["US"],"desc":"A near-future agency fights, bargains, and engineers its way through the climate crisis. The most realistic solarpunk novel ever written.","descs":{"pyropunk":"Opens with a lethal heat wave in India and builds outward into a global response. Adjacent climate fiction that treats killing heat as the defining event of the century.","solarpunk":"A near-future agency fights, bargains, and engineers its way through the climate crisis. The most realistic solarpunk novel ever written."},"essential":true,"families":["solarpunk","pyropunk"],"href":"/work/the-ministry-for-the-future-2020","id":"the-ministry-for-the-future-2020","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-ministry-for-the-future-dc81e5.webp","medium":"book","themes":["climate"],"title":"The Ministry for the Future","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ministry_for_the_Future","year":2020},{"by":"P. Djèlí Clark","countries":["US"],"desc":"An agent of the Ministry of Alchemy works in a 1912 Cairo transformed by djinn and airships. Nebula Award-winning steampunk centred outside Europe.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/a-master-of-djinn-2021","id":"a-master-of-djinn-2021","image":"/assets/imgs/works/a-master-of-djinn-5f9572.webp","medium":"book","themes":["alt-history","myth"],"title":"A Master of Djinn","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Master_of_Djinn","year":2021},{"by":"Becky Chambers","countries":["US"],"desc":"A wandering tea monk and a robot ask what people need when they already have enough. Solarpunk by label, but its theology of rest makes it lunapunk's closest sibling; continued in <em>A Prayer for the Crown-Shy</em> (2022).","descs":{"lunapunk":"A wandering tea monk and a robot ask what people need when they already have enough. Solarpunk by label, but its theology of rest makes it lunapunk's closest sibling; continued in <em>A Prayer for the Crown-Shy</em> (2022).","solarpunk":"A tea monk and a wild robot wander a healed moon, asking the only question left worth asking: what do people actually need?"},"essential":true,"families":["lunapunk","solarpunk"],"href":"/work/a-psalm-for-the-wild-built-2021","id":"a-psalm-for-the-wild-built-2021","image":"/assets/imgs/works/psalmforwild-cd0321.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ecology","ai","utopia"],"title":"A Psalm for the Wild-Built","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Psalm_for_the_Wild-Built","year":2021},{"by":"ed. Christoph Rupprecht, Deborah Cleland, Norie Tamura, Rajat Chaudhuri & Sarena Ulibarri","countries":["US"],"desc":"Twenty-four stories, centered on writers from Asia and the Pacific, about cities shared with animals, plants and spirits. Solarpunk beyond the Anglo-American default.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/multispecies-cities-solarpunk-urban-futures-2021","id":"multispecies-cities-solarpunk-urban-futures-2021","image":"","medium":"book","themes":["ecology","cities"],"title":"Multispecies Cities: Solarpunk Urban Futures","url":"https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781734054521","year":2021},{"by":"Nnedi Okorafor","countries":["US"],"desc":"An augmented woman flees into a Nigerian desert run by vast wind farms and corporate power. Adjacent: an Africanfuturist thriller that asks who controls renewable energy, not whether it exists.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/noor-2021","id":"noor-2021","image":"/assets/imgs/works/noor-by-nnedi-dd5eeb.webp","medium":"book","themes":["body-mod"],"title":"Noor","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noor_(novel)","year":2021},{"by":"Ruthanna Emrys","countries":["US"],"desc":"First contact arrives in a near future where self-governing watershed networks have replaced corporations and nations. Solarpunk governance, family life and diplomacy in one warm novel.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/a-half-built-garden-2022","id":"a-half-built-garden-2022","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-ruthanna-emrys-away-from-the-desk-cb5bbf.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ecology","climate"],"title":"A Half-Built Garden","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruthanna_Emrys","year":2022},{"by":"Becky Chambers","countries":["US"],"desc":"The second Monk &amp; Robot novella follows Dex and Mosscap from the wilds into the villages and cities of Panga. A quiet tour of a post-industrial society that works, and winner of the 2023 Locus Award for Best Novella.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/a-prayer-for-the-crown-shy-2022","id":"a-prayer-for-the-crown-shy-2022","image":"/assets/imgs/works/a-prayer-for-the-crown-shy-book-cover-6cbd15.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ecology","utopia"],"title":"A Prayer for the Crown-Shy","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Prayer_for_the_Crown-Shy","year":2022},{"by":"ed. Phoebe Wagner & Brontë Christopher Wieland","countries":["US"],"desc":"A university-press compendium of solarpunk fiction and poetry from the editors of <em>Sunvault</em>. The genre in a more reflective, literary mood.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/almanac-for-the-anthropocene-a-compendium-of-solarpunk-futures-2022","id":"almanac-for-the-anthropocene-a-compendium-of-solarpunk-futures-2022","image":"","medium":"book","themes":["ecology","climate"],"title":"Almanac for the Anthropocene: A Compendium of Solarpunk Futures","url":"https://wvupressonline.com/almanac-for-the-anthropocene","year":2022},{"by":"ed. Justine Norton-Kertson et al.","countries":["US"],"desc":"The November/December 2022 issue devoted to solarpunk communities at night, with Norton-Kertson's essay on lunarpunk as a developing subgenre, Rob Cameron's case for 'solarpunk noir', and Ai Jiang's poem &quot;The Lantern Festival&quot;. Core text.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/solarpunk-magazine-6-the-lunarpunk-issue-2022","id":"solarpunk-magazine-6-the-lunarpunk-issue-2022","image":"","medium":"book","themes":["night","ecology"],"title":"Solarpunk Magazine #6: the Lunarpunk Issue","url":"https://cetapsrepository.letras.up.pt/id/cetaps/108743","year":2022},{"by":"Ray Nayler","countries":["US"],"desc":"A marine biologist on a guarded Vietnamese archipelago studies octopuses that have developed language and culture. Winner of the Locus Award for best first novel, and the genre's most serious first-contact story.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/the-mountain-in-the-sea-2022","id":"the-mountain-in-the-sea-2022","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-ray-nayler-author-photo-502f26.webp","medium":"book","themes":["ocean","ai"],"title":"The Mountain in the Sea","url":"https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/nayler_ray","year":2022},{"by":"ed. Justine Norton-Kertson","countries":["US"],"desc":"Billed as the first anthology of lunarpunk fiction and poetry: 21 stories and poems from Android Press, with contributors including Sarena Ulibarri, Wendy N. Wagner, J.D. Harlock and Neil Gaiman. The genre's first real canon.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/bioluminescent-a-lunarpunk-anthology-2023","id":"bioluminescent-a-lunarpunk-anthology-2023","image":"","medium":"book","themes":["night","ecology"],"title":"Bioluminescent: A Lunarpunk Anthology","url":"https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bioluminescent-justine-norton-kertson/1150071109","year":2023},{"by":"Cory Doctorow","countries":["CA"],"desc":"A near-future California rebuilding after fires and floods under a Green New Deal, while armed holdouts try to stop it. The politics of the transition, told from the ground.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/the-lost-cause-2023","id":"the-lost-cause-2023","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-lost-cause-novel-cover-4fa48f.webp","medium":"book","themes":["climate","rebellion"],"title":"The Lost Cause","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Cause_(novel)","year":2023},{"by":"Annalee Newitz","countries":["US"],"desc":"A ranger, a sentient moose and a sentient train argue over who gets to live on a planet being built from scratch. Ecology, labor and personhood on a geological timescale.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/the-terraformers-2023","id":"the-terraformers-2023","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-terraformers-cover-534583.webp","medium":"book","themes":["colonies","ecology"],"title":"The Terraformers","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terraformers","year":2023},{"by":"Lucian of Samosata · 2nd century AD","countries":["TR"],"desc":"A satirical Greek voyage that sails a ship all the way to the Moon and finds a war between its kings and the Sun's. The oldest ancestor on the lunar shelf.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/a-true-story","id":"a-true-story","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-william-strang-spider-battle-in-1894-true-history-svg-68c171.webp","medium":"book","themes":["space","myth"],"title":"A True Story","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_True_Story","year":0},{"by":"Dante Alighieri · 14th c.","countries":["IT"],"desc":"Rains of fire, burning tombs and a city of red-hot towers: Dante's Hell fixed the image of fire as eternal punishment for seven centuries of art.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/inferno","id":"inferno","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-inferno-ec84dd.webp","medium":"book","themes":["fire","myth"],"title":"Inferno","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(Dante)","year":0},{"by":"Aeschylus (attributed) · 5th c. BCE","countries":["GR"],"desc":"The Titan chained to a rock for the crime of giving fire and craft to humanity. The first great drama about the price of the stolen spark.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/prometheus-bound","id":"prometheus-bound","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-prometheus-door-vulcanus-geketend-sk-a-1606-311924.webp","medium":"book","themes":["fire","myth"],"title":"Prometheus Bound","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_Bound","year":0},{"by":"Anonymous · late 9th or early 10th century","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Princess Kaguya, found glowing inside a bamboo stalk, must finally return to her people on the Moon. Japan's oldest surviving prose tale and lunapunk's founding folktale of moonlight and longing.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/the-tale-of-the-bamboo-cutter","id":"the-tale-of-the-bamboo-cutter","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-princess-kaguya-stavros-translation-book-jacket-f2bd03.webp","medium":"book","themes":["night","myth"],"title":"The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tale_of_the_Bamboo_Cutter","year":0},{"by":"Hesiod · c. 700 BCE","countries":["GR"],"desc":"The oldest surviving written telling of Prometheus hiding fire in a fennel stalk and handing it to mortals. The genre's origin myth, set down in verse.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/theogony","id":"theogony","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-hesiod-theogony-venice-gr-464-aa92ab.webp","medium":"book","themes":["myth","fire"],"title":"Theogony","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theogony","year":0},{"by":"Carl Burgos","countries":["US"],"desc":"An android that bursts into flame on contact with air, debuting in <em>Marvel Comics</em> #1. Comics' first fire hero, and the root of every flaming superhero since.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/human-torch-1939","id":"human-torch-1939","image":"/assets/imgs/works/human-torch-jim-hammond-4b44eb.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["fire","machines"],"title":"Human Torch","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Torch_(android)","year":1939},{"by":"Bill Everett","countries":["US"],"desc":"An undersea prince who despises the surface world, in Marvel's first comic. Comics' Nemo: a sovereign of the deep with a grudge.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/namor-the-sub-mariner-1939","id":"namor-the-sub-mariner-1939","image":"","medium":"comics","themes":["ocean","myth"],"title":"Namor the Sub-Mariner","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namor","year":1939},{"by":"Will Eisner","countries":["US"],"desc":"A masked detective in Central City, drawn with cinematic angles and rain. The Sunday supplement that taught comics to look like noir.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/the-spirit-1940","id":"the-spirit-1940","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-thespirit11march1951-0e6fdc.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["noir","cities"],"title":"The Spirit","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_(character)","year":1940},{"by":"Paul Norris and Mort Weisinger","countries":["US"],"desc":"DC's king of Atlantis, from <em>More Fun Comics</em> #73. Adjacent superhero material, but eighty years of drawn undersea kingdoms.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/aquaman-1941","id":"aquaman-1941","image":"/assets/imgs/works/aquaman-rebirth-1-9be126.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["ocean","myth"],"title":"Aquaman","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaman","year":1941},{"by":"Frank Hampson","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Lavishly painted space adventure on the front of the British weekly <em>Eagle</em>. Britain's Atomic Age hero, with a jaw to match.","essential":true,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/dan-dare-pilot-of-the-future-1950","id":"dan-dare-pilot-of-the-future-1950","image":"/assets/imgs/works/eagle-cover-1989-187608.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["space","retro-future"],"title":"Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Dare","year":1950},{"by":"EC Comics","countries":["US"],"desc":"EC's SF line, with Wally Wood and Al Feldstein art and frequent twist endings about the Bomb. The comic-book face of the early 50s.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/weird-science-1950","id":"weird-science-1950","image":"/assets/imgs/works/weirdscience13-9ee2b7.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["space","retro-future"],"title":"Weird Science","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weird_Science_(comics)","year":1950},{"by":"Osamu Tezuka","countries":["JP"],"desc":"The manga that started it all: a robot boy powered by a tiny nuclear reactor, serialised from 1952 to 1968. Tezuka's defining work, and the atom made lovable.","essential":true,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/astro-boy-mighty-atom-1952","id":"astro-boy-mighty-atom-1952","image":"/assets/imgs/works/astro-boy-08-c42b67.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["ai","nuclear","machines"],"title":"Astro Boy (Mighty Atom)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astro_Boy","year":1952},{"by":"Hergé","countries":["BE"],"desc":"Tintin rides a red-and-white checkered nuclear rocket to the Moon, years before Apollo. That rocket is one of the most famous designs in the genre.","essential":true,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/destination-moon-explorers-on-the-moon-1953","id":"destination-moon-explorers-on-the-moon-1953","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-adventures-of-tintin-16-destination-moon-3343fa.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["space","nuclear","retro-future"],"title":"Destination Moon / Explorers on the Moon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destination_Moon_(comics)","year":1953},{"by":"Osamu Tezuka","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Tezuka's life work: a cycle of stories across past and future, all circling the firebird whose blood grants eternal life. Rebirth through fire as cosmology.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/phoenix-1954","id":"phoenix-1954","image":"/assets/imgs/works/phoenix-manga-volume-1-fd8221.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["myth","fire","identity"],"title":"Phoenix","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(manga)","year":1954},{"by":"Mitsuteru Yokoyama","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A boy controls a giant robot built as a secret weapon. The founding giant-robot manga, serialised for a decade.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/tetsujin-28-go-1956","id":"tetsujin-28-go-1956","image":"/assets/imgs/works/tetsujin-28-go-45db65.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["machines","war"],"title":"Tetsujin 28-go","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetsujin_28-go","year":1956},{"by":"Steve Ditko & Joe Gill","countries":["US"],"desc":"A Charlton hero who gets nuclear powers when he is disintegrated inside a test rocket. The superhero as an Atomic Age accident.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/captain-atom-1960","id":"captain-atom-1960","image":"/assets/imgs/works/captain-atom-nathaniel-christopher-adam-8c7863.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["nuclear"],"title":"Captain Atom","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Atom","year":1960},{"by":"Stan Lee & Jack Kirby","countries":["US"],"desc":"Four people race the Soviets into space and come back changed by cosmic rays. Adjacent, but the Marvel age begins inside the space race.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/fantastic-four-1961","id":"fantastic-four-1961","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fantastic-four-vol-1-1-nov-1961-913188.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["space","nuclear"],"title":"Fantastic Four","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantastic_Four_(comic_book)","year":1961},{"by":"Satoru Ozawa","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A submarine adventure serialised in <em>Weekly Shōnen Sunday</em> from 1963 to 1965. An early root of the Japanese submarine story.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/submarine-707-1963","id":"submarine-707-1963","image":"/assets/imgs/works/submarine707r-cover-a62280.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["ocean","war"],"title":"Submarine 707","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_707","year":1963},{"by":"Satoru Ozawa","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Ozawa's original manga, later reimagined as the 1998 anime. Post-flood naval war in black and white.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/blue-submarine-no-6-1967","id":"blue-submarine-no-6-1967","image":"/assets/imgs/works/blue-sub-006-original-manga-cover-37cee3.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["ocean","post-apocalypse"],"title":"Blue Submarine No. 6","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Submarine_No._6","year":1967},{"by":"Thomas, Friedrich & Ploog","countries":["US"],"desc":"Johnny Blaze sells his soul and becomes a flaming skull on a motorcycle. Hellfire as biker iconography.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/ghost-rider-1972","id":"ghost-rider-1972","image":"/assets/imgs/works/ghost-rider-first-issue-cover-f808c3.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["fire","myth"],"title":"Ghost Rider","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Rider","year":1972},{"by":"Jack Kirby","countries":["US"],"desc":"After the 'Great Disaster', a boy leaves his bunker into a world ruled by talking animals. Kirby's wild DC series ran until 1978.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/kamandi-the-last-boy-on-earth-1972","id":"kamandi-the-last-boy-on-earth-1972","image":"/assets/imgs/works/kamandi-95688a.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamandi","year":1972},{"by":"Keiji Nakazawa","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A semi-autobiographical manga about surviving the Hiroshima bombing as a six-year-old. Essential context for any genre that makes the atom look fun.","essential":true,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/barefoot-gen-1973","id":"barefoot-gen-1973","image":"/assets/imgs/works/barefoot-gen-volume-one-930406.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["nuclear","war","survival"],"title":"Barefoot Gen","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barefoot_Gen","year":1973},{"by":"Dan O'Bannon & Moebius","countries":["FR","US"],"desc":"A noir detective strip in Métal Hurlant set in a vertical future city. Its art was a direct influence on Blade Runner and Neuromancer's look.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/the-long-tomorrow-1976","id":"the-long-tomorrow-1976","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-moebius-lodz-2008-769fd2.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["noir","cities"],"title":"The Long Tomorrow","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Tomorrow_(comics)","year":1976},{"by":"John Wagner & Carlos Ezquerra","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A street judge who is police, jury and executioner in the overcrowded Mega-City One. A British satire of authoritarian law that predates the genre's name.","essential":true,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/judge-dredd-1977","id":"judge-dredd-1977","image":"/assets/imgs/works/dredd-apocalypse-war-e375c7.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["dystopia","cities","surveillance"],"title":"Judge Dredd","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judge_Dredd","year":1977},{"by":"John Wagner & Carlos Ezquerra","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Adjacent: mutant bounty hunters do the dirty work nobody else will touch. A British comics staple about outcasts earning a living across the stars.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/strontium-dog-1978","id":"strontium-dog-1978","image":"/assets/imgs/works/johnny-alpha-e0a892.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["space","identity"],"title":"Strontium Dog","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strontium_Dog","year":1978},{"by":"Alejandro Jodorowsky & Mœbius","countries":["FR"],"desc":"Adjacent: a low-class private eye from a vertical slum city drags himself across the cosmos. Mœbius, who also did concept work for <em>Alien</em>, drew the grimy universe.","descs":{"psychopunk":"A cosmic space opera of mysticism, conspiracies and transcendence, drawn with clean-line psychedelia. Adjacent, but a visual bible for the genre.","spacepunk":"Adjacent: a low-class private eye from a vertical slum city drags himself across the cosmos. Mœbius, who also did concept work for <em>Alien</em>, drew the grimy universe."},"essential":true,"families":["spacepunk","psychopunk"],"href":"/work/the-incal-1980","id":"the-incal-1980","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-incal-2014-hardcover-trade-collection-49cfac.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["space","mind","myth"],"title":"The Incal","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incal","year":1980},{"by":"Claremont & Byrne","countries":["US"],"desc":"An X-Men villain who cannot create fire, only command it, and carries his own flamethrower rig. The pyromaniac as mutant.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/pyro-1981","id":"pyro-1981","image":"/assets/imgs/works/pyro-st-john-allerdyce-e301db.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["fire"],"title":"Pyro","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyro_(Marvel_Comics)","year":1981},{"by":"Katsuhiro Otomo","countries":["JP"],"desc":"The manga continues well past the film into a ruined Neo-Tokyo where rival factions build new orders in the rubble. Serialized until 1990.","descs":{"apocapunk":"The manga continues well past the film into a ruined Neo-Tokyo where rival factions build new orders in the rubble. Serialized until 1990.","cyberpunk":"The six-volume original, far larger than the film, with a whole post-war politics and a different ending. The manga that defined Neo-Tokyo.","psychopunk":"Government-engineered psychic children unleash powers that tear Neo-Tokyo apart. The mind as weapon of mass destruction."},"essential":true,"families":["apocapunk","psychopunk","cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/akira-1982","id":"akira-1982","image":"/assets/imgs/works/akira-volume-1-cover-japanese-version-manga-eb4663.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["post-apocalypse","mind","cities","rebellion"],"title":"Akira","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_(manga)","year":1982},{"by":"Jacques Lob, Jean-Marc Rochette","countries":["FR"],"desc":"The French graphic novel behind <em>Snowpiercer</em>: the last humans on a perpetual-motion train across a frozen Earth, with the poor in the tail. Frostpunk's foundational text in comics.","essential":true,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/le-transperceneige-1982","id":"le-transperceneige-1982","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-jeanmarc-rochettestm2015-d4795b.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["cold","survival","dystopia"],"title":"Le Transperceneige","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowpiercer_(graphic_novel_series)","year":1982},{"by":"Schuiten & Peeters","countries":["BE"],"desc":"A Belgian bande dessinée of impossible cities and Verne-like architecture. Schuiten later carried its look into the real Arts et Métiers metro station.","descs":{"dieselpunk":"A parallel world of monumental cities drawn in deco, Brussels and Ferriss style. Architecture as the main character.","steampunk":"A Belgian bande dessinée of impossible cities and Verne-like architecture. Schuiten later carried its look into the real Arts et Métiers metro station."},"essential":true,"families":["steampunk","dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/les-cites-obscures-1982","id":"les-cites-obscures-1982","image":"/assets/imgs/works/les-cit-s-obscures-album-5-d02b32.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["cities","retro-future"],"title":"Les Cités obscures","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Cit%C3%A9s_obscures","year":1982},{"by":"Hayao Miyazaki","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A princess explores a toxic jungle on a ruined Earth and uncovers how the world was engineered. Ecological epic with a biopunk secret at its core.","descs":{"apocapunk":"The manga Miyazaki kept drawing for over a decade, far darker and more political than the film. A masterpiece of the post-collapse world.","biopunk":"A princess explores a toxic jungle on a ruined Earth and uncovers how the world was engineered. Ecological epic with a biopunk secret at its core.","solarpunk":"Twelve years of serialization that go far beyond the film into war, ecology and the ethics of engineering a world. Miyazaki's masterwork."},"essential":true,"families":["biopunk","apocapunk","solarpunk"],"href":"/work/nausicaa-of-the-valley-of-the-wind-1982","id":"nausicaa-of-the-valley-of-the-wind-1982","image":"/assets/imgs/works/nausicaacovertankobon1-b852fd.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["ecology","post-apocalypse","war"],"title":"Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nausica%C3%A4_of_the_Valley_of_the_Wind_(manga)","year":1982},{"by":"Dave Stevens","countries":["US"],"desc":"Cliff Secord's rocket-pack adventures in 1938 Los Angeles, lovingly drawn by Stevens. The source of the 1991 film, and a cornerstone of comics dieselpunk.","essential":true,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/the-rocketeer-1982","id":"the-rocketeer-1982","image":"/assets/imgs/works/davestevens1982-52667b.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["retro-future"],"title":"The Rocketeer","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Stevens","year":1982},{"by":"Howard Chaykin","countries":["US"],"desc":"A corporate-controlled near-future America, drawn with deco discipline and written with savage wit. Dieselpunk before the word existed.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/american-flagg-1983","id":"american-flagg-1983","image":"/assets/imgs/works/americanflagg-no1-300px-3c6f43.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["corporations","dystopia"],"title":"American Flagg!","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Flagg%21","year":1983},{"by":"Buronson & Tetsuo Hara","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Kenshiro walks a post-nuclear wasteland of raiders and warlords. One of the best-selling manga ever and the Japanese twin of Mad Max.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/fist-of-the-north-star-1983","id":"fist-of-the-north-star-1983","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fist-of-the-north-star-1-86926b.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"Fist of the North Star","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fist_of_the_North_Star","year":1983},{"by":"Frank Miller","countries":["US"],"desc":"A masterless samurai is reborn in a near-future New York controlled by a corporation. Miller fused manga and Moebius into a cyberpunk comic.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/ronin-1983","id":"ronin-1983","image":"/assets/imgs/works/ronin1-3f41eb.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["corporations","cities","ai"],"title":"Ronin","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronin_(DC_Comics)","year":1983},{"by":"Dean Motter","countries":["CA"],"desc":"An insomniac architect walks the deco retro-city he designed, which is driving its people mad. The comic that gave &quot;Radiant City&quot; its name.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/mister-x-1984","id":"mister-x-1984","image":"","medium":"comics","themes":["cities","mind"],"title":"Mister X","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Motter","year":1984},{"by":"Alan Moore & Ian Gibson","countries":["GB"],"desc":"An ordinary young woman escapes a jobless floating ghetto by working on a space liner and then enlisting in an interstellar war. One of 2000 AD's high points.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/the-ballad-of-halo-jones-1984","id":"the-ballad-of-halo-jones-1984","image":"/assets/imgs/works/halo-p376-afa548.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["space","identity","war"],"title":"The Ballad of Halo Jones","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_Halo_Jones","year":1984},{"by":"Masamune Shirow","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Two soldiers in a utopian city run by bioroids and a supercomputer. Shirow's debut, already full of the hardware detail he became known for.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/appleseed-1985","id":"appleseed-1985","image":"/assets/imgs/works/appleseed1-cover-dfd41d.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["utopia","ai","war"],"title":"Appleseed","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appleseed_(manga)","year":1985},{"by":"Yoshiki Takaya","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A schoolboy bonds with a symbiotic bio-armour, hunted by the Cronos Corporation's engineered Zoanoids. Organic power armour in its purest form.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/bio-booster-armor-guyver-1985","id":"bio-booster-armor-guyver-1985","image":"/assets/imgs/works/guyver-viz-manga-volume1-e8e6d6.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["body-mod","corporations"],"title":"Bio Booster Armor Guyver","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bio_Booster_Armor_Guyver","year":1985},{"by":"Thierry Cailleteau and Olivier Vatine","countries":["FR"],"desc":"An orphan grows up among the natives of a water planet and defends it against colonial exploitation. A French bande dessinée that won at Angoulême.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/aquablue-1988","id":"aquablue-1988","image":"/assets/imgs/works/aquablue-oldcover-d4f1c4.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["ocean","colonies","ecology"],"title":"Aquablue","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquablue","year":1988},{"by":"Jamie Hewlett & Alan Martin","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A foul-mouthed tank driver in a surreal Australian outback. Born in <em>Deadline</em> magazine, it is the genre's punk-zine incarnation.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/tank-girl-1988","id":"tank-girl-1988","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-tank-girl-logo-1b1ae4.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["post-apocalypse","rebellion"],"title":"Tank Girl","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Girl","year":1988},{"by":"Masamune Shirow","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Major Kusanagi and Section 9 in Shirow's original manga, packed with technical footnotes and humor the films left out.","essential":true,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/ghost-in-the-shell-manga-1989","id":"ghost-in-the-shell-manga-1989","image":"/assets/imgs/works/ghost-in-the-shell-bbea9c.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["ai","cyberspace","body-mod","identity"],"title":"Ghost in the Shell (manga)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell_(manga)","year":1989},{"by":"Augustyn & Mignola","countries":["US"],"desc":"A Victorian Batman hunts Jack the Ripper. The one-shot that launched DC's Elseworlds line and a whole school of gaslit superhero stories.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/gotham-by-gaslight-1989","id":"gotham-by-gaslight-1989","image":"/assets/imgs/works/gotham-by-gaslight-408172.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["alt-history","noir"],"title":"Gotham by Gaslight","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotham_by_Gaslight","year":1989},{"by":"Hitoshi Iwaaki","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Alien parasites take over human heads, but one only gets as far as a boy's right hand. The classic body-horror manga about cohabiting with another organism.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/parasyte-1989","id":"parasyte-1989","image":"/assets/imgs/works/parasyte-4-5b37a7.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["body-mod","identity"],"title":"Parasyte","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasyte","year":1989},{"by":"Neil Gaiman","countries":["US","GB"],"desc":"Dream of the Endless, lord of sleep, rebuilds his realm after decades of captivity. The great comics epic about sleep, dreaming and the stories that happen while the world rests.","descs":{"lunapunk":"Dream of the Endless, lord of sleep, rebuilds his realm after decades of captivity. The great comics epic about sleep, dreaming and the stories that happen while the world rests.","psychopunk":"Morpheus, lord of the Dreaming, rules the realm every mind visits nightly. Dark fantasy, but its dreamscapes shaped how comics picture the inner world."},"essential":false,"families":["lunapunk","psychopunk"],"href":"/work/the-sandman-1989","id":"the-sandman-1989","image":"/assets/imgs/works/sandman-no-1-modern-age-comiccover-90460f.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["myth","mind"],"title":"The Sandman","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sandman_(comic_book)","year":1989},{"by":"Yukito Kishiro","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A cyborg girl is pulled from a scrap heap below a floating city and becomes a bounty hunter. A key manga of class and body.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/battle-angel-alita-1990","id":"battle-angel-alita-1990","image":"/assets/imgs/works/battle-angel-alita-vol01-db277b.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["body-mod","identity","cities"],"title":"Battle Angel Alita","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Angel_Alita","year":1990},{"by":"Frank Miller & Geof Darrow","countries":["US"],"desc":"A tax collector learns he is a robot in a future Los Angeles drawn in insane detail. Eisner-winning ultraviolent satire.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/hard-boiled-1990","id":"hard-boiled-1990","image":"/assets/imgs/works/hard-boiled-tpb-cover-e1fc30.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["machines","identity","cities"],"title":"Hard Boiled","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_Boiled_(comics)","year":1990},{"by":"Peter Milligan & Chris Bachalo","countries":["US"],"desc":"A poet from another world wears the Madness Vest and walks through an America made of its own collective hallucinations.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/shade-the-changing-man-1990","id":"shade-the-changing-man-1990","image":"/assets/imgs/works/shade-the-changing-man-1-deaf86.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["mind"],"title":"Shade, the Changing Man","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shade,_the_Changing_Man_(Vertigo)","year":1990},{"by":"Naoko Takeuchi","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A schoolgirl learns she is the heir of the ancient Moon Kingdom. Adjacent, magical-girl action, but it gave a generation its iconography of crescents, moon princesses and lunar cats.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/sailor-moon-1991","id":"sailor-moon-1991","image":"/assets/imgs/works/smvolume1-9d7187.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["myth","space"],"title":"Sailor Moon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailor_Moon","year":1991},{"by":"Mike Mignola","countries":["US"],"desc":"A demon summoned by Nazi occultists in 1944 grows up to work for the good guys. Mignola's heavy blacks made Weird World War II a house style.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/hellboy-seed-of-destruction-1994","id":"hellboy-seed-of-destruction-1994","image":"/assets/imgs/works/hellboy-sod-tpb-cover-dad005.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["myth","war","alt-history"],"title":"Hellboy: Seed of Destruction","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellboy:_Seed_of_Destruction","year":1994},{"by":"Kia Asamiya","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A boy detective, his nurse partner and a steam-powered robot patrol a soot-black retro city. Classic shonen steampunk manga.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/steam-detectives-1994","id":"steam-detectives-1994","image":"/assets/imgs/works/steam-detectives-manga-02-cover-7b3591.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["machines","retro-future"],"title":"Steam Detectives","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Detectives","year":1994},{"by":"Grant Morrison","countries":["US","GB"],"desc":"An anarchist cell fights a reality-controlling conspiracy with magick, drugs and time travel. Psychopunk as a guerrilla manual.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/the-invisibles-1994","id":"the-invisibles-1994","image":"/assets/imgs/works/v2-1-a705b9.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["rebellion","mind"],"title":"The Invisibles","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invisibles","year":1994},{"by":"Hitoshi Ashinano","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A robot runs a quiet café while the seas rise and humanity gently dwindles. The twilight of the world as calm rather than catastrophe, a key iyashikei text.","descs":{"apocapunk":"An android runs a coffee shop on a sinking, gently depopulated coast. The definitive 'cozy apocalypse', winner of the 2007 Seiun Award.","lunapunk":"A robot runs a quiet café while the seas rise and humanity gently dwindles. The twilight of the world as calm rather than catastrophe, a key iyashikei text.","solarpunk":"An android runs a café on a quiet coast as the seas rise and humanity gently winds down. Adjacent: a post-collapse slice of life whose calm attentiveness readers often call solarpunk."},"essential":false,"families":["lunapunk","solarpunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/yokohama-kaidashi-kikou-1994","id":"yokohama-kaidashi-kikou-1994","image":"/assets/imgs/works/yokohama-kaidashi-kik-volume-1-332c6a.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["climate","post-apocalypse","machines"],"title":"Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokohama_Kaidashi_Kikou","year":1994},{"by":"Charles Burns","countries":["US"],"desc":"A sexually transmitted plague gives 1970s Seattle teenagers bizarre mutations. Adjacent: no lab, but some of the most powerful mutation imagery in comics.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/black-hole-1995","id":"black-hole-1995","image":"/assets/imgs/works/blackholecover-13e570.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["body-mod","identity"],"title":"Black Hole","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hole_(comics)","year":1995},{"by":"Tsutomu Nihei","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A silent wanderer crosses an endless megastructure built by machines that forgot their purpose. Architecture as horror.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/blame-1997","id":"blame-1997","image":"/assets/imgs/works/blame-manga-vol-1-405d07.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["cities","machines","cyberspace"],"title":"Blame!","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blame!","year":1997},{"by":"Warren Ellis & Darick Robertson","countries":["US"],"desc":"A gonzo journalist takes on two presidents in a transhuman city. Cyberpunk as political journalism.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/transmetropolitan-1997","id":"transmetropolitan-1997","image":"/assets/imgs/works/transmetropolitan-2-be91cf.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["cities","body-mod","corporations"],"title":"Transmetropolitan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmetropolitan","year":1997},{"by":"Junji Ito","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A town is consumed by an obsession with spirals. Horror more than psychopunk, but no work captures perceptual contagion so viscerally.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/uzumaki-1998","id":"uzumaki-1998","image":"/assets/imgs/works/uzumaki-cfad41.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["mind","myth"],"title":"Uzumaki","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uzumaki","year":1998},{"by":"Greg Rucka, Steve Lieber","countries":["US"],"desc":"A U.S. Marshal investigates a murder at an Antarctic base. Black-and-white art that makes the ice into a crime scene.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/whiteout-1998","id":"whiteout-1998","image":"/assets/imgs/works/new-whiteout-tpb-3c2be1.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["cold","noir"],"title":"Whiteout","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiteout_(comic_book)","year":1998},{"by":"Yuki Urushibara","countries":["JP"],"desc":"The source manga: a wandering mushi-master studies the faintly luminous life-forms that live between folklore and biology. Ecology, illness and the unseen, drawn at a walking pace.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/mushishi-1999","id":"mushishi-1999","image":"/assets/imgs/works/mushishi-volume-1-35c5ba.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["myth","ecology"],"title":"Mushishi","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushishi","year":1999},{"by":"Makoto Yukimura","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Space-debris collectors in 2075, the garbage crews of orbit. The most grounded working-class space story in manga.","descs":{"lunapunk":"Space-debris collectors in 2075 dream of the Moon and beyond. Adjacent: working-class orbital SF, but it treats space as a workplace and the Moon as a dream worth chasing.","spacepunk":"Space-debris collectors in 2075, the garbage crews of orbit. The most grounded working-class space story in manga."},"essential":true,"families":["spacepunk","lunapunk"],"href":"/work/planetes-1999","id":"planetes-1999","image":"/assets/imgs/works/planetes-manga-vol-1-426f4e.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["space"],"title":"Planetes","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes","year":1999},{"by":"Alan Moore","countries":["US"],"desc":"A student embodies a story-goddess and tours the Immateria, the realm of imagination, through the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. Consciousness as a map.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/promethea-1999","id":"promethea-1999","image":"/assets/imgs/works/promethea-334388.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["myth","mind"],"title":"Promethea","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promethea","year":1999},{"by":"Moore & O'Neill","countries":["GB","US"],"desc":"Mina Murray, Nemo, Quatermain, Jekyll and Griffin as an imperial secret service. A dense, sardonic map of Victorian popular fiction.","essential":true,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/the-league-of-extraordinary-gentlemen-1999","id":"the-league-of-extraordinary-gentlemen-1999","image":"/assets/imgs/works/league-of-extraordinary-gentlemen-absolute-edition-vol-1-cov-f370d7.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["alt-history","retro-future"],"title":"The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_League_of_Extraordinary_Gentlemen","year":1999},{"by":"Alan Moore & Chris Sprouse","countries":["US"],"desc":"A pulp science hero born in 1899 who keeps protecting a deco Millennium City. Moore's affectionate homage to Doc Savage and the pulp century.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/tom-strong-1999","id":"tom-strong-1999","image":"","medium":"comics","themes":["retro-future","cities"],"title":"Tom Strong","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Strong","year":1999},{"by":"Juan Díaz Canales & Juanjo Guarnido","countries":["ES","FR"],"desc":"An anthropomorphic black cat detective in 1950s America, in painted, cinematic pages. Some of the most beautiful noir comics ever made.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/blacksad-2000","id":"blacksad-2000","image":"/assets/imgs/works/blacksad-vol-1-4e3f28.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["noir"],"title":"Blacksad","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacksad","year":2000},{"by":"Yasuo Ohtagaki","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Two climbers chase space by different routes; one becomes a construction worker building on the Moon. Spaceflight seen through hard hats and contracts.","descs":{"lunapunk":"Two climbers chase their dream to the Moon through a near-future lunar resource race. Adjacent: the Moon as frontier, read for its longing more than its politics.","spacepunk":"Two climbers chase space by different routes; one becomes a construction worker building on the Moon. Spaceflight seen through hard hats and contracts."},"essential":false,"families":["spacepunk","lunapunk"],"href":"/work/moonlight-mile-2000","id":"moonlight-mile-2000","image":"/assets/imgs/works/moonlight-mile-1-ce5446.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["space"],"title":"Moonlight Mile","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlight_Mile_(manga)","year":2000},{"by":"Kozue Amano","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Gondoliers in Neo-Venezia, a rebuilt Venice on a terraformed, water-covered Mars. The calmest drowned city in fiction.","descs":{"hydropunk":"Gondoliers in Neo-Venezia, a rebuilt Venice on a terraformed, water-covered Mars. The calmest drowned city in fiction.","lunapunk":"Gondoliers in Neo-Venezia on a terraformed Mars learn to slow down and notice things. Not lunar, but the iyashikei masterpiece of rest; adapted as an anime from 2005.","solarpunk":"Gondoliers guide visitors through Neo-Venezia on a terraformed, water-covered Mars. Adjacent: cozy, slow and full of craft, with an anime adaptation from 2005."},"essential":false,"families":["hydropunk","lunapunk","solarpunk"],"href":"/work/aria-2001","id":"aria-2001","image":"/assets/imgs/works/aria-1-manga-cover-4e4f20.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["ocean","utopia","colonies"],"title":"Aria","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aria_(manga)","year":2001},{"by":"Hiromu Arakawa","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Two brothers, alchemy and automail prosthetics in an industrial, early 20th-century-styled military state. Steampunk-adjacent, and one of the most loved manga ever.","descs":{"dieselpunk":"Two brothers, one in a suit of armour, inside a militarised state modelled on early 20th-century Europe. Alchemy replaces diesel, but the trains, uniforms and state crimes are pure genre.","steampunk":"Two brothers, alchemy and automail prosthetics in an industrial, early 20th-century-styled military state. Steampunk-adjacent, and one of the most loved manga ever."},"essential":false,"families":["steampunk","dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/fullmetal-alchemist-2001","id":"fullmetal-alchemist-2001","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fullmetal123-41f57b.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["body-mod","war","myth"],"title":"Fullmetal Alchemist","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fullmetal_Alchemist","year":2001},{"by":"Phil & Kaja Foglio","countries":["US"],"desc":"Gaslamp fantasy of mad-scientist dynasties, clanks and Heterodyne heirs. Three-time Hugo winner for Best Graphic Story and a webcomic institution.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/girl-genius-2001","id":"girl-genius-2001","image":"/assets/imgs/works/girlgeniuspromopic-384ed4.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["machines","alt-history"],"title":"Girl Genius","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_Genius","year":2001},{"by":"Junji Ito","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Fish walk ashore on machine legs driven by a wartime germ weapon. Ito's grotesque fusion of disease, gas and gears.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/gyo-2001","id":"gyo-2001","image":"/assets/imgs/works/gyo-volume-1-be94bc.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["genetics","ocean"],"title":"Gyo","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyo","year":2001},{"by":"Steve Niles, Ben Templesmith","countries":["US"],"desc":"Vampires descend on Barrow, Alaska for its month without sunrise. Templesmith's smeared, icy art defined the look of the polar-night horror.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/30-days-of-night-2002","id":"30-days-of-night-2002","image":"/assets/imgs/works/30daysofnightcover-89aed5.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["cold","night"],"title":"30 Days of Night","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_Days_of_Night","year":2002},{"by":"Edginton & D'Israeli","countries":["GB"],"desc":"What happened after <em>The War of the Worlds</em>: Britain reverse-engineers Martian technology and becomes something worse. Sharp post-Wellsian satire.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/scarlet-traces-2002","id":"scarlet-traces-2002","image":"/assets/imgs/works/scarlet-traces-hardcover-5791bb.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["alt-history","war"],"title":"Scarlet Traces","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarlet_Traces","year":2002},{"by":"Brian K. Vaughan & Pia Guerra","countries":["US"],"desc":"Every mammal with a Y chromosome dies except one man and his monkey. A Vertigo series about how a world reorganizes when half of it is gone.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/y-the-last-man-2002","id":"y-the-last-man-2002","image":"/assets/imgs/works/y-the-last-man-134562.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["post-apocalypse","identity","genetics"],"title":"Y: The Last Man","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y:_The_Last_Man","year":2002},{"by":"Yuki Midorikawa","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A boy who can see yokai returns the names his grandmother bound into a book. Folklore, kindness and dusk in the countryside.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/natsume-s-book-of-friends-2003","id":"natsume-s-book-of-friends-2003","image":"/assets/imgs/works/natsume-s-book-of-friends-1-35ad67.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["myth"],"title":"Natsume's Book of Friends","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natsume's_Book_of_Friends","year":2003},{"by":"Naoki Urasawa","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Urasawa reworks an Astro Boy story into a slow, adult thriller about robots, war and grief. Proof the Atomic Age robot still has new stories in it.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/pluto-2003","id":"pluto-2003","image":"/assets/imgs/works/pluto-manga-1-e0d7b1.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["ai","war"],"title":"Pluto","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto:_Urasawa_x_Tezuka","year":2003},{"by":"Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore & Charlie Adlard","countries":["US"],"desc":"The 193-issue black-and-white comic behind the TV empire, more focused on the rebuilding of towns and laws than on the zombies.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/the-walking-dead-2003","id":"the-walking-dead-2003","image":"/assets/imgs/works/walkingdead1-529f1e.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"The Walking Dead","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walking_Dead_(comic_book)","year":2003},{"by":"Tsutomu Nihei","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A synthetic human on a motorcycle races to find people immune to the N5S virus that turns the infected into drones. Megastructures and mutated flesh in Nihei's stark style.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/biomega-2004","id":"biomega-2004","image":"/assets/imgs/works/biomega-volume-1-cover-f88fdc.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["genetics","post-apocalypse"],"title":"Biomega","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomega_(manga)","year":2004},{"by":"Warren Ellis and Chris Sprouse","countries":["US"],"desc":"A UN weapons inspector finds ancient coffins under the ice of Europa's ocean. Wildstorm hard science fiction with a subsea core.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/ocean-2004","id":"ocean-2004","image":"/assets/imgs/works/warren-elliis-ocean-1-cover-bf2f5f.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["space","ocean"],"title":"Ocean","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_(comics)","year":2004},{"by":"Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely","countries":["US"],"desc":"Three pets turned into armoured military prototypes escape the lab. Adjacent cyborg story, but its core is the cruelty of weaponising animals.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/we3-2004","id":"we3-2004","image":"/assets/imgs/works/we3-trade-paperback-aaab2d.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["body-mod","war"],"title":"We3","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We3","year":2004},{"by":"Daisuke Igarashi","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A girl, two boys raised in the sea and a global mystery of vanishing fish. A mesmerising manga about the ocean as origin.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/children-of-the-sea-2005","id":"children-of-the-sea-2005","image":"/assets/imgs/works/childrenofthesea-vol01-cover-80fa05.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["ocean","myth"],"title":"Children of the Sea","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_the_Sea_(manga)","year":2005},{"by":"Fraction & Sanders","countries":["US"],"desc":"Nikola Tesla and Mark Twain build giant robots to end war, against Edison and a cabal of robber barons. Gleeful Teslapunk.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/the-five-fists-of-science-2006","id":"the-five-fists-of-science-2006","image":"","medium":"comics","themes":["alt-history","machines"],"title":"The Five Fists of Science","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_Fists_of_Science","year":2006},{"by":"Brian Clevinger & Scott Wegener","countries":["US"],"desc":"A robot built by Nikola Tesla fights weird science from the 1920s onward. Adjacent: lighter than most of the genre, but full of diesel-era action science.","descs":{"atompunk":"A robot built by Nikola Tesla fights weird science across the 20th century. A cheerful, pulpy atompunk comic.","dieselpunk":"A robot built by Nikola Tesla fights weird science from the 1920s onward. Adjacent: lighter than most of the genre, but full of diesel-era action science."},"essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk","atompunk"],"href":"/work/atomic-robo-2007","id":"atomic-robo-2007","image":"/assets/imgs/works/atomicrobo-746b28.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["ai","retro-future","alt-history"],"title":"Atomic Robo","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_Robo","year":2007},{"by":"Tomonori Inoue","countries":["JP"],"desc":"The source manga, serialized until 2016: a contaminated, abandoned Tokyo explored by genetically engineered rescuers.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/coppelion-2008","id":"coppelion-2008","image":"/assets/imgs/works/coppelion-vol-1-9c2032.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["nuclear","post-apocalypse","genetics"],"title":"Coppelion","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coppelion","year":2008},{"by":"Bryan Talbot","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A badger detective inspector in an anthropomorphic Napoleonic empire. Talbot's homage to the French illustrator J. J. Grandville.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/grandville-2009","id":"grandville-2009","image":"/assets/imgs/works/grandville-comics-cc831b.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["alt-history","noir"],"title":"Grandville","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandville_(comics)","year":2009},{"by":"Tsutomu Nihei","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Adjacent: life aboard a cramped, ancient seed ship, seen through an under-dweller who becomes a pilot. Nihei's industrial megastructure style applied to a generation ship.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/knights-of-sidonia-2009","id":"knights-of-sidonia-2009","image":"/assets/imgs/works/knights-of-sidonia-vol-1-14d7e0.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["space","colonies","war"],"title":"Knights of Sidonia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_of_Sidonia","year":2009},{"by":"Jeff Lemire","countries":["US"],"desc":"A deer-antlered hybrid boy crosses a post-plague America. The Vertigo series behind the Netflix show.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/sweet-tooth-2009","id":"sweet-tooth-2009","image":"/assets/imgs/works/sweet-tooth-01-cov1-3aa24a.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["genetics","post-apocalypse"],"title":"Sweet Tooth","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Tooth_(Vertigo)","year":2009},{"by":"Joe Benitez","countries":["US"],"desc":"A woman with mechanical limbs hunts the truth of her own past in a steampunk Mechanika City. A flagship modern steampunk comic.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/lady-mechanika-2010","id":"lady-mechanika-2010","image":"/assets/imgs/works/ladymechanika-bc8f21.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["body-mod","identity"],"title":"Lady Mechanika","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Mechanika","year":2010},{"by":"Jonathan Hickman & Nick Pitarra","countries":["US"],"desc":"Alternate history in which the Manhattan Project was a front for much stranger science, with Oppenheimer, von Braun and Feynman as mad scientists. Atompunk as gonzo conspiracy.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/the-manhattan-projects-2012","id":"the-manhattan-projects-2012","image":"","medium":"comics","themes":["alt-history","nuclear"],"title":"The Manhattan Projects","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manhattan_Projects","year":2012},{"by":"Scott Snyder and Sean Murphy","countries":["US"],"desc":"A marine biologist is taken to a secret rig where something from the deep is being held, and the story jumps two centuries into a drowned future. Eisner-winning Vertigo horror.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/the-wake-2013","id":"the-wake-2013","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-5-22-24scottsnyderbyluiginovi1-fee131.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["ocean","myth"],"title":"The Wake","url":"https://www.dc.com/blog/2014/11/10/vertigo-for-the-dc-fan-the-wake-by-scott-snyder-and-sean-murphy","year":2013},{"by":"Kieron Gillen","countries":["US"],"desc":"In 1945 the Reich deploys superhuman soldiers and the war does not end. Superheroes treated as strategic weapons, with all the horror that implies.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/uber-2013","id":"uber-2013","image":"/assets/imgs/works/avataruberno23cover-453bb7.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["war","alt-history"],"title":"Über","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Cber_(comics)","year":2013},{"by":"Tsukumizu","countries":["JP"],"desc":"The manga original: Chito and Yuuri wander a post-apocalyptic winter. Quiet, funny and mournful, it won the Seiun Award for best comic.","descs":{"apocapunk":"The original web manga, serialized until 2018. Minimal art, endless ruins, and two characters asking what meaning is left.","frostpunk":"The manga original: Chito and Yuuri wander a post-apocalyptic winter. Quiet, funny and mournful, it won the Seiun Award for best comic."},"essential":false,"families":["frostpunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/girls-last-tour-2014","id":"girls-last-tour-2014","image":"/assets/imgs/works/girls-last-tour-volume-1-eed356.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["post-apocalypse","cold"],"title":"Girls' Last Tour","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girls%27_Last_Tour","year":2014},{"by":"Rick Remender and Greg Tocchini","countries":["US"],"desc":"With the sun about to expand, humanity hides in undersea cities while one woman insists on hope. Image Comics, gorgeously drawn.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/low-2014","id":"low-2014","image":"/assets/imgs/works/low-no-1-cover-page-52a243.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["ocean","survival"],"title":"Low","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_(comics)","year":2014},{"by":"Atsushi Ohkubo","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Special fire brigades fight Infernals, people who have spontaneously combusted, in a future Tokyo with its own fire religion. Pyropunk's most complete manga world.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/fire-force-2015","id":"fire-force-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fire-force-volume-1-5061b7.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["fire"],"title":"Fire Force","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_Force","year":2015},{"by":"Sydney Padua","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage build the Analytical Engine and fight crime, with footnotes drawn from real sources. Funny, learned and loving.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/the-thrilling-adventures-of-lovelace-and-babbage-2015","id":"the-thrilling-adventures-of-lovelace-and-babbage-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-thrilling-adventures-of-lovelace-and-babbage-1cdf29.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["alt-history","machines"],"title":"The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thrilling_Adventures_of_Lovelace_and_Babbage","year":2015},{"by":"Tatsuki Fujimoto","countries":["JP"],"desc":"An Ice Witch has frozen the world into endless winter, and a man who burns forever drags his fire through the snow. Ferocious, nihilistic manga that fuses frost and ember literally.","descs":{"frostpunk":"An Ice Witch has frozen the world into endless winter, and a man who burns forever drags his fire through the snow. Ferocious, nihilistic manga that fuses frost and ember literally.","pyropunk":"On a frozen Earth, a man who regenerates is set alight by unquenchable flame and left burning forever. Fire as agony, revenge and spectacle."},"essential":false,"families":["frostpunk","pyropunk"],"href":"/work/fire-punch-2016","id":"fire-punch-2016","image":"/assets/imgs/works/firepunch12-6e80c6.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["cold","fire","survival"],"title":"Fire Punch","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_Punch","year":2016},{"by":"Riichiro Inagaki & Boichi","countries":["JP"],"desc":"The Weekly Shonen Jump original, which turns every chapter into a lesson in rebuilding a technology from raw materials.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/dr-stone-2017","id":"dr-stone-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/doctor-stone-bb7929.webp","medium":"comics","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"Dr. Stone","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Stone","year":2017},{"by":"Suzanne Walker and Wendy Xu","countries":["US"],"desc":"A young witch and her werewolf childhood friend investigate the forest at night. A soft, queer, witchy graphic novel that sits right on the lunarpunk aesthetic.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/mooncakes-2019","id":"mooncakes-2019","image":"","medium":"comics","themes":["myth","identity","night"],"title":"Mooncakes","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mooncakes_(graphic_novel)","year":2019},{"by":"Georges Méliès","countries":["FR"],"desc":"Top-hatted astronomers fired at the Moon from a cannon, after Verne. Proto-steampunk cinema, and the film at the heart of <em>Hugo</em>.","descs":{"lunapunk":"The rocket in the Moon's eye. The first great lunar film treats the Moon as a stage for dream and theatre rather than conquest.","steampunk":"Top-hatted astronomers fired at the Moon from a cannon, after Verne. Proto-steampunk cinema, and the film at the heart of <em>Hugo</em>."},"essential":true,"families":["steampunk","lunapunk"],"href":"/work/a-trip-to-the-moon-1902","id":"a-trip-to-the-moon-1902","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-voyage-dans-la-lune-title-card-b32216.webp","medium":"film","themes":["space","retro-future","myth"],"title":"A Trip to the Moon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Trip_to_the_Moon","year":1902},{"by":"Stuart Paton","countries":["US"],"desc":"The first feature to film real underwater scenes, using the Williamson brothers' photosphere in the Bahamas. Hydropunk cinema begins here, with a camera in a tube.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/20-000-leagues-under-the-sea-1916","id":"20-000-leagues-under-the-sea-1916","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-20-000-leagues-under-the-sea-movie-ad-newspaper1917-8df3e3.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ocean","machines"],"title":"20,000 Leagues Under the Sea","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20,000_Leagues_Under_the_Sea_(1916_film)","year":1916},{"by":"Fritz Lang","countries":["DE"],"desc":"The genre's original image: a vertical megacity, a workers' underworld, a mad inventor's robot. Still unmatched.","essential":true,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/metropolis-1927","id":"metropolis-1927","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-metropolis-german-three-sheet-poster-5b7ab4.webp","medium":"film","themes":["cities","machines","rebellion","dystopia"],"title":"Metropolis","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_%281927_film%29","year":1927},{"by":"Fritz Lang","countries":["DE"],"desc":"One of the first serious science fiction films about spaceflight, imagining a journey to the far side of the Moon. Adjacent: a rocket film, but the root of the cinematic lunar journey.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/woman-in-the-moon-1929","id":"woman-in-the-moon-1929","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-frau-im-mond-aab13f.webp","medium":"film","themes":["space","retro-future"],"title":"Woman in the Moon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman_in_the_Moon","year":1929},{"by":"Erle C. Kenton","countries":["US"],"desc":"The first great Moreau adaptation, with Charles Laughton as the surgeon of the House of Pain. Pre-Code body horror that still unsettles.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/island-of-lost-souls-1932","id":"island-of-lost-souls-1932","image":"/assets/imgs/works/island-of-lost-souls-1933-one-sheet-c61400.webp","medium":"film","themes":["genetics","body-mod"],"title":"Island of Lost Souls","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_Lost_Souls_(1932_film)","year":1932},{"by":"Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack","countries":["US"],"desc":"A tramp steamer, a lost island, the Empire State Building. The diesel-era adventure film that fixed the skyscraper as the stage for spectacle.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/king-kong-1933","id":"king-kong-1933","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-kingkongposter-1b65df.webp","medium":"film","themes":["myth","cities"],"title":"King Kong","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Kong_(1933_film)","year":1933},{"by":"Universal Pictures","countries":["US"],"desc":"The cliffhanger serial in its purest form: rocket ships on wires, a tyrant emperor, a hero with a jaw. The grammar Sky Captain and Indiana Jones copy on purpose.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/flash-gordon-1936","id":"flash-gordon-1936","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-flash-gordon-serial-234e33.webp","medium":"film","themes":["space","retro-future"],"title":"Flash Gordon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_Gordon_(serial)","year":1936},{"by":"William Cameron Menzies","countries":["GB"],"desc":"H. G. Wells scripted this vision of a world war, a collapse and a gleaming technocratic rebirth. A period blueprint for Ottensian, optimistic dieselpunk.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/things-to-come-1936","id":"things-to-come-1936","image":"/assets/imgs/works/things-to-come-uk-poster-ee203f.webp","medium":"film","themes":["war","utopia","retro-future","cities"],"title":"Things to Come","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Things_to_Come","year":1936},{"by":"Republic Pictures","countries":["US"],"desc":"A twelve-chapter serial in which a naval officer and a scientist's rocket-submarine reach a warring Atlantis. Pulp Atlantis at its most cheerfully absurd.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/undersea-kingdom-1936","id":"undersea-kingdom-1936","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-underseakingdomserial-5cba37.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ocean","retro-future"],"title":"Undersea Kingdom","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undersea_Kingdom","year":1936},{"by":"Charles Frend","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A faithful dramatization of Scott's doomed polar journey of 1912, with a score by Vaughan Williams. The heroic-age expedition as tragedy.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/scott-of-the-antarctic-1948","id":"scott-of-the-antarctic-1948","image":"/assets/imgs/works/scott-of-the-antarctic-film-poster-4bafa0.webp","medium":"film","themes":["cold","survival"],"title":"Scott of the Antarctic","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_of_the_Antarctic_(film)","year":1948},{"by":"Carol Reed","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Bombed-out Vienna, black markets, sewers and tilted cameras. The postwar noir that shows the diesel age's hangover.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/the-third-man-1949","id":"the-third-man-1949","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-the-third-man-1949-american-theatrical-poster-e35c38.webp","medium":"film","themes":["noir","cities","war"],"title":"The Third Man","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Man","year":1949},{"by":"Irving Pichel (dir.), George Pal (prod.)","countries":["US"],"desc":"The first big American film to treat a Moon flight as engineering, with Chesley Bonestell paintings and Heinlein as co-writer. The Atomic Age space race begins on screen.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/destination-moon-1950","id":"destination-moon-1950","image":"/assets/imgs/works/destination-moon-movie-poster-md-e3fcc2.webp","medium":"film","themes":["space","retro-future"],"title":"Destination Moon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destination_Moon_(film)","year":1950},{"by":"Kurt Neumann","countries":["US"],"desc":"Rushed out to beat <em>Destination Moon</em>, its crew lands on a Mars wrecked by its own atomic war. An early Bomb warning disguised as a space adventure.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/rocketship-x-m-1950","id":"rocketship-x-m-1950","image":"/assets/imgs/works/201-rocketshipxm-4b96f5.webp","medium":"film","themes":["space","nuclear"],"title":"Rocketship X-M","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocketship_X-M","year":1950},{"by":"Robert Wise","countries":["US"],"desc":"Klaatu, Gort, a saucer in Washington. Atompunk's first warning shot at itself.","essential":true,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/the-day-the-earth-stood-still-1951","id":"the-day-the-earth-stood-still-1951","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-the-day-the-earth-stood-still-1951-poster-16fad5.webp","medium":"film","themes":["nuclear","machines","space"],"title":"The Day the Earth Stood Still","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Earth_Stood_Still","year":1951},{"by":"Christian Nyby","countries":["US"],"desc":"The first screen version of Campbell's novella: an Arctic outpost, a thawed visitor, and Cold War nerves. The polar station enters cinema.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/the-thing-from-another-world-1951","id":"the-thing-from-another-world-1951","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-the-thing-from-another-world-1951-poster-b1debe.webp","medium":"film","themes":["cold","survival"],"title":"The Thing from Another World","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_from_Another_World","year":1951},{"by":"Anthony Rizzo, Archer Productions","countries":["US"],"desc":"The civil-defence short in which Bert the Turtle teaches schoolchildren to hide under their desks. The single most recognisable artefact of everyday nuclear fear.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/duck-and-cover-1952","id":"duck-and-cover-1952","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-bert2-deec54.webp","medium":"film","themes":["nuclear","retro-future"],"title":"Duck and Cover","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_and_Cover_(film)","year":1952},{"by":"John Sutherland","countries":["US"],"desc":"An animated General Electric promotional film explaining the friendly atom. The corporate, sponsor-funded face of the period, now in the public domain.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/a-is-for-atom-1953","id":"a-is-for-atom-1953","image":"/assets/imgs/works/250px-a-is-for-atom-1953-webm-bd2781.webp","medium":"film","themes":["nuclear","retro-future"],"title":"A Is for Atom","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Is_for_Atom","year":1953},{"by":"William Cameron Menzies","countries":["US"],"desc":"A boy watches a saucer land behind his house and the adults turn strange one by one. Saucer-age paranoia seen from child height.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/invaders-from-mars-1953","id":"invaders-from-mars-1953","image":"/assets/imgs/works/invaders-from-mars-1953-poster-c36be4.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind","war"],"title":"Invaders from Mars","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invaders_from_Mars_(1953_film)","year":1953},{"by":"Eugène Lourié","countries":["US"],"desc":"A dinosaur thawed by an Arctic bomb test swims south to New York. Ray Harryhausen's stop motion, loosely drawn from Bradbury, sets up the atomic sea-monster cycle.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/the-beast-from-20-000-fathoms-1953","id":"the-beast-from-20-000-fathoms-1953","image":"/assets/imgs/works/beast-from-20-000-fathoms-poster-f0b74b.webp","medium":"film","themes":["nuclear","ocean","myth"],"title":"The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beast_from_20,000_Fathoms","year":1953},{"by":"Byron Haskin","countries":["US"],"desc":"George Pal moves Wells to 1950s California, where even an atomic bomb fails against the Martian war machines. Technicolor saucers and Cold War dread.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/the-war-of-the-worlds-1953","id":"the-war-of-the-worlds-1953","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-the-war-of-the-worlds-1953-film-poster-7ae654.webp","medium":"film","themes":["war","space","machines"],"title":"The War of the Worlds","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_(1953_film)","year":1953},{"by":"Richard Fleischer","countries":["US"],"desc":"Disney's riveted, ornate <em>Nautilus</em>, designed by Harper Goff, fixed the look of the steampunk submarine for decades.","descs":{"hydropunk":"Disney's Technicolor adaptation with James Mason as Nemo and Harper Goff's riveted, organ-fitted Nautilus. For most people this <em>is</em> what a submarine from the past looks like.","steampunk":"Disney's riveted, ornate <em>Nautilus</em>, designed by Harper Goff, fixed the look of the steampunk submarine for decades."},"essential":true,"families":["steampunk","hydropunk"],"href":"/work/20-000-leagues-under-the-sea-1954","id":"20-000-leagues-under-the-sea-1954","image":"/assets/imgs/works/20000leaguesposter-a1721c.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ocean","machines","retro-future"],"title":"20,000 Leagues Under the Sea","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20,000_Leagues_Under_the_Sea_(1954_film)","year":1954},{"by":"Ishirō Honda","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Japan answers the Atomic Age with a monster woken by H-bomb tests. Grave, mournful, and the most important nuclear allegory ever filmed.","essential":true,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/godzilla-1954","id":"godzilla-1954","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-gojira-1954-japanese-poster-229e8e.webp","medium":"film","themes":["nuclear","myth","war"],"title":"Godzilla","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla_(1954_film)","year":1954},{"by":"Gordon Douglas","countries":["US"],"desc":"Nuclear tests in New Mexico breed giant ants. The founding film of the radiation-monster cycle.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/them-1954","id":"them-1954","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-them-cropped-b97761.webp","medium":"film","themes":["nuclear","genetics"],"title":"Them!","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Them!","year":1954},{"by":"Byron Haskin","countries":["US"],"desc":"George Pal's wheel-shaped space station and Mars mission, built on the von Braun and Bonestell vision of spaceflight. The Collier's magazine future, put on film.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/conquest-of-space-1955","id":"conquest-of-space-1955","image":"/assets/imgs/works/conquest-of-space-poster-01-6637f0.webp","medium":"film","themes":["space","colonies"],"title":"Conquest of Space","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquest_of_Space","year":1955},{"by":"Robert Aldrich","countries":["US"],"desc":"Film noir in which everyone is chasing a box that turns out to hold glowing nuclear material. The Bomb as the ultimate McGuffin.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/kiss-me-deadly-1955","id":"kiss-me-deadly-1955","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-kiss-me-deadly-1955-standard-one-sheet-4c0f4e.webp","medium":"film","themes":["noir","nuclear"],"title":"Kiss Me Deadly","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiss_Me_Deadly","year":1955},{"by":"Joseph M. Newman","countries":["US"],"desc":"Scientists are recruited by aliens through a mysterious kit of interocitor parts. Bright Technicolor saucers and a dying world at war.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/this-island-earth-1955","id":"this-island-earth-1955","image":"/assets/imgs/works/film1955-thisislandearth-originalposter-d8e392.webp","medium":"film","themes":["space","war"],"title":"This Island Earth","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Island_Earth","year":1955},{"by":"Fred F. Sears","countries":["US"],"desc":"Ray Harryhausen's spinning saucers attack Washington and crash into its monuments. The flying-saucer image at its most iconic.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/earth-vs-the-flying-saucers-1956","id":"earth-vs-the-flying-saucers-1956","image":"/assets/imgs/works/earth-vs-the-flying-saucers-dvd-747b4e.webp","medium":"film","themes":["war","space"],"title":"Earth vs. the Flying Saucers","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_vs._the_Flying_Saucers","year":1956},{"by":"Fred M. Wilcox","countries":["US"],"desc":"Robby the Robot, a Shakespearean plot, an entire planet of pure id. The single most atompunk film ever shot.","essential":true,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/forbidden-planet-1956","id":"forbidden-planet-1956","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-forbiddenplanetposter-0733e6.webp","medium":"film","themes":["space","machines","mind"],"title":"Forbidden Planet","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_Planet","year":1956},{"by":"Don Siegel","countries":["US"],"desc":"Seed pods replace a small town with emotionless copies. The defining paranoia film of the decade, read as anti-communist and anti-conformist alike.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/invasion-of-the-body-snatchers-1956","id":"invasion-of-the-body-snatchers-1956","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-invasion-of-the-body-snatchers-1956-poster-ecda84.webp","medium":"film","themes":["identity","surveillance"],"title":"Invasion of the Body Snatchers","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_the_Body_Snatchers","year":1956},{"by":"Jacques Cousteau and Louis Malle","countries":["FR"],"desc":"A documentary aboard the <em>Calypso</em> and one of the first films to show the depths in colour. Reality rather than fiction, but it gave the genre its colour palette and its aqualung divers.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/the-silent-world-1956","id":"the-silent-world-1956","image":"/assets/imgs/works/monde-silence-ff5249.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ocean"],"title":"The Silent World","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silent_World","year":1956},{"by":"Jack Arnold","countries":["US"],"desc":"A drift of radioactive mist makes a man shrink, day by day, until he faces his own cellar as a wilderness. The atomic accident as existential horror.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/the-incredible-shrinking-man-1957","id":"the-incredible-shrinking-man-1957","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-incredibleshrinkingman-poster-d9d258.webp","medium":"film","themes":["nuclear","identity"],"title":"The Incredible Shrinking Man","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incredible_Shrinking_Man","year":1957},{"by":"Karel Zeman","countries":["CZ"],"desc":"Zeman animated the engraved style of Verne's original illustrations, hatching and all. A Czech masterpiece that looks like a Victorian book come alive.","essential":true,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/invention-for-destruction-1958","id":"invention-for-destruction-1958","image":"/assets/imgs/works/vynalez-zkazy-1958-poster-f8ff96.webp","medium":"film","themes":["retro-future","machines","ocean"],"title":"Invention for Destruction","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention_for_Destruction","year":1958},{"by":"Stanley Kramer","countries":["US"],"desc":"Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner in the adaptation of Shute's novel. Hollywood takes the end of the world seriously.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/on-the-beach-1959","id":"on-the-beach-1959","image":"/assets/imgs/works/on-the-beach-1959-film-poster-4134d0.webp","medium":"film","themes":["nuclear","post-apocalypse"],"title":"On the Beach","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Beach_(1959_film)","year":1959},{"by":"George Pal","countries":["US"],"desc":"Rod Taylor in a brass-and-velvet sled-chair of a time machine, a prop that became a steampunk icon in its own right.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/the-time-machine-1960","id":"the-time-machine-1960","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-poster-for-the-1960-film-the-time-machine-e9d33c.webp","medium":"film","themes":["retro-future","machines","post-apocalypse"],"title":"The Time Machine","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine_(1960_film)","year":1960},{"by":"William Witney","countries":["US"],"desc":"Vincent Price as Robur, the pacifist terror of the skies, aboard his flying ship. Richard Matheson's script fuses two Verne novels.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/master-of-the-world-1961","id":"master-of-the-world-1961","image":"/assets/imgs/works/master-of-the-world-poster-a567db.webp","medium":"film","themes":["machines","retro-future","war"],"title":"Master of the World","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_the_World_(1961_film)","year":1961},{"by":"Cy Endfield","countries":["GB","US"],"desc":"Verne's castaways, Harryhausen's giant crabs and a Nemo who has been running the island all along. A Saturday-matinee route into the genre for generations.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/mysterious-island-1961","id":"mysterious-island-1961","image":"/assets/imgs/works/mysterious-island-1961-film-poster-81e09a.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ocean","survival"],"title":"Mysterious Island","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysterious_Island_(1961_film)","year":1961},{"by":"Irwin Allen","countries":["US"],"desc":"The atomic submarine <em>Seaview</em> races to save a burning planet. Its glass-nosed sub became a design icon and spun off the TV series.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/voyage-to-the-bottom-of-the-sea-1961","id":"voyage-to-the-bottom-of-the-sea-1961","image":"/assets/imgs/works/voyage-to-the-bottom-of-the-sea-1961-1a0ba8.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ocean","machines","fire"],"title":"Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_to_the_Bottom_of_the_Sea","year":1961},{"by":"V. Chebotaryov and G. Kazansky","countries":["RU"],"desc":"The Soviet adaptation of Belyaev's novel, shot in luminous underwater sequences. A huge domestic hit and a romance between a gilled boy and a pearl-diver's daughter.","essential":true,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/amphibian-man-1962","id":"amphibian-man-1962","image":"/assets/imgs/works/amphibian-man-b92e1a.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ocean","body-mod"],"title":"Amphibian Man","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphibian_Man_(film)","year":1962},{"by":"John Frankenheimer","countries":["US"],"desc":"The definitive brainwashing film, with its famous hallucinated garden-club meeting that dissolves into a communist demonstration.","essential":true,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/the-manchurian-candidate-1962","id":"the-manchurian-candidate-1962","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-the-manchurian-candidate-1962-poster-8f8dce.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind","war","identity"],"title":"The Manchurian Candidate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manchurian_Candidate_(1962_film)","year":1962},{"by":"Osamu Tezuka, Mushi Production","countries":["JP"],"desc":"The atom-powered boy robot becomes the first popular Japanese TV anime series. Japan's answer to the Atomic Age: the atom as a child who wants to be good.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/astro-boy-1963","id":"astro-boy-1963","image":"/assets/imgs/works/astroboy1963-cb4d01.webp","medium":"series","themes":["ai","machines","identity"],"title":"Astro Boy","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astro_Boy_(1963_TV_series)","year":1963},{"by":"TCJ, from Mitsuteru Yokoyama","countries":["JP"],"desc":"The anime of <em>Tetsujin 28-go</em>, a giant remote-controlled robot built as a wartime weapon. Ancestor of every mecha show since.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/gigantor-1963","id":"gigantor-1963","image":"/assets/imgs/works/gigantorvol1cover-c53b4e.webp","medium":"series","themes":["machines","retro-future"],"title":"Gigantor","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigantor","year":1963},{"by":"Stanley Kubrick","countries":["GB","US"],"desc":"The black comedy of mutually assured destruction: a mad general, a doomsday machine and a cowboy riding the Bomb. Atompunk's anxieties turned into the sharpest satire of the age.","essential":true,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/dr-strangelove-1964","id":"dr-strangelove-1964","image":"/assets/imgs/works/dr-strangelove-poster-0cc7b3.webp","medium":"film","themes":["nuclear","war"],"title":"Dr. Strangelove","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove","year":1964},{"by":"Sidney Lumet","countries":["US"],"desc":"The same premise as <em>Strangelove</em>, an accidental nuclear attack, played completely straight. Released the same year, and just as chilling.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/fail-safe-1964","id":"fail-safe-1964","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fail-safe-moviep-cfbae4.webp","medium":"film","themes":["nuclear","war","machines"],"title":"Fail Safe","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fail_Safe_(1964_film)","year":1964},{"by":"Jacques Tourneur","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Vincent Price rules a lost undersea city off the Cornish coast, loosely after Poe. Tourneur's final film, and a gaslit take on the drowned metropolis.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/city-under-the-sea-1965","id":"city-under-the-sea-1965","image":"/assets/imgs/works/cityunderthesea-poster-bfe924.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ocean"],"title":"City Under the Sea","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Under_the_Sea","year":1965},{"by":"Japan Tele-Cartoons","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A boy with oxygen gum and flying boots patrols the sea for the Ocean Patrol. One of the first colour anime dubbed for American television.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/marine-boy-1965","id":"marine-boy-1965","image":"","medium":"series","themes":["ocean"],"title":"Marine Boy","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Boy","year":1965},{"by":"François Truffaut","countries":["GB","FR"],"desc":"Truffaut's adaptation, with Oskar Werner as the fireman who starts to read. Red fire trucks and burning libraries rendered in cool 1960s modernism.","essential":true,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/fahrenheit-451-1966","id":"fahrenheit-451-1966","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fahrenheit451b-8c5747.webp","medium":"film","themes":["fire","dystopia","surveillance"],"title":"Fahrenheit 451","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451_(1966_film)","year":1966},{"by":"Franklin J. Schaffner","countries":["US"],"desc":"An astronaut lands on a world ruled by apes and discovers, in one famous final shot, that he never left home. The genre's most iconic reveal of the ruins.","essential":true,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/planet-of-the-apes-1968","id":"planet-of-the-apes-1968","image":"/assets/imgs/works/planetoftheapesposter-a47a32.webp","medium":"film","themes":["post-apocalypse","nuclear"],"title":"Planet of the Apes","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_of_the_Apes_(1968_film)","year":1968},{"by":"George Dunning","countries":["GB"],"desc":"The Beatles sail a cartoon submarine through the Sea of Holes to free Pepperland. Pop-art proof that the submarine can be joyful.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/yellow-submarine-1968","id":"yellow-submarine-1968","image":"/assets/imgs/works/beatles-yellow-submarine-move-poster-a5374c.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ocean","mind"],"title":"Yellow Submarine","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Submarine_(film)","year":1968},{"by":"James Hill","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Nemo rescues shipwreck survivors and keeps them in his domed undersea city of Templemer. The first screen version to build Nemo an actual city.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/captain-nemo-and-the-underwater-city-1969","id":"captain-nemo-and-the-underwater-city-1969","image":"/assets/imgs/works/captain-nemo-and-the-underwater-city-movie-poster-231bb0.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ocean","cities"],"title":"Captain Nemo and the Underwater City","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Nemo_and_the_Underwater_City","year":1969},{"by":"Stanley Kubrick","countries":["GB","US"],"desc":"Kubrick's adaptation made the Ludovico treatment iconic: eyes clamped open, mind rewritten by images and music.","essential":true,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/a-clockwork-orange-1971","id":"a-clockwork-orange-1971","image":"/assets/imgs/works/a-clockwork-orange-1971-013e3a.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind","dystopia"],"title":"A Clockwork Orange","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clockwork_Orange_(film)","year":1971},{"by":"Boris Sagal","countries":["US"],"desc":"Charlton Heston as the last healthy man in a plague-struck Los Angeles, hunted by a cult of the infected. The second screen adaptation of <em>I Am Legend</em>.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/the-omega-man-1971","id":"the-omega-man-1971","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-omega-man-poster-583941.webp","medium":"film","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"The Omega Man","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Omega_Man","year":1971},{"by":"Douglas Trumbull","countries":["US"],"desc":"Adjacent: a lone botanist on a space freighter refuses the order to destroy the last forests in its domes. A worker who will not follow the company's instructions.","descs":{"solarpunk":"The last forests on Earth survive in geodesic domes aboard a space freighter, and one botanist refuses to let them be destroyed. Proto-solarpunk grief, and its robot gardeners are unforgettable.","spacepunk":"Adjacent: a lone botanist on a space freighter refuses the order to destroy the last forests in its domes. A worker who will not follow the company's instructions."},"essential":true,"families":["spacepunk","solarpunk"],"href":"/work/silent-running-1972","id":"silent-running-1972","image":"/assets/imgs/works/silent-running-c0a6b1.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ecology","space"],"title":"Silent Running","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Running","year":1972},{"by":"Eiichi Yamamoto","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A Mushi Production art film of watercolour panels that bloom into psychedelic, erotic delirium. A visual ancestor of the genre's aesthetic.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/belladonna-of-sadness-1973","id":"belladonna-of-sadness-1973","image":"/assets/imgs/works/belladonnaofsadness-876433.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind","myth"],"title":"Belladonna of Sadness","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belladonna_of_Sadness","year":1973},{"by":"John Carpenter","countries":["US"],"desc":"Bored, bearded crewmen twenty years into a planet-demolition job on a ship that is falling apart. Co-written by Dan O'Bannon, who carried its grime straight into <em>Alien</em>.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/dark-star-1974","id":"dark-star-1974","image":"/assets/imgs/works/darkstarposter-dac515.webp","medium":"film","themes":["space","ai"],"title":"Dark Star","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Star_(film)","year":1974},{"by":"John Guillermin","countries":["US"],"desc":"A skyscraper fire as cinematic event. Adjacent disaster film, but the template for every glass tower that burns on screen.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/the-towering-inferno-1974","id":"the-towering-inferno-1974","image":"/assets/imgs/works/towering-inferno-movie-poster-02dd44.webp","medium":"film","themes":["fire","cities"],"title":"The Towering Inferno","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Towering_Inferno","year":1974},{"by":"L.Q. Jones","countries":["US"],"desc":"Don Johnson in the adaptation of Ellison's novella, with its desert scavengers and creepy, pastel underground town. A cult influence on the look of later wasteland media.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/a-boy-and-his-dog-1975","id":"a-boy-and-his-dog-1975","image":"/assets/imgs/works/1976-movie-poster-for-the-movie-a-boy-and-his-dog-3bf5f5.webp","medium":"film","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"A Boy and His Dog","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Boy_and_His_Dog_(1975_film)","year":1975},{"by":"Miloš Forman","countries":["US"],"desc":"The film version of Kesey's ward, where sanity is a matter of compliance and the final treatment is lobotomy.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/one-flew-over-the-cuckoo-s-nest-1975","id":"one-flew-over-the-cuckoo-s-nest-1975","image":"/assets/imgs/works/one-flew-over-the-cuckoo-s-nest-poster-2d35ba.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind","rebellion"],"title":"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Flew_Over_the_Cuckoo's_Nest_(film)","year":1975},{"by":"David Cronenberg","countries":["CA"],"desc":"A doctor engineers a parasite to replace failing organs and it turns a luxury tower block into an orgy of infection. Cronenberg's first feature and the birth of his body horror.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/shivers-1975","id":"shivers-1975","image":"/assets/imgs/works/theycamefromwithin-b326eb.webp","medium":"film","themes":["body-mod","genetics","cities"],"title":"Shivers","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shivers_(1975_film)","year":1975},{"by":"Jack Smight","countries":["US"],"desc":"A loose adaptation of Zelazny's novel, best remembered for its twelve-wheeled armored Landmaster crossing the ruins. Flawed, but a key early vehicle-as-home image.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/damnation-alley-1977","id":"damnation-alley-1977","image":"/assets/imgs/works/damnation-alley-1977-a12278.webp","medium":"film","themes":["post-apocalypse","nuclear"],"title":"Damnation Alley","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnation_Alley_(film)","year":1977},{"by":"George Lucas","countries":["US"],"desc":"Adjacent in politics, essential in look: the battered <em>Millennium Falcon</em>, dusty droids and scrap-dressed sets made the worn, lived-in future a mainstream look.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/star-wars-1977","id":"star-wars-1977","image":"/assets/imgs/works/starwarsmovieposter1977-078c4b.webp","medium":"film","themes":["space","rebellion","war"],"title":"Star Wars","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_(film)","year":1977},{"by":"Hayao Miyazaki","countries":["JP"],"desc":"After a war sinks the continents, a boy on a lonely island is swept into a struggle between a farming island and a technocratic city. Miyazaki's directorial debut and the root of his flooded worlds.","descs":{"apocapunk":"Miyazaki's first work as a director: a boy on a remote island after a world-drowning war meets the remnants of a technocratic city. The root of his lifelong ruins-and-rebuilding themes.","hydropunk":"After a war sinks the continents, a boy on a lonely island is swept into a struggle between a farming island and a technocratic city. Miyazaki's directorial debut and the root of his flooded worlds."},"essential":true,"families":["hydropunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/future-boy-conan-1978","id":"future-boy-conan-1978","image":"/assets/imgs/works/conan-the-boy-in-the-future-promotional-artwork-2b85b9.webp","medium":"series","themes":["post-apocalypse","ocean"],"title":"Future Boy Conan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Boy_Conan","year":1978},{"by":"Franklin J. Schaffner","countries":["GB","US"],"desc":"A Nazi doctor clones a dictator and scatters the children across the world. Brought human cloning into popular culture two decades before Dolly.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/the-boys-from-brazil-1978","id":"the-boys-from-brazil-1978","image":"/assets/imgs/works/boys-from-brazil-b4eba4.webp","medium":"film","themes":["genetics","identity"],"title":"The Boys from Brazil","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boys_from_Brazil_(film)","year":1978},{"by":"Kevin Connor","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A Victorian diving-bell expedition is pulled down into Atlantis and its monsters. Brass bells, octopus attacks and late-1970s rubber.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/warlords-of-atlantis-1978","id":"warlords-of-atlantis-1978","image":"/assets/imgs/works/warlords-of-atlantis-4062f5.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ocean","myth"],"title":"Warlords of Atlantis","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warlords_of_Atlantis","year":1978},{"by":"Ridley Scott","countries":["GB","US"],"desc":"The crew of the <em>Nostromo</em> are space truckers arguing about shares. The film that gave the future its grime.","essential":true,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/alien-1979","id":"alien-1979","image":"/assets/imgs/works/alien-movie-poster-655006.webp","medium":"film","themes":["space","corporations","survival"],"title":"Alien","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_(film)","year":1979},{"by":"George Miller","countries":["AU"],"desc":"Mel Gibson as a highway cop in a society on the edge of collapse. Not yet the wasteland, but it launched the franchise that would define it.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/mad-max-1979","id":"mad-max-1979","image":"/assets/imgs/works/madmazaus-b89759.webp","medium":"film","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"Mad Max","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Max_(film)","year":1979},{"by":"Yoshiyuki Tomino","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Adjacent: space colonists wage a war of independence against an Earth that treats them as a periphery. Founded the real-robot style, where mecha are mass-produced industrial hardware.","essential":true,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/mobile-suit-gundam-1979","id":"mobile-suit-gundam-1979","image":"/assets/imgs/works/mobilesuitgundamposter-ba2312.webp","medium":"series","themes":["war","space","colonies","machines"],"title":"Mobile Suit Gundam","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Suit_Gundam","year":1979},{"by":"Robert Altman","countries":["US"],"desc":"A second ice age, a frozen city shot in the ruins of Montreal's Expo 67, and survivors who live for a lethal board game. Bleak, strange and unmistakably frostpunk.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/quintet-1979","id":"quintet-1979","image":"/assets/imgs/works/quintetposter-289d1d.webp","medium":"film","themes":["cold","survival"],"title":"Quintet","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintet_(film)","year":1979},{"by":"Ken Russell","countries":["US"],"desc":"A scientist combines sensory deprivation tanks with a sacred mushroom brew and regresses physically along with his consciousness. Psychopunk as body horror.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/altered-states-1980","id":"altered-states-1980","image":"/assets/imgs/works/altered-states-93c216.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind","body-mod"],"title":"Altered States","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_States","year":1980},{"by":"George Miller","countries":["AU"],"desc":"Released in the US as <em>The Road Warrior</em>: a war over the last fuel in a sun-baked wasteland, and the birth of the post-apocalyptic look.","descs":{"apocapunk":"Released as <em>The Road Warrior</em> in the US: a besieged oil refinery, a gang of leather-clad raiders, and the chase that fixed the genre's look for forty years.","pyropunk":"Released in the US as <em>The Road Warrior</em>: a war over the last fuel in a sun-baked wasteland, and the birth of the post-apocalyptic look."},"essential":true,"families":["pyropunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/mad-max-2-1981","id":"mad-max-2-1981","image":"/assets/imgs/works/mad-max-two-the-road-warrior-ff403e.webp","medium":"film","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival","fire"],"title":"Mad Max 2","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Max_2","year":1981},{"by":"Peter Hyams","countries":["GB","US"],"desc":"A marshal on a mining facility on Io discovers the company is dosing miners with an amphetamine-type drug to push productivity until they snap. <em>High Noon</em> in a company town.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/outland-1981","id":"outland-1981","image":"/assets/imgs/works/outland-movie-poster-e1f255.webp","medium":"film","themes":["space","corporations","colonies"],"title":"Outland","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outland_(film)","year":1981},{"by":"Jean-Jacques Annaud","countries":["FR","CA"],"desc":"Rosny's novel brought to the screen with invented prehistoric languages. The making of fire as humanity's first great revolution.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/quest-for-fire-1981","id":"quest-for-fire-1981","image":"/assets/imgs/works/quest-for-fire-movie-poster-830b78.webp","medium":"film","themes":["fire","survival"],"title":"Quest for Fire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quest_for_Fire_(film)","year":1981},{"by":"Steven Spielberg","countries":["US"],"desc":"Nazi occultists, flying boats, a hero in a leather jacket. The film that taught a generation to love 1930s pulp serials all over again.","essential":true,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-1981","id":"raiders-of-the-lost-ark-1981","image":"/assets/imgs/works/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-b935d6.webp","medium":"film","themes":["myth","war"],"title":"Raiders of the Lost Ark","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raiders_of_the_Lost_Ark","year":1981},{"by":"David Cronenberg","countries":["CA"],"desc":"Telepaths created by a prenatal drug fight a corporate war, and minds literally explode. Cronenberg's first map of the weaponised psyche.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/scanners-1981","id":"scanners-1981","image":"/assets/imgs/works/scanners-movie-poster-b1826f.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind","corporations"],"title":"Scanners","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanners","year":1981},{"by":"Ridley Scott","countries":["US"],"desc":"The visual blueprint. Replicants, rain-soaked neon, and existential dread in future Los Angeles.","descs":{"biopunk":"Its replicants are grown, not built: bioengineered people with four-year lifespans. Usually filed as cyberpunk, but its central product is a biological one.","cyberpunk":"The visual blueprint. Replicants, rain-soaked neon, and existential dread in future Los Angeles."},"essential":true,"families":["cyberpunk","biopunk"],"href":"/work/blade-runner-1982","id":"blade-runner-1982","image":"/assets/imgs/works/blade-runner-1982-poster-c8b3ef.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ai","cities","noir","identity"],"title":"Blade Runner","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner","year":1982},{"by":"John Carpenter","countries":["US"],"desc":"Isolation, paranoia, and a shape-stealing organism in an Antarctic station. The cold outside; something colder within.","essential":true,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/the-thing-1982","id":"the-thing-1982","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-thing-1982-film-38adbb.webp","medium":"film","themes":["cold","survival","identity"],"title":"The Thing","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(1982_film)","year":1982},{"by":"Steven Lisberger","countries":["US"],"desc":"A programmer is digitized into a computer world. Adjacent rather than core, no grime, no street, but the first major film to imagine the inside of a machine as a place.","essential":true,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/tron-1982","id":"tron-1982","image":"/assets/imgs/works/tron-poster-64c1b9.webp","medium":"film","themes":["cyberspace","ai"],"title":"Tron","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tron","year":1982},{"by":"Mori Masaki","countries":["JP"],"desc":"The animated film of Nakazawa's manga, including a harrowing depiction of the Hiroshima blast. The other side of the Atomic Age, which the chrome version forgets.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/barefoot-gen-1983","id":"barefoot-gen-1983","image":"/assets/imgs/works/hadashi-no-gen-japanese-movie-poster-md-276f2a.webp","medium":"film","themes":["nuclear","war"],"title":"Barefoot Gen","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barefoot_Gen_(1983_film)","year":1983},{"by":"Douglas Trumbull","countries":["US"],"desc":"A headset records and replays full sensory experience, including, eventually, a death. An early, earnest vision of experience as a file format.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/brainstorm-1983","id":"brainstorm-1983","image":"/assets/imgs/works/brainstorm-1983-poster-ebcf3c.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind","machines"],"title":"Brainstorm","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainstorm_(1983_film)","year":1983},{"by":"Luc Besson","countries":["FR"],"desc":"Besson's black-and-white, almost wordless debut: survivors in a ruined world where humans can no longer speak. An art-house take on scavenging and solitude.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/le-dernier-combat-1983","id":"le-dernier-combat-1983","image":"/assets/imgs/works/le-dernier-combat-4db7f3.webp","medium":"film","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"Le Dernier Combat","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Dernier_Combat","year":1983},{"by":"David Cronenberg","countries":["CA"],"desc":"A TV executive finds a broadcast signal that rewrites the bodies of its viewers. Body horror meets media theory: &quot;long live the new flesh&quot;.","descs":{"cyberpunk":"A TV executive finds a broadcast signal that rewrites the bodies of its viewers. Body horror meets media theory: &quot;long live the new flesh&quot;.","psychopunk":"A TV signal induces a brain tumour that generates hallucinations, and the viewer can no longer tell broadcast from body. The definitive media-mind horror."},"essential":true,"families":["cyberpunk","psychopunk"],"href":"/work/videodrome-1983","id":"videodrome-1983","image":"/assets/imgs/works/videodromeposter-d898c9.webp","medium":"film","themes":["body-mod","mind","corporations"],"title":"Videodrome","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videodrome","year":1983},{"by":"Joseph Ruben","countries":["US"],"desc":"A psychic is trained to enter other people's dreams, and a government project wants to use the technique for assassination.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/dreamscape-1984","id":"dreamscape-1984","image":"/assets/imgs/works/dreamscapeposter-6dab7a.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind"],"title":"Dreamscape","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamscape_(1984_film)","year":1984},{"by":"Mark L. Lester","countries":["US"],"desc":"Drew Barrymore as Charlie McGee, the pyrokinetic child hunted by The Shop. Remade in 2022 by Keith Thomas.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/firestarter-1984","id":"firestarter-1984","image":"/assets/imgs/works/firestarterposter84-28e034.webp","medium":"film","themes":["fire","mind"],"title":"Firestarter","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firestarter_(1984_film)","year":1984},{"by":"Toei Animation","countries":["JP"],"desc":"The TV anime of the manga, airing 1984 to 1988: a martial artist protects the weak from biker gangs and warlords in a post-nuclear desert. Mad Max filtered through kung fu.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/fist-of-the-north-star-1984","id":"fist-of-the-north-star-1984","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fist-of-the-north-star-1-86926b.webp","medium":"series","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"Fist of the North Star","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fist_of_the_North_Star","year":1984},{"by":"Hayao Miyazaki","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Living in harmony with a toxic ecosystem instead of conquering it. The proto-solarpunk film, and still its most beautiful.","descs":{"apocapunk":"A thousand years after an industrial apocalypse, a princess learns that the toxic jungle is quietly cleaning the earth. The genre's great ecological parable.","solarpunk":"Living in harmony with a toxic ecosystem instead of conquering it. The proto-solarpunk film, and still its most beautiful."},"essential":true,"families":["solarpunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/nausicaa-of-the-valley-of-the-wind-1984","id":"nausicaa-of-the-valley-of-the-wind-1984","image":"/assets/imgs/works/nausicaaposter-807760.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ecology","post-apocalypse","war"],"title":"Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nausicaä_of_the_Valley_of_the_Wind_(film)","year":1984},{"by":"James Cameron","countries":["US"],"desc":"A cyborg assassin from a machine-ruled future hunts its target in neon-lit Los Angeles. Adjacent: tech-noir action that fed the genre's fear of runaway AI.","essential":true,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/the-terminator-1984","id":"the-terminator-1984","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-terminator-a15c65.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ai","machines","war"],"title":"The Terminator","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminator","year":1984},{"by":"Terry Gilliam","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Bureaucracy as horror, ductwork as art form. A retrofuturist nightmare that keeps getting more relevant every year.","essential":true,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/brazil-1985","id":"brazil-1985","image":"/assets/imgs/works/brazil-1985-film-poster-295d5e.webp","medium":"film","themes":["dystopia","surveillance","retro-future"],"title":"Brazil","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil_%281985_film%29","year":1985},{"by":"George Miller & George Ogilvie","countries":["AU"],"desc":"Bartertown runs on methane from pig manure, and a tribe of lost children keeps oral history of the old world. The franchise's most explicit look at rebuilding society.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/mad-max-beyond-thunderdome-1985","id":"mad-max-beyond-thunderdome-1985","image":"/assets/imgs/works/mad-max-beyond-thunderdome-438a02.webp","medium":"film","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Max_Beyond_Thunderdome","year":1985},{"by":"James Cameron","countries":["US"],"desc":"Colonial marines and terraforming colonists sacrificed to Weyland-Yutani's balance sheet. The grunt's-eye view of corporate space.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/aliens-1986","id":"aliens-1986","image":"/assets/imgs/works/aliens-poster-528c95.webp","medium":"film","themes":["space","colonies","war"],"title":"Aliens","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliens_(film)","year":1986},{"by":"Hayao Miyazaki","countries":["JP"],"desc":"The defining steampunk anime: airship pirates, mining towns, and a lost city of floating brass. Possibly the most beautiful film in the genre.","descs":{"dieselpunk":"Airships, mining towns and a sky pirate family. Often filed as steampunk, but its industrial mining valley and armoured air fleets make it a shared ancestor.","solarpunk":"A floating city reclaimed by gardens and birdsong, technology and overgrowth in tender, iconic balance.","steampunk":"The defining steampunk anime: airship pirates, mining towns, and a lost city of floating brass. Possibly the most beautiful film in the genre."},"essential":true,"families":["steampunk","dieselpunk","solarpunk"],"href":"/work/castle-in-the-sky-1986","id":"castle-in-the-sky-1986","image":"/assets/imgs/works/castle-in-the-sky-1986-c5dead.webp","medium":"film","themes":["machines","myth","ecology"],"title":"Castle in the Sky","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_in_the_Sky","year":1986},{"by":"David Cronenberg","countries":["US"],"desc":"A teleporter splices a scientist's genes with a housefly's, and he documents his own transformation. The definitive body horror film.","essential":true,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/the-fly-1986","id":"the-fly-1986","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fly-poster-76732b.webp","medium":"film","themes":["body-mod","genetics"],"title":"The Fly","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fly_(1986_film)","year":1986},{"by":"AIC / Artmic","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Four women in powered armor fight a megacorp's rogue androids in post-quake MegaTokyo. A defining OVA, steeped in Blade Runner.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/bubblegum-crisis-1987","id":"bubblegum-crisis-1987","image":"/assets/imgs/works/bgc-ova-96a4f4.webp","medium":"series","themes":["machines","corporations","cities"],"title":"Bubblegum Crisis","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubblegum_Crisis","year":1987},{"by":"Paul Verhoeven","countries":["US"],"desc":"A murdered cop becomes a corporate product in privatized Detroit. Savage satire of the megacorp, the media, and the body as property.","essential":true,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/robocop-1987","id":"robocop-1987","image":"/assets/imgs/works/robocop-1987-theatrical-poster-8a33a1.webp","medium":"film","themes":["body-mod","corporations","cities"],"title":"RoboCop","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboCop","year":1987},{"by":"Frédéric Back","countries":["CA"],"desc":"A hand-drawn animated short that adapts Giono's parable in shimmering colored pencil. Thirty minutes of rewilding as a single lifetime's work.","essential":true,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/the-man-who-planted-trees-1987","id":"the-man-who-planted-trees-1987","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-man-who-planted-trees-film-e1160c.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ecology"],"title":"The Man Who Planted Trees","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Planted_Trees_(film)","year":1987},{"by":"Katsuhiro Otomo","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Biker gangs, psychic weapons and a military-run Neo-Tokyo rebuilt after a war. The film that made the West take anime seriously.","descs":{"apocapunk":"Neo-Tokyo, rebuilt after a blast that started World War III, heads for another. Cyberpunk at heart, but framed by and ending in the apocalypse.","biopunk":"A government experiment awakens powers in a biker whose body then grows out of control. Its flesh-swallowing climax is a landmark of animated body horror.","cyberpunk":"Biker gangs, psychic weapons and a military-run Neo-Tokyo rebuilt after a war. The film that made the West take anime seriously."},"essential":true,"families":["cyberpunk","biopunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/akira-1988","id":"akira-1988","image":"/assets/imgs/works/akira-1988-poster-257414.webp","medium":"film","themes":["cities","mind","rebellion","post-apocalypse"],"title":"Akira","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_(1988_film)","year":1988},{"by":"Steve De Jarnatt","countries":["US"],"desc":"A man hires a desert tracker (Melanie Griffith) to cross a lawless wasteland for a replacement android. A camp cult film with real scrapyard style.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/cherry-2000-1988","id":"cherry-2000-1988","image":"/assets/imgs/works/cherry2000movieposter-05cd34.webp","medium":"film","themes":["post-apocalypse","ai"],"title":"Cherry 2000","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_2000","year":1988},{"by":"Isao Takahata","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Two children survive the firebombing of Kobe. Adjacent and unbearable: fire as the weapon that ended a city, seen at child height.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/grave-of-the-fireflies-1988","id":"grave-of-the-fireflies-1988","image":"/assets/imgs/works/grave-of-the-fireflies-japanese-poster-5b57fa.webp","medium":"film","themes":["war","fire","survival"],"title":"Grave of the Fireflies","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grave_of_the_Fireflies","year":1988},{"by":"Hayao Miyazaki","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Lantern-lit nights, moonlit fields, and the gentle creatures of the dark. Lunapunk's tenderness made visible.","descs":{"lunapunk":"Lantern-lit nights, moonlit fields, and the gentle creatures of the dark. Lunapunk's tenderness made visible.","solarpunk":"Two sisters in rural postwar Japan meet the spirits of the forest around their new home. Adjacent: no future tech at all, but the reverence for living landscape is pure solarpunk feeling."},"essential":true,"families":["lunapunk","solarpunk"],"href":"/work/my-neighbor-totoro-1988","id":"my-neighbor-totoro-1988","image":"/assets/imgs/works/my-neighbor-totoro-tonari-no-totoro-movie-poster-3107df.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ecology","myth"],"title":"My Neighbor Totoro","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Neighbor_Totoro","year":1988},{"by":"Terry Gilliam","countries":["GB","DE"],"desc":"Adjacent: an 18th-century fable, but Gilliam's balloons, siege engines and age-of-reason excess fed directly into the steampunk image bank.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/the-adventures-of-baron-munchausen-1988","id":"the-adventures-of-baron-munchausen-1988","image":"/assets/imgs/works/adventures-of-baron-munchausen-17362a.webp","medium":"film","themes":["myth","retro-future"],"title":"The Adventures of Baron Munchausen","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Baron_Munchausen","year":1988},{"by":"Robert Zemeckis","countries":["US"],"desc":"A 1947 Los Angeles detective story where cartoons are real and the villain wants to pave the city for freeways. Noir plus Golden Age animation.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/who-framed-roger-rabbit-1988","id":"who-framed-roger-rabbit-1988","image":"/assets/imgs/works/movie-poster-who-framed-roger-rabbit-057e24.webp","medium":"film","themes":["noir","cities"],"title":"Who Framed Roger Rabbit","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Framed_Roger_Rabbit","year":1988},{"by":"Tim Burton","countries":["US"],"desc":"Anton Furst's Gotham is a soot-black, crammed tower city of gargoyles and smokestacks. Wikipedia's genre entry lists it among dieselpunk films.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/batman-1989","id":"batman-1989","image":"/assets/imgs/works/batman-1989-theatrical-poster-bf135a.webp","medium":"film","themes":["noir","cities"],"title":"Batman","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_(1989_film)","year":1989},{"by":"Steven Spielberg","countries":["US"],"desc":"Zeppelins, tanks and a Berlin book burning. The franchise at its most openly diesel-era in look and politics.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/indiana-jones-and-the-last-crusade-1989","id":"indiana-jones-and-the-last-crusade-1989","image":"/assets/imgs/works/indiana-jones-and-the-last-crusade-65e1ef.webp","medium":"film","themes":["myth","war"],"title":"Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Jones_and_the_Last_Crusade","year":1989},{"by":"George P. Cosmatos","countries":["US"],"desc":"Miners in a deep-sea habitat bring a Soviet wreck's mutagen back on board. One of three habitat-horror films released the same year, and the most rubber-suited.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/leviathan-1989","id":"leviathan-1989","image":"/assets/imgs/works/leviathan-ver1-e34a92.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ocean","genetics","corporations"],"title":"Leviathan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(1989_film)","year":1989},{"by":"Shinya Tsukamoto","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A salaryman's body sprouts scrap metal in a feverish 16mm nightmare. The defining work of Japanese industrial &quot;cyberpunk&quot; cinema.","essential":true,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/tetsuo-the-iron-man-1989","id":"tetsuo-the-iron-man-1989","image":"/assets/imgs/works/tetsuo-the-iron-man-japanese-movie-poster-1855b9.webp","medium":"film","themes":["body-mod","machines"],"title":"Tetsuo: The Iron Man","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetsuo:_The_Iron_Man","year":1989},{"by":"James Cameron","countries":["US"],"desc":"Deep-sea rig crew, alien intelligence, a wedding ring in microgravity. The modern hydropunk image.","essential":true,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/the-abyss-1989","id":"the-abyss-1989","image":"/assets/imgs/works/theabyss-1ca3cf.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ocean"],"title":"The Abyss","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Abyss","year":1989},{"by":"Warren Beatty","countries":["US"],"desc":"A comic-strip 1930s rendered in seven flat primary colours. Gangsters, fedoras and two-way wrist radios as pure graphic design.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/dick-tracy-1990","id":"dick-tracy-1990","image":"/assets/imgs/works/dick-tracy1-d0bb4b.webp","medium":"film","themes":["noir","cities"],"title":"Dick Tracy","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Tracy_(1990_film)","year":1990},{"by":"Richard Stanley","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A scavenged military robot reassembles itself in a post-apocalyptic tenement. Low-budget, industrial, and soaked in red light.","descs":{"apocapunk":"A scavenger brings home a robot skull from the irradiated desert and it rebuilds itself into a killer. Industrial, red-filtered, and salvage-obsessed.","cyberpunk":"A scavenged military robot reassembles itself in a post-apocalyptic tenement. Low-budget, industrial, and soaked in red light."},"essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/hardware-1990","id":"hardware-1990","image":"/assets/imgs/works/hardwareposter-52dc55.webp","medium":"film","themes":["machines","post-apocalypse","ai"],"title":"Hardware","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_(film)","year":1990},{"by":"Adrian Lyne","countries":["US"],"desc":"A Vietnam veteran's reality fractures into demonic visions, linked to a secret military drug. Paranoia, grief and pharmacology braided together.","essential":true,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/jacob-s-ladder-1990","id":"jacob-s-ladder-1990","image":"/assets/imgs/works/jacobsladderposter-5e60dc.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind","war"],"title":"Jacob's Ladder","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob's_Ladder_(1990_film)","year":1990},{"by":"Hideaki Anno","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A Verne-inspired TV series around Captain Nemo and the <em>Nautilus</em>, built on a Miyazaki concept. It shaped every steampunk anime that followed.","descs":{"hydropunk":"An 1889 adventure built on Verne, with Captain Nemo, the Nautilus and an Atlantean conspiracy. Gainax's series is the definitive anime Nemo, made just before Anno's <em>Evangelion</em>.","steampunk":"A Verne-inspired TV series around Captain Nemo and the <em>Nautilus</em>, built on a Miyazaki concept. It shaped every steampunk anime that followed."},"essential":false,"families":["steampunk","hydropunk"],"href":"/work/nadia-the-secret-of-blue-water-1990","id":"nadia-the-secret-of-blue-water-1990","image":"/assets/imgs/works/nadia-na-bd-box-cover-6bea80.webp","medium":"series","themes":["ocean","machines","retro-future"],"title":"Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadia:_The_Secret_of_Blue_Water","year":1990},{"by":"Paul Verhoeven","countries":["US"],"desc":"Mars as a mining colony whose administrator controls the ore and, in the end, the air itself, shutting off oxygen to the mutant district. Metered breathing, literalized.","descs":{"psychopunk":"A construction worker buys an implanted Mars vacation and the film never quite confirms whether anything after that is real.","spacepunk":"Mars as a mining colony whose administrator controls the ore and, in the end, the air itself, shutting off oxygen to the mutant district. Metered breathing, literalized."},"essential":false,"families":["spacepunk","psychopunk"],"href":"/work/total-recall-1990","id":"total-recall-1990","image":"/assets/imgs/works/total-recall-1990-film-poster-67af4c.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind","colonies","identity"],"title":"Total Recall","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Recall_(1990_film)","year":1990},{"by":"Ron Howard","countries":["US"],"desc":"Chicago firefighters chase an arsonist while the fire itself is filmed as a living, breathing creature. Named after a real fire phenomenon.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/backdraft-1991","id":"backdraft-1991","image":"/assets/imgs/works/backdraft-poster-85c663.webp","medium":"film","themes":["fire"],"title":"Backdraft","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backdraft_(film)","year":1991},{"by":"David Cronenberg","countries":["CA","GB"],"desc":"Rather than adapt the unfilmable novel, Cronenberg films Burroughs writing it, inside a hallucination of typewriter-bugs and Interzone.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/naked-lunch-1991","id":"naked-lunch-1991","image":"/assets/imgs/works/naked-lunch-film-poster-6f3453.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind"],"title":"Naked Lunch","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Lunch_(film)","year":1991},{"by":"Joe Johnston","countries":["US"],"desc":"A 1938 stunt pilot finds a jet-pack the Nazis want back. Pure dieselpunk in Saturday-matinee form.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/the-rocketeer-1991","id":"the-rocketeer-1991","image":"/assets/imgs/works/rocketeermovieposter-267370.webp","medium":"film","themes":["retro-future","machines"],"title":"The Rocketeer","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rocketeer_%28film%29","year":1991},{"by":"Hayao Miyazaki","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A cursed Italian ace flies a red seaplane over the interwar Adriatic, dodging fascists and air pirates. The gentlest, most beautiful dieselpunk film.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/porco-rosso-1992","id":"porco-rosso-1992","image":"/assets/imgs/works/porco-rosso-movie-poster-7071b7.webp","medium":"film","themes":["war","retro-future"],"title":"Porco Rosso","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porco_Rosso","year":1992},{"by":"Steven Spielberg","countries":["US"],"desc":"Crichton's dinosaurs, made iconic on screen. It set the public image of genetic engineering for a generation.","essential":true,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/jurassic-park-1993","id":"jurassic-park-1993","image":"/assets/imgs/works/jurassic-park-poster-2596f1.webp","medium":"film","themes":["genetics","corporations"],"title":"Jurassic Park","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic_Park","year":1993},{"by":"Joe Dante","countries":["US"],"desc":"A B-movie showman premieres a radiation-monster film in Key West during the Cuban Missile Crisis. A loving portrait of how the 50s audience consumed its fears.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/matinee-1993","id":"matinee-1993","image":"/assets/imgs/works/matinee2-8f66a0.webp","medium":"film","themes":["nuclear","retro-future"],"title":"Matinee","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matinee_(1993_film)","year":1993},{"by":"Isao Takahata","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Shape-shifting tanuki fight the suburban development swallowing their hills outside Tokyo. A funny, sad Ghibli film about what growth costs the land.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/pom-poko-1994","id":"pom-poko-1994","image":"/assets/imgs/works/pompokoposter-6c1970.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ecology","myth","cities"],"title":"Pom Poko","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pom_Poko","year":1994},{"by":"Russell Mulcahy","countries":["US"],"desc":"The pulp avenger on screen, with a deco New York and a bomb in the basement. Uneven, but visually right on genre.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/the-shadow-1994","id":"the-shadow-1994","image":"/assets/imgs/works/shadowpost-f1e067.webp","medium":"film","themes":["noir","cities"],"title":"The Shadow","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow_(1994_film)","year":1994},{"by":"Terry Gilliam","countries":["US"],"desc":"A prisoner from a plague-emptied underground future is sent back in time to find the virus's source. Adjacent: mostly set before the fall, but its jury-rigged future is classic apocapunk.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/12-monkeys-1995","id":"12-monkeys-1995","image":"/assets/imgs/works/twelve-monkeysmp-92f8ec.webp","medium":"film","themes":["post-apocalypse","mind"],"title":"12 Monkeys","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_Monkeys","year":1995},{"by":"Mamoru Oshii","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A philosophical anime masterpiece about identity, consciousness, and the merging of human and machine.","descs":{"cyberpunk":"A philosophical anime masterpiece about identity, consciousness, and the merging of human and machine.","psychopunk":"Cyberpunk, but its ghost-hacked garbage collector, who learns his family memories were implanted, is one of the genre's purest scenes."},"essential":true,"families":["cyberpunk","psychopunk"],"href":"/work/ghost-in-the-shell-1995","id":"ghost-in-the-shell-1995","image":"/assets/imgs/works/ghostintheshellposter-db9b96.webp","medium":"film","themes":["cyberspace","ai","identity","body-mod"],"title":"Ghost in the Shell","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell_(1995_film)","year":1995},{"by":"Iain Softley","countries":["US"],"desc":"Teen hackers in New York are framed by a corporate insider. Technically absurd and wildly stylish; it fixed the 1990s hacker look in pop culture.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/hackers-1995","id":"hackers-1995","image":"/assets/imgs/works/hackersposter-be515e.webp","medium":"film","themes":["cyberspace","rebellion"],"title":"Hackers","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers_(film)","year":1995},{"by":"Robert Longo","countries":["US","CA"],"desc":"Gibson adapted his own story for the screen, with Keanu Reeves as a courier carrying data in his skull. Messy, but a direct line from the page.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/johnny-mnemonic-1995","id":"johnny-mnemonic-1995","image":"/assets/imgs/works/johnny-mnemonic-ver1-4e1141.webp","medium":"film","themes":["cyberspace","corporations"],"title":"Johnny Mnemonic","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Mnemonic_(film)","year":1995},{"by":"Hideaki Anno","countries":["JP"],"desc":"The giant robots are really living beings in armour, and one pilot is a clone. Beneath the mecha shell lies a story about engineered bodies.","descs":{"biopunk":"The giant robots are really living beings in armour, and one pilot is a clone. Beneath the mecha shell lies a story about engineered bodies.","psychopunk":"A mecha show that turns inward until its final episodes take place almost entirely in the characters' psyches. Adjacent, and hugely influential."},"essential":true,"families":["biopunk","psychopunk"],"href":"/work/neon-genesis-evangelion-1995","id":"neon-genesis-evangelion-1995","image":"/assets/imgs/works/evangelion-retouched-6d7988.webp","medium":"series","themes":["mind","machines","identity"],"title":"Neon Genesis Evangelion","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neon_Genesis_Evangelion","year":1995},{"by":"Kathryn Bigelow","countries":["US"],"desc":"On the eve of 2000 a dealer sells recorded memories and sensations, and one tape exposes a murder. Cyberpunk tied to real police violence and racial politics in Los Angeles.","descs":{"cyberpunk":"On the eve of 2000 a dealer sells recorded memories and sensations, and one tape exposes a murder. Cyberpunk tied to real police violence and racial politics in Los Angeles.","psychopunk":"On the eve of 2000, a dealer trades in SQUID recordings of other people's experiences. Memory as contraband, voyeurism as addiction."},"essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk","psychopunk"],"href":"/work/strange-days-1995","id":"strange-days-1995","image":"/assets/imgs/works/strangedays-5d2d66.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind","surveillance","cities"],"title":"Strange Days","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Days_(film)","year":1995},{"by":"Rachel Talalay","countries":["US"],"desc":"Lori Petty fights a corporation that hoards water in a drought-struck 2033. The genre's most openly punk film, with a soundtrack to match.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/tank-girl-1995","id":"tank-girl-1995","image":"/assets/imgs/works/tank-girl-poster-ad3199.webp","medium":"film","themes":["post-apocalypse","rebellion"],"title":"Tank Girl","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Girl_(film)","year":1995},{"by":"Jeunet & Caro","countries":["FR"],"desc":"A mad inventor steals children's dreams in a rusted harbour city of cyclops cultists and brass contraptions. Grimy, magical French retrofuture.","descs":{"dieselpunk":"A rusting harbour city where a mad scientist steals children's dreams. Adjacent: its retro machinery is closer to steampunk, but the grime is pure diesel.","steampunk":"A mad inventor steals children's dreams in a rusted harbour city of cyclops cultists and brass contraptions. Grimy, magical French retrofuture."},"essential":false,"families":["steampunk","dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/the-city-of-lost-children-1995","id":"the-city-of-lost-children-1995","image":"/assets/imgs/works/city-of-lost-children-french-movie-poster-36583a.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind","machines","ocean"],"title":"The City of Lost Children","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_of_Lost_Children","year":1995},{"by":"Kevin Reynolds","countries":["US"],"desc":"A planet entirely sea. Catamarans, atolls, post-coastline survival. The thesis film.","descs":{"apocapunk":"The ice caps have melted and survivors live on scrap-built atolls, trading in dirt. A notorious flop that is also a lavish catalogue of salvage design.","hydropunk":"A planet entirely sea. Catamarans, atolls, post-coastline survival. The thesis film."},"essential":false,"families":["hydropunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/waterworld-1995","id":"waterworld-1995","image":"/assets/imgs/works/waterworld-e553d3.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ocean","post-apocalypse","climate"],"title":"Waterworld","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterworld","year":1995},{"by":"Tim Burton","countries":["US"],"desc":"Based on the 1962 Topps trading cards, with saucers and ray guns styled after that artwork. Pastiche rather than period piece, but the purest raygun kitsch on film.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/mars-attacks-1996","id":"mars-attacks-1996","image":"/assets/imgs/works/mars-attacks-ver1-db644a.webp","medium":"film","themes":["retro-future","war"],"title":"Mars Attacks!","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Attacks!","year":1996},{"by":"Stuart Gordon","countries":["US"],"desc":"Dennis Hopper as one of the last independent haulers, squeezed by a trucking company. Camp, but it names the genre's working-class premise out loud.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/space-truckers-1996","id":"space-truckers-1996","image":"/assets/imgs/works/spacetruckersposter-b675e1.webp","medium":"film","themes":["space","corporations"],"title":"Space Truckers","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Truckers","year":1996},{"by":"Paul W. S. Anderson","countries":["GB","US"],"desc":"Adjacent horror: a rescue crew with blue-collar banter is sent to recover a lost experimental ship. Industrial corridors and a job no one wanted.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/event-horizon-1997","id":"event-horizon-1997","image":"/assets/imgs/works/event-horizon-ver1-20b7f4.webp","medium":"film","themes":["space","mind"],"title":"Event Horizon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_Horizon_(film)","year":1997},{"by":"Andrew Niccol","countries":["US"],"desc":"A near-future of genetic caste. Vincent is born &quot;in-valid&quot;. The film that taught biopunk how to feel.","essential":true,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/gattaca-1997","id":"gattaca-1997","image":"/assets/imgs/works/gattaca-poster-22bf0d.webp","medium":"film","themes":["genetics","identity","dystopia"],"title":"Gattaca","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca","year":1997},{"by":"Guillermo del Toro","countries":["US"],"desc":"An engineered insect released to stop a disease outbreak keeps evolving in the New York subway. A pure leak-and-spread story.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/mimic-1997","id":"mimic-1997","image":"/assets/imgs/works/mimic-1997-movie-poster-464650.webp","medium":"film","themes":["genetics"],"title":"Mimic","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimic_(film)","year":1997},{"by":"Alejandro Amenábar","countries":["ES"],"desc":"A disfigured young man's life splinters into a lucid dream he may have purchased. Later remade as <em>Vanilla Sky</em>.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/open-your-eyes-1997","id":"open-your-eyes-1997","image":"/assets/imgs/works/abre-los-ojos-movie-0a6198.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind","identity"],"title":"Open Your Eyes","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Your_Eyes_(1997_film)","year":1997},{"by":"Satoshi Kon","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A pop idol turned actress loses track of which version of herself is real as a stalker and a doppelganger close in. Kon's masterclass in perception editing.","essential":true,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/perfect-blue-1997","id":"perfect-blue-1997","image":"/assets/imgs/works/perfectblueposter-098c09.webp","medium":"film","themes":["identity","mind"],"title":"Perfect Blue","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_Blue","year":1997},{"by":"Hayao Miyazaki","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A forest god that becomes the vast, translucent Night-Walker after dusk. Miyazaki's clearest vision of a nature that is sacred and most alive in the dark.","descs":{"lunapunk":"A forest god that becomes the vast, translucent Night-Walker after dusk. Miyazaki's clearest vision of a nature that is sacred and most alive in the dark.","pyropunk":"Irontown, a forge settlement that clears the forest to mine and smelt iron, against the old gods. The fire that forges set against the world it consumes.","solarpunk":"An ironworks town and the gods of the forest go to war, and neither side is simply wrong. The genre's great lesson that industry and wilderness have to negotiate."},"essential":true,"families":["lunapunk","solarpunk","pyropunk"],"href":"/work/princess-mononoke-1997","id":"princess-mononoke-1997","image":"/assets/imgs/works/princess-mononoke-japanese-poster-6c2608.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ecology","myth","war"],"title":"Princess Mononoke","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Mononoke","year":1997},{"by":"Mick Jackson","countries":["US"],"desc":"Lava erupts in the middle of Los Angeles. Adjacent disaster film, but the molten-city image is pure pyropunk.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/volcano-1997","id":"volcano-1997","image":"/assets/imgs/works/volcano-1997-film-95bbe0.webp","medium":"film","themes":["fire","cities"],"title":"Volcano","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcano_(1997_film)","year":1997},{"by":"Mahiro Maeda","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A scientist melts the ice caps and floods the world for his engineered sea-creatures, and the last fleets fight back. An early mix of 2D characters and CG submarines from Gonzo.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/blue-submarine-no-6-1998","id":"blue-submarine-no-6-1998","image":"/assets/imgs/works/blue-sub-006-original-manga-cover-37cee3.webp","medium":"series","themes":["ocean","genetics","war"],"title":"Blue Submarine No. 6","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Submarine_No._6","year":1998},{"by":"Shinichirō Watanabe","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Broke bounty hunters on an aging ship, always one bounty away from the next meal. The genre's coolest and most melancholy expression.","essential":true,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/cowboy-bebop-1998","id":"cowboy-bebop-1998","image":"/assets/imgs/works/cowboy-bebop-key-visual-ebcc6f.webp","medium":"series","themes":["space","noir","colonies"],"title":"Cowboy Bebop","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowboy_Bebop","year":1998},{"by":"Alex Proyas","countries":["US","AU"],"desc":"A man wakes in a city where night never ends and strangers rewrite residents' memories. Noir and simulation, released a year before The Matrix.","descs":{"cyberpunk":"A man wakes in a city where night never ends and strangers rewrite residents' memories. Noir and simulation, released a year before The Matrix.","dieselpunk":"A city where it is always night and always the 1940s, rebuilt every midnight by strangers. Noir architecture turned into a science fiction puzzle.","psychopunk":"Every midnight, strangers stop the city and swap the inhabitants' memories to study the human soul. Noir in which identity is reset nightly."},"essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk","dieselpunk","psychopunk"],"href":"/work/dark-city-1998","id":"dark-city-1998","image":"/assets/imgs/works/dark-city-poster-3b107f.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind","cities","noir","identity"],"title":"Dark City","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_City_(1998_film)","year":1998},{"by":"Terry Gilliam","countries":["US"],"desc":"A chemically maximal road trip into the rotting heart of the American dream. Psychopunk as gonzo nightmare.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/fear-and-loathing-1998","id":"fear-and-loathing-1998","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fandlinlv-4e52b4.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind"],"title":"Fear and Loathing","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Loathing_in_Las_Vegas_(film)","year":1998},{"by":"Mitsuru Hongo / Sunrise","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A small-time handyman stumbles onto a prototype ship and becomes an outlaw by necessity. Adjacent, mixing space western with magic and treasure hunting.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/outlaw-star-1998","id":"outlaw-star-1998","image":"/assets/imgs/works/outlawstar-manga-01f3eb.webp","medium":"series","themes":["space"],"title":"Outlaw Star","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlaw_Star","year":1998},{"by":"Ryūtarō Nakamura","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A shy girl is pulled into the Wired, a network that starts to overlap reality. Quiet, eerie and now read as one of the best works about the internet itself.","descs":{"cyberpunk":"A shy girl is pulled into the Wired, a network that starts to overlap reality. Quiet, eerie and now read as one of the best works about the internet itself.","psychopunk":"A shy girl discovers the Wired and begins to suspect she is just a rumour of herself. The essential psychopunk anime."},"essential":true,"families":["cyberpunk","psychopunk"],"href":"/work/serial-experiments-lain-1998","id":"serial-experiments-lain-1998","image":"/assets/imgs/works/serial-experiments-lain-dvd-vol-1-4db857.webp","medium":"series","themes":["cyberspace","identity","mind"],"title":"Serial Experiments Lain","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Experiments_Lain","year":1998},{"by":"Lance Mungia","countries":["US"],"desc":"In an alternate 1957 where the Soviets nuked America, a sword-wielding rockabilly hero heads for Lost Vegas. A low-budget cult oddity of pure wasteland style.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/six-string-samurai-1998","id":"six-string-samurai-1998","image":"/assets/imgs/works/sixstringsamurai-c0cbc7.webp","medium":"film","themes":["post-apocalypse"],"title":"Six-String Samurai","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-String_Samurai","year":1998},{"by":"Barry Levinson","countries":["US"],"desc":"Crichton's habitat mystery with Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone and Samuel L. Jackson a thousand feet down. Uneven, but faithful to the pressure and the paranoia.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/sphere-1998","id":"sphere-1998","image":"/assets/imgs/works/spheremovieposter-f33758.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ocean","mind"],"title":"Sphere","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_(1998_film)","year":1998},{"by":"Madhouse","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A pacifist gunman roams a desert planet whose colonists depend on salvaged power plants from a crashed fleet. Space western, adjacent, but steeped in scavenged-tech survival.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/trigun-1998","id":"trigun-1998","image":"/assets/imgs/works/trigun-01-tokuma-shoten-9128bd.webp","medium":"series","themes":["post-apocalypse","colonies"],"title":"Trigun","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trigun","year":1998},{"by":"Spike Jonze","countries":["US"],"desc":"A portal behind a filing cabinet lets anyone ride inside an actor's head for fifteen minutes. Absurd, and a sharp satire of consciousness as real estate.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/being-john-malkovich-1999","id":"being-john-malkovich-1999","image":"/assets/imgs/works/being-john-malkovich-poster-6df78f.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind","identity"],"title":"Being John Malkovich","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_John_Malkovich","year":1999},{"by":"Hugh Wilson","countries":["US"],"desc":"A family seals itself into a backyard fallout shelter during the Cuban Missile Crisis and stays for 35 years. Atomic Age manners walk into the 1990s.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/blast-from-the-past-1999","id":"blast-from-the-past-1999","image":"/assets/imgs/works/blastfromthepast-717603.webp","medium":"film","themes":["nuclear","retro-future"],"title":"Blast from the Past","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blast_from_the_Past_(film)","year":1999},{"by":"David Cronenberg","countries":["CA","GB"],"desc":"Players plug organic game pods into spinal ports until no one can tell which layer is real. Cronenberg's wet, biological take on virtual reality.","descs":{"biopunk":"Game consoles are living pods that plug into a bioport in the spine. The most literal image of wetware ever filmed.","cyberpunk":"Players plug organic game pods into spinal ports until no one can tell which layer is real. Cronenberg's wet, biological take on virtual reality.","psychopunk":"Organic game pods plug into spinal ports, and the layers of play nest until no one knows which level is the real one."},"essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk","biopunk","psychopunk"],"href":"/work/existenz-1999","id":"existenz-1999","image":"/assets/imgs/works/existenz-fb2980.webp","medium":"film","themes":["cyberspace","body-mod","mind"],"title":"eXistenZ","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EXistenZ","year":1999},{"by":"Hiroyuki Okiura","countries":["JP"],"desc":"An alternate postwar Japan, armoured riot police in gas masks, a retelling of Red Riding Hood. Grim political dieselpunk from Mamoru Oshii's script.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/jin-roh-the-wolf-brigade-1999","id":"jin-roh-the-wolf-brigade-1999","image":"/assets/imgs/works/jin-roh-the-wolf-brigade-3ed44f.webp","medium":"film","themes":["alt-history","rebellion","war"],"title":"Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin-Roh:_The_Wolf_Brigade","year":1999},{"by":"Sunrise","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Paradigm City has lost forty years of memory; a negotiator in black pilots a giant deco robot. Batman, Ferriss and noir fused into a mecha series.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/the-big-o-1999","id":"the-big-o-1999","image":"/assets/imgs/works/big-o-7f5937.webp","medium":"series","themes":["machines","cities","noir"],"title":"The Big O","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_O","year":1999},{"by":"Brad Bird","countries":["US"],"desc":"A boy befriends a giant robot from space in 1957 Maine, at the height of the Sputnik scare. The tenderest atompunk film, and a direct reply to duck-and-cover.","essential":true,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/the-iron-giant-1999","id":"the-iron-giant-1999","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-iron-giant-poster-03dc16.webp","medium":"film","themes":["machines","nuclear","identity"],"title":"The Iron Giant","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Giant","year":1999},{"by":"Wachowskis","countries":["US"],"desc":"Reality itself is a simulation. The red pill or the blue pill, cyberpunk's ultimate question made blockbuster.","descs":{"cyberpunk":"Reality itself is a simulation. The red pill or the blue pill, cyberpunk's ultimate question made blockbuster.","psychopunk":"Humanity lives inside a consensual simulation, and the red pill is a perception hack. The film that brought simulated reality to the mainstream."},"essential":true,"families":["cyberpunk","psychopunk"],"href":"/work/the-matrix-1999","id":"the-matrix-1999","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-matrix-2349e0.webp","medium":"film","themes":["cyberspace","ai","rebellion"],"title":"The Matrix","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix","year":1999},{"by":"Barry Sonnenfeld","countries":["US"],"desc":"The TV series reimagined as a blockbuster with a giant mechanical spider. Critically mauled, but it carried steampunk imagery to multiplexes worldwide.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/wild-wild-west-1999","id":"wild-wild-west-1999","image":"/assets/imgs/works/wild-wild-west-poster-947652.webp","medium":"film","themes":["machines","retro-future"],"title":"Wild Wild West","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Wild_West","year":1999},{"by":"Christopher Nolan","countries":["US"],"desc":"A man with no short-term memory hunts his wife's killer using tattoos and Polaroids, and the backwards structure makes the audience share his amnesia.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/memento-2000","id":"memento-2000","image":"/assets/imgs/works/memento-poster-0ddcc4.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind","identity","noir"],"title":"Memento","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_(film)","year":2000},{"by":"Tarsem Singh","countries":["US"],"desc":"A therapist enters the mind of a comatose killer through experimental technology, and his psyche is rendered as lavish, nightmarish installation art.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/the-cell-2000","id":"the-cell-2000","image":"/assets/imgs/works/thecellposter-0f3c7e.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind"],"title":"The Cell","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cell_(film)","year":2000},{"by":"Steven Spielberg","countries":["US"],"desc":"A robot boy searches a Manhattan sunk to its skyscraper tops, and waits two thousand years beneath the ice. Adjacent, but its drowned New York is an essential image.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/a-i-artificial-intelligence-2001","id":"a-i-artificial-intelligence-2001","image":"/assets/imgs/works/ai-poster-5dfb25.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ai","identity","climate"],"title":"A.I. Artificial Intelligence","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.I._Artificial_Intelligence","year":2001},{"by":"Trousdale & Wise","countries":["US"],"desc":"Adjacent: set in 1914 and leaning dieselpunk, yet its Verne-style submarine expedition and Mike Mignola-influenced design sit squarely in the tradition.","descs":{"hydropunk":"A 1914 expedition takes the giant submarine <em>Ulysses</em> to a living Atlantis, with Mike Mignola's design influence everywhere. Disney's most hydropunk film.","steampunk":"Adjacent: set in 1914 and leaning dieselpunk, yet its Verne-style submarine expedition and Mike Mignola-influenced design sit squarely in the tradition."},"essential":false,"families":["steampunk","hydropunk"],"href":"/work/atlantis-the-lost-empire-2001","id":"atlantis-the-lost-empire-2001","image":"/assets/imgs/works/atlantis-the-lost-empire-poster-f50ef0.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ocean","myth","machines"],"title":"Atlantis: The Lost Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantis:_The_Lost_Empire","year":2001},{"by":"David Lynch","countries":["US"],"desc":"A Hollywood mystery that folds into a dream, then reveals the dreamer. Adjacent, but the most celebrated cinematic study of a mind rewriting its own failure.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/mulholland-drive-2001","id":"mulholland-drive-2001","image":"/assets/imgs/works/mulholland-d43e0c.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind","identity","night"],"title":"Mulholland Drive","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulholland_Drive_(film)","year":2001},{"by":"Danny Boyle","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A courier wakes from a coma into an empty London after a rage virus. Its deserted city and the threat of the soldiers who 'restore order' reshaped the genre.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/28-days-later-2002","id":"28-days-later-2002","image":"/assets/imgs/works/28-days-later-4fa44e.webp","medium":"film","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"28 Days Later","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/28_Days_Later","year":2002},{"by":"Kenji Kamiyama","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Section 9 hunts a hacker who becomes a meme and an idea with no original. Political, procedural cyberpunk with copycat crime as its theme.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/ghost-in-the-shell-stand-alone-complex-2002","id":"ghost-in-the-shell-stand-alone-complex-2002","image":"/assets/imgs/works/gits-sac-complete-collection-cover-010f1c.webp","medium":"series","themes":["cyberspace","ai","surveillance"],"title":"Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell:_Stand_Alone_Complex","year":2002},{"by":"Rob Bowman","countries":["GB","US"],"desc":"Dragons wake under London and burn civilization to ash. Survivors live in stone fortresses, hiding from the sky. Pyropunk's most literal apocalypse.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/reign-of-fire-2002","id":"reign-of-fire-2002","image":"/assets/imgs/works/reign-of-fire-movie-3b42d1.webp","medium":"film","themes":["fire","post-apocalypse"],"title":"Reign of Fire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Fire_(film)","year":2002},{"by":"Gonzo","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Two young courier pilots in a world of floating battleships and Edwardian-styled aristocrats. Range Murata's designs are a steampunk reference library.","descs":{"dieselpunk":"Courier pilots in open-cockpit vanships fly between battleship fleets that fight like Napoleonic lines. Airborne diesel romance with a cold war underneath.","steampunk":"Two young courier pilots in a world of floating battleships and Edwardian-styled aristocrats. Range Murata's designs are a steampunk reference library."},"essential":false,"families":["steampunk","dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/last-exile-2003","id":"last-exile-2003","image":"/assets/imgs/works/lastexile-dvd-vol1-cover-d17bb2.webp","medium":"series","themes":["war","machines"],"title":"Last Exile","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Exile","year":2003},{"by":"Gorō Taniguchi / Sunrise","countries":["JP"],"desc":"The anime adaptation follows a debris-collection section treated as the company's lowest rung. Celebrated for orbital-mechanics realism and its office politics in orbit.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/planetes-2003","id":"planetes-2003","image":"/assets/imgs/works/planetes-manga-vol-1-426f4e.webp","medium":"series","themes":["space","colonies"],"title":"Planetes","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes","year":2003},{"by":"Hiroshi Hamasaki","countries":["JP"],"desc":"In the underground city of Lux, a fighter who loses limbs is rebuilt with prosthetics. Bleak, slow and almost wordless.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/texhnolyze-2003","id":"texhnolyze-2003","image":"/assets/imgs/works/texhnolyze-dvd-1-01367c.webp","medium":"series","themes":["body-mod","cities"],"title":"Texhnolyze","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texhnolyze","year":2003},{"by":"Stephen Norrington","countries":["US","DE"],"desc":"Nemo, Quatermain and company in a loose adaptation of the comic. Weak film, strong production design: the <em>Nautilus</em> as a Victorian battleship.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/the-league-of-extraordinary-gentlemen-2003","id":"the-league-of-extraordinary-gentlemen-2003","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-league-of-extraordinary-gentlemen-movie-0e781e.webp","medium":"film","themes":["machines","retro-future"],"title":"The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_League_of_Extraordinary_Gentlemen_(film)","year":2003},{"by":"Keiko Nobumoto, Tensai Okamura","countries":["JP"],"desc":"<em>Adjacent:</em> wolves in human form cross a dying, snowbound world in search of paradise. The frozen wasteland as spiritual journey.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/wolf-s-rain-2003","id":"wolf-s-rain-2003","image":"/assets/imgs/works/wolf-s-rain-region-2-volume-1-be2b93.webp","medium":"series","themes":["cold","myth","post-apocalypse"],"title":"Wolf's Rain","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf%27s_Rain","year":2003},{"by":"Arms","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A mutant Diclonius girl escapes a research facility off Kamakura. A notoriously violent anime about a new species and the lab that studies it.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/elfen-lied-2004","id":"elfen-lied-2004","image":"/assets/imgs/works/elfen-lied-manga-volume-1-009be9.webp","medium":"series","themes":["genetics","identity"],"title":"Elfen Lied","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elfen_Lied","year":2004},{"by":"Michel Gondry","countries":["US"],"desc":"Memory erasure as a consumer service. What we choose to forget shapes us as much as what we keep.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/eternal-sunshine-2004","id":"eternal-sunshine-2004","image":"/assets/imgs/works/eternal-sunshine-of-the-spotless-mind-8e717f.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind","identity"],"title":"Eternal Sunshine","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_Sunshine_of_the_Spotless_Mind","year":2004},{"by":"Guillermo del Toro","countries":["US"],"desc":"Opens with a 1944 Nazi occult ritual on a Scottish island, then never quite leaves it. Weird World War II as a family drama.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/hellboy-2004","id":"hellboy-2004","image":"/assets/imgs/works/hellboy-poster-b50f3d.webp","medium":"film","themes":["myth","war"],"title":"Hellboy","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellboy_(2004_film)","year":2004},{"by":"Hayao Miyazaki","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A walking castle of stovepipes and patched metal, and a world sliding into airship war. Miyazaki's anti-war steampunk fairy tale.","descs":{"pyropunk":"Calcifer, a fire demon bound into the hearth, powers a walking castle. A domestic flame as engine, contract and companion.","steampunk":"A walking castle of stovepipes and patched metal, and a world sliding into airship war. Miyazaki's anti-war steampunk fairy tale."},"essential":false,"families":["steampunk","pyropunk"],"href":"/work/howl-s-moving-castle-2004","id":"howl-s-moving-castle-2004","image":"/assets/imgs/works/howls-moving-castleposter-bb45c9.webp","medium":"film","themes":["war","myth","fire"],"title":"Howl's Moving Castle","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howl%27s_Moving_Castle_(film)","year":2004},{"by":"Masaaki Yuasa","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A loser dies, talks his way out of the afterlife and ends up inside a whale. Exploding, collage-style animation of a mind remaking its own life.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/mind-game-2004","id":"mind-game-2004","image":"/assets/imgs/works/mindgame-2004-poster-b3227f.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind"],"title":"Mind Game","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_Game_(film)","year":2004},{"by":"Satoshi Kon","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A boy on golden rollerblades assaults people in Tokyo, and he may be a mass hallucination born of collective stress.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/paranoia-agent-2004","id":"paranoia-agent-2004","image":"/assets/imgs/works/paranoia-agent-629967.webp","medium":"series","themes":["mind","cities"],"title":"Paranoia Agent","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_Agent","year":2004},{"by":"Kerry Conran","countries":["US"],"desc":"The most fully realized dieselpunk film yet made, mile-high robots, pulp serials, ace pilots and a sky that never quits.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/sky-captain-and-the-world-of-tomorrow-2004","id":"sky-captain-and-the-world-of-tomorrow-2004","image":"/assets/imgs/works/skycaptainposter-29fbed.webp","medium":"film","themes":["retro-future","machines"],"title":"Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_Captain_and_the_World_of_Tomorrow","year":2004},{"by":"Katsuhiro Otomo","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A boy inventor, a miraculous steam ball and an 1866 Manchester and London rendered in astonishing mechanical detail. The genre's most lavish animated film.","essential":true,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/steamboy-2004","id":"steamboy-2004","image":"/assets/imgs/works/steamboy-2004-poster-f13318.webp","medium":"film","themes":["machines","retro-future","war"],"title":"Steamboy","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steamboy","year":2004},{"by":"Roland Emmerich","countries":["US"],"desc":"A flash-freeze swallows the northern hemisphere in a weekend. Climate-collapse cold as disaster spectacle.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/the-day-after-tomorrow-2004","id":"the-day-after-tomorrow-2004","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-day-after-tomorrow-movie-d5163b.webp","medium":"film","themes":["climate","cold"],"title":"The Day After Tomorrow","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After_Tomorrow","year":2004},{"by":"Brad Bird","countries":["US"],"desc":"A superhero family in a world designed like a 1960s spy film and a mid-century modern catalogue. Adjacent, but its retro-futurist design is atompunk to the core.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/the-incredibles-2004","id":"the-incredibles-2004","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-incredibles-2004-animated-feature-film-0b0b5e.webp","medium":"film","themes":["retro-future"],"title":"The Incredibles","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incredibles","year":2004},{"by":"Wes Anderson","countries":["US"],"desc":"A fading oceanographer modelled on Cousteau hunts the shark that ate his partner. Retro research ships, red caps and stop-motion sea life: hydropunk as melancholy comedy.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/the-life-aquatic-with-steve-zissou-2004","id":"the-life-aquatic-with-steve-zissou-2004","image":"/assets/imgs/works/lifeaquaticposter-8985d7.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ocean"],"title":"The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_Aquatic_with_Steve_Zissou","year":2004},{"by":"Artland","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Adapting Urushibara's manga, the series follows Ginko as he tends to mushi, glowing primal life-forms that drift through mountain villages. Patient, episodic, healing: the closest thing to a lunapunk TV canon.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/mushishi-anime-2005","id":"mushishi-anime-2005","image":"/assets/imgs/works/mushishi-volume-1-35c5ba.webp","medium":"series","themes":["myth","ecology"],"title":"Mushishi (anime)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushishi","year":2005},{"by":"Joss Whedon","countries":["US"],"desc":"The feature-film coda to <em>Firefly</em>: the crew of a cargo ship uncovers what the Alliance did to a whole planet.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/serenity-2005","id":"serenity-2005","image":"/assets/imgs/works/serenity-one-sheet-5dd5fc.webp","medium":"film","themes":["space","colonies","rebellion"],"title":"Serenity","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_(2005_film)","year":2005},{"by":"Michael Bay","countries":["US"],"desc":"Residents of a sealed colony learn they are clones kept as spare parts for wealthy sponsors. Blockbuster biopunk.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/the-island-2005","id":"the-island-2005","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-island-aa9ce7.webp","medium":"film","themes":["genetics","identity","corporations"],"title":"The Island","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_(2005_film)","year":2005},{"by":"Richard Linklater","countries":["US"],"desc":"Rotoscoped animation gives Dick's paranoid novel a shimmering, unstable surface, perfect for a story about a self dissolving under Substance D.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/a-scanner-darkly-2006","id":"a-scanner-darkly-2006","image":"/assets/imgs/works/a-scanner-darkly-poster-67ee72.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind","surveillance","identity"],"title":"A Scanner Darkly","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scanner_Darkly_(film)","year":2006},{"by":"Alfonso Cuarón","countries":["GB","US"],"desc":"A world gone infertile and authoritarian, and one fragile spark of hope smuggled through the ruins of Britain.","essential":true,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/children-of-men-2006","id":"children-of-men-2006","image":"/assets/imgs/works/children-of-men-ver4-6a1231.webp","medium":"film","themes":["dystopia","survival"],"title":"Children of Men","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Men","year":2006},{"by":"Shūkō Murase","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A domed city kept calm by android companions and a mysterious being. Gothic, philosophical post-apocalypse cyberpunk.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/ergo-proxy-2006","id":"ergo-proxy-2006","image":"/assets/imgs/works/ergo-proxy-set-1-cover-b27d25.webp","medium":"series","themes":["ai","cities","identity"],"title":"Ergo Proxy","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergo_Proxy","year":2006},{"by":"Satoshi Kon","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A dream-therapy device is stolen and a parade of dream junk spills into Tokyo. The definitive animated vision of dreams leaking into reality.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/paprika-2006","id":"paprika-2006","image":"/assets/imgs/works/paprikaposter-fc1a52.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind","machines"],"title":"Paprika","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paprika_(2006_film)","year":2006},{"by":"Larry Fessenden","countries":["US"],"desc":"An Alaskan oil-drilling camp watches the permafrost thaw and something wake up. Eco-horror that turns the Arctic itself against extraction.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/the-last-winter-2006","id":"the-last-winter-2006","image":"/assets/imgs/works/lastwinter-6c5a68.webp","medium":"film","themes":["cold","climate"],"title":"The Last Winter","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Winter_(2006_film)","year":2006},{"by":"David Slade","countries":["US"],"desc":"<em>Adjacent:</em> an Alaskan town enters a month of polar night and vampires arrive with the dark. Survival in a town cut off by cold and sunlessness.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/30-days-of-night-2007","id":"30-days-of-night-2007","image":"/assets/imgs/works/30-days-of-night-poster-f0820c.webp","medium":"film","themes":["cold","night","survival"],"title":"30 Days of Night","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_Days_of_Night_(film)","year":2007},{"by":"Brain's Base","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Immortal alchemists, Camorra gangs and a transcontinental train massacre in Prohibition-era America. Adjacent: no retro tech, all diesel-era atmosphere.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/baccano-2007","id":"baccano-2007","image":"/assets/imgs/works/baccano-5e21f8.webp","medium":"series","themes":["noir","myth"],"title":"Baccano!","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baccano!","year":2007},{"by":"Francis Lawrence","countries":["US"],"desc":"Will Smith alone in an overgrown Manhattan with his dog. The third major adaptation of Matheson, famous for its images of a rewilded city.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/i-am-legend-2007","id":"i-am-legend-2007","image":"/assets/imgs/works/i-am-legend-teaser-ec5138.webp","medium":"film","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"I Am Legend","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Legend_(film)","year":2007},{"by":"Danny Boyle","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A crew carries a stellar bomb to reignite the dying Sun. The ultimate Promethean mission: relighting the original fire.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/sunshine-2007","id":"sunshine-2007","image":"/assets/imgs/works/sunshine-poster-6d5e26.webp","medium":"film","themes":["space","fire"],"title":"Sunshine","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_(2007_film)","year":2007},{"by":"Steven Spielberg","countries":["US"],"desc":"Indy in 1957: Soviet agents, a Nevada test town full of mannequins, and an infamous escape from a nuclear blast inside a fridge. Adjacent, but its test-town sequence is pure atompunk.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/indiana-jones-and-the-kingdom-of-the-crystal-skull-2008","id":"indiana-jones-and-the-kingdom-of-the-crystal-skull-2008","image":"/assets/imgs/works/kingdomofthecrystalskull-4e314c.webp","medium":"film","themes":["nuclear","myth"],"title":"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Jones_and_the_Kingdom_of_the_Crystal_Skull","year":2008},{"by":"Hayao Miyazaki","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A small fish-girl floods the world. The kindest hydropunk film ever made.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/ponyo-2008","id":"ponyo-2008","image":"/assets/imgs/works/ponyo-948044.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ocean","myth"],"title":"Ponyo","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponyo","year":2008},{"by":"Darren Lynn Bousman","countries":["US"],"desc":"A rock opera in which a biotech giant sells organs on credit and repossesses them with a scalpel. Biopunk's cult musical.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/repo-the-genetic-opera-2008","id":"repo-the-genetic-opera-2008","image":"/assets/imgs/works/repogeneticoperaofficialposter-5f0969.webp","medium":"film","themes":["body-mod","corporations"],"title":"Repo! The Genetic Opera","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repo!_The_Genetic_Opera","year":2008},{"by":"Alex Rivera","countries":["MX","US"],"desc":"Mexican workers operate robots in the United States remotely through nerve implants, while the border stays closed to their bodies. Cyberpunk from the Global South.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/sleep-dealer-2008","id":"sleep-dealer-2008","image":"/assets/imgs/works/sleep-dealer-999bd3.webp","medium":"film","themes":["cyberspace","corporations","body-mod"],"title":"Sleep Dealer","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_Dealer","year":2008},{"by":"Fumikane Shimada","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Girls with propeller units strapped to their legs fly against alien invaders in an alternate 1940s. Adjacent: fan-service-heavy, but its aircraft-nerd detail is genuine.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/strike-witches-2008","id":"strike-witches-2008","image":"/assets/imgs/works/strike-witches-vol-1-721248.webp","medium":"series","themes":["alt-history","war"],"title":"Strike Witches","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strike_Witches","year":2008},{"by":"Mamoru Oshii","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Ageless teenage pilots fly pusher-prop fighters in a corporate war staged for the public. Melancholy dieselpunk about war as entertainment.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/the-sky-crawlers-2008","id":"the-sky-crawlers-2008","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-sky-crawlers-cover-fc9778.webp","medium":"film","themes":["war","identity"],"title":"The Sky Crawlers","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sky_Crawlers_(film)","year":2008},{"by":"Frank Miller","countries":["US"],"desc":"Will Eisner's masked detective rendered in the same high-contrast style as <em>Sin City</em>. A curiosity, but an all-in noir-pulp experiment.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/the-spirit-2008","id":"the-spirit-2008","image":"/assets/imgs/works/thespiritposter-57d7ab.webp","medium":"film","themes":["noir","cities"],"title":"The Spirit","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_(2008_film)","year":2008},{"by":"Pixar","countries":["US"],"desc":"A tiny robot tends a dead Earth while humanity drifts in space. The final act, returning to grow things again, is pure solarpunk.","descs":{"apocapunk":"A trash-compacting robot is the last worker on an abandoned, garbage-buried Earth. Pixar's gentle apocapunk: salvage, collection, and a single growing plant.","solarpunk":"A tiny robot tends a dead Earth while humanity drifts in space. The final act, returning to grow things again, is pure solarpunk."},"essential":true,"families":["solarpunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/wall-e-2008","id":"wall-e-2008","image":"/assets/imgs/works/wall-e-poster-10c0ce.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ecology","post-apocalypse","machines"],"title":"WALL-E","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WALL-E","year":2008},{"by":"Shane Acker","countries":["US"],"desc":"Tiny stitched-burlap homunculi survive after the human war, post-apocalyptic steampunk distilled to its purest, saddest form.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/9-2009","id":"9-2009","image":"/assets/imgs/works/9posterfinal-d0761a.webp","medium":"film","themes":["machines","post-apocalypse"],"title":"9","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9_(2009_animated_film)","year":2009},{"by":"James Cameron","countries":["US"],"desc":"Adjacent: a blockbuster about colonial extraction, but its night forest on Pandora, where every leaf and root glows, became the mass-culture image of bioluminescent ecology.","descs":{"lunapunk":"Adjacent: a blockbuster about colonial extraction, but its night forest on Pandora, where every leaf and root glows, became the mass-culture image of bioluminescent ecology.","solarpunk":"Adjacent: the Na'vi of Pandora live inside a networked living ecosystem that a mining company wants to strip. A blockbuster that put bioluminescent forests in front of the whole world."},"essential":false,"families":["lunapunk","solarpunk"],"href":"/work/avatar-2009","id":"avatar-2009","image":"/assets/imgs/works/avatar-2009-film-poster-7d92f1.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ecology","colonies","corporations"],"title":"Avatar","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(2009_film)","year":2009},{"by":"Gaspar Noé","countries":["FR"],"desc":"Shot entirely from the viewpoint of a dealer in Tokyo, through a DMT trip, his death and beyond. The most literal attempt to film altered consciousness from inside.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/enter-the-void-2009","id":"enter-the-void-2009","image":"/assets/imgs/works/enter-the-void-poster-c7e1b6.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind","night","cities"],"title":"Enter the Void","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enter_the_Void","year":2009},{"by":"Bones","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Adjacent: alchemy, not fire, drives the story, but Colonel Roy Mustang, the Flame Alchemist, is one of anime's defining fire-wielders.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/fullmetal-alchemist-brotherhood-2009","id":"fullmetal-alchemist-brotherhood-2009","image":"","medium":"series","themes":["war","body-mod","myth"],"title":"Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fullmetal_Alchemist:_Brotherhood","year":2009},{"by":"Duncan Jones","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A lone helium-3 miner nearing the end of his three-year contract learns what Lunar Industries really thinks of its workforce. The definitive film about the disposable spacer.","descs":{"lunapunk":"A lone worker on a lunar mining base uncovers a quiet, devastating secret. Intimate, isolated, essential.","spacepunk":"A lone helium-3 miner nearing the end of his three-year contract learns what Lunar Industries really thinks of its workforce. The definitive film about the disposable spacer."},"essential":true,"families":["spacepunk","lunapunk"],"href":"/work/moon-2009","id":"moon-2009","image":"/assets/imgs/works/moon-2009-film-b7bf46.webp","medium":"film","themes":["space","identity","corporations"],"title":"Moon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_(2009_film)","year":2009},{"by":"Wanuri Kahiu","countries":["KE"],"desc":"In a sealed post-water-war community in East Africa, a curator discovers soil that can still grow a seed and walks out to plant it. A landmark of African science fiction on film.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/pumzi-2009","id":"pumzi-2009","image":"/assets/imgs/works/pumzi-2009-film-poster-5ecea6.webp","medium":"film","themes":["climate","ecology","dystopia"],"title":"Pumzi","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumzi","year":2009},{"by":"Gonzo","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Adapted from Eiichi Ikegami's novel: a jungle-covered Tokyo where a carbon-trading economy rules and the poor live outside towering arcologies. A sharp critique of green capitalism.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/shangri-la-2009","id":"shangri-la-2009","image":"/assets/imgs/works/shangri-la-novel-cover-5830b2.webp","medium":"series","themes":["climate","cities","ecology"],"title":"Shangri-La","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shangri-La_(novel)","year":2009},{"by":"Guy Ritchie","countries":["GB","US"],"desc":"Soot, fog, brass, and clockwork conspiracies. Mainstream cinema discovering it has been adjacent to steampunk for a century.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/sherlock-holmes-2009","id":"sherlock-holmes-2009","image":"/assets/imgs/works/sherlock-holmes-ver5-59fe30.webp","medium":"film","themes":["machines","noir"],"title":"Sherlock Holmes","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes_(2009_film)","year":2009},{"by":"Vincenzo Natali","countries":["CA","FR"],"desc":"Two researchers grow a designer organism. It grows up. It does not stay theirs.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/splice-2009","id":"splice-2009","image":"/assets/imgs/works/splice-poster-e237b1.webp","medium":"film","themes":["genetics"],"title":"Splice","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splice_(film)","year":2009},{"by":"John Hillcoat","countries":["US"],"desc":"McCarthy's ash-grey, freezing walk south put on screen with Viggo Mortensen. Grey light, empty roads and the cold of a dying world.","descs":{"apocapunk":"Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee in a faithful, ash-gray adaptation of McCarthy's novel.","frostpunk":"McCarthy's ash-grey, freezing walk south put on screen with Viggo Mortensen. Grey light, empty roads and the cold of a dying world."},"essential":false,"families":["frostpunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/the-road-2009","id":"the-road-2009","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-road-movie-poster-99ae0c.webp","medium":"film","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival","cold"],"title":"The Road","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_(2009_film)","year":2009},{"by":"Panos Cosmatos","countries":["CA"],"desc":"A girl is held sedated in a 1983 New Age research facility. Synth drones, strobing colour and slow dread make it a pure psychopunk mood piece.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/beyond-the-black-rainbow-2010","id":"beyond-the-black-rainbow-2010","image":"/assets/imgs/works/beyond-the-black-rainbow-poster-75f3a0.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind","retro-future"],"title":"Beyond the Black Rainbow","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_the_Black_Rainbow","year":2010},{"by":"DeBlois & Sanders","countries":["US"],"desc":"Dragon-fire as the central wonder and threat, the flame tamed, befriended, and finally wielded as wing and weapon.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/how-to-train-your-dragon-2010","id":"how-to-train-your-dragon-2010","image":"/assets/imgs/works/how-to-train-your-dragon-poster-0be3e7.webp","medium":"film","themes":["myth","fire"],"title":"How to Train Your Dragon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Train_Your_Dragon_(2010_film)","year":2010},{"by":"Christopher Nolan","countries":["US","GB"],"desc":"Dreams within dreams, and the theft, and planting, of ideas in the unguarded mind.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/inception-2010","id":"inception-2010","image":"/assets/imgs/works/inception-2010-theatrical-poster-60cbc5.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind"],"title":"Inception","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inception","year":2010},{"by":"Mark Romanek","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A faithful adaptation of Ishiguro's novel, scripted by Alex Garland. The donor clones' story told in muted colour.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/never-let-me-go-2010","id":"never-let-me-go-2010","image":"/assets/imgs/works/neverletmegoposterquad-e19e66.webp","medium":"film","themes":["genetics","identity"],"title":"Never Let Me Go","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Let_Me_Go_(2010_film)","year":2010},{"by":"Miguel Sapochnik","countries":["US"],"desc":"Artificial organs bought on payment plans, and the men who reclaim them when you default. Debt collection as surgery.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/repo-men-2010","id":"repo-men-2010","image":"/assets/imgs/works/repo-men-09-d72629.webp","medium":"film","themes":["body-mod","corporations"],"title":"Repo Men","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repo_Men","year":2010},{"by":"Hughes brothers","countries":["US"],"desc":"Denzel Washington walks west carrying what may be the last copy of a book a warlord wants for its power. A neo-western about knowledge as the most valuable salvage.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/the-book-of-eli-2010","id":"the-book-of-eli-2010","image":"/assets/imgs/works/book-of-eli-poster-d934b7.webp","medium":"film","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"The Book of Eli","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Eli","year":2010},{"by":"Joe Johnston","countries":["US"],"desc":"The Rocketeer's director returns to the 1940s with HYDRA tanks, flying wings and propaganda-tour showbiz. Critics singled out its dieselpunk quality.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/captain-america-the-first-avenger-2011","id":"captain-america-the-first-avenger-2011","image":"/assets/imgs/works/captain-america-the-first-avenger-poster-78745c.webp","medium":"film","themes":["war","retro-future","body-mod"],"title":"Captain America: The First Avenger","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_America:_The_First_Avenger","year":2011},{"by":"Martin Scorsese","countries":["US"],"desc":"A Parisian station-orphan and a broken automaton. A meditation on cinema, the machine age, and the things we make to remember the dead.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/hugo-2011","id":"hugo-2011","image":"/assets/imgs/works/hugo-poster-abe81c.webp","medium":"film","themes":["machines"],"title":"Hugo","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_(film)","year":2011},{"by":"Enrico Casarosa","countries":["US"],"desc":"A Pixar short loosely based on Calvino's &quot;The Distance of the Moon&quot;: a boy, his father and grandfather row out at night to sweep fallen stars off the lunar surface. Lunapunk in miniature.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/la-luna-2011","id":"la-luna-2011","image":"/assets/imgs/works/la-luna-2012-film-poster-88ae3e.webp","medium":"film","themes":["myth"],"title":"La Luna","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Luna_(2011_film)","year":2011},{"by":"Rupert Wyatt","countries":["US"],"desc":"A gene therapy meant to cure Alzheimer's uplifts a chimpanzee and becomes lethal to humans. Two biopunk nightmares in one drug.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/rise-of-the-planet-of-the-apes-2011","id":"rise-of-the-planet-of-the-apes-2011","image":"/assets/imgs/works/rise-of-the-planet-of-the-apes-poster-e54440.webp","medium":"film","themes":["genetics","rebellion"],"title":"Rise of the Planet of the Apes","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rise_of_the_Planet_of_the_Apes","year":2011},{"by":"Zack Snyder","countries":["US"],"desc":"Includes a fantasy sequence against clockwork German soldiers in a ruined Great War trench. Adjacent: a mixtape of genres in which dieselpunk is one track.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/sucker-punch-2011","id":"sucker-punch-2011","image":"/assets/imgs/works/sucker-punch-film-poster-e3eab8.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind"],"title":"Sucker Punch","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucker_Punch_(2011_film)","year":2011},{"by":"Joe Carnahan","countries":["US"],"desc":"<em>Adjacent:</em> oil workers survive a plane crash in the Alaskan winter and are hunted by wolves. Pure cold-survival, stripped of any apocalypse.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/the-grey-2011","id":"the-grey-2011","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-grey-poster-975c32.webp","medium":"film","themes":["cold","survival"],"title":"The Grey","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grey","year":2011},{"by":"Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.","countries":["US"],"desc":"Prequel to Carpenter's film, set at the Norwegian station that finds the creature first. Same ice, same paranoia, told from the other camp.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/the-thing-2011","id":"the-thing-2011","image":"/assets/imgs/works/thingprequelfairuse-f53223.webp","medium":"film","themes":["cold","survival","identity"],"title":"The Thing","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(2011_film)","year":2011},{"by":"Benh Zeitlin","countries":["US"],"desc":"A girl in the Bathtub, a bayou community outside the levees, rides out a flood that will not drain. Climate flooding seen from the people who refuse to leave.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/beasts-of-the-southern-wild-2012","id":"beasts-of-the-southern-wild-2012","image":"/assets/imgs/works/beasts-of-the-southern-wild-poster-f1ca32.webp","medium":"film","themes":["climate","ocean","survival"],"title":"Beasts of the Southern Wild","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beasts_of_the_Southern_Wild","year":2012},{"by":"Pete Travis","countries":["GB","ZA"],"desc":"Judge Dredd and a rookie fight up through a 200-storey slum tower run by a drug lord. A lean, violent take on the megacity block.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/dredd-2012","id":"dredd-2012","image":"/assets/imgs/works/dredd2012poster-f37e8e.webp","medium":"film","themes":["cities","dystopia"],"title":"Dredd","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dredd","year":2012},{"by":"A-1 Pictures","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Based on Yusuke Kishi's 2008 novel: a far-future society that has genetically engineered violence out of its psychic citizens. Utopia built on biological control.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/from-the-new-world-2012","id":"from-the-new-world-2012","image":"/assets/imgs/works/from-the-new-world-novel-cover-d1c2a4.webp","medium":"series","themes":["mind","genetics","dystopia"],"title":"From the New World","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_New_World_(novel)","year":2012},{"by":"Timo Vuorensola","countries":["FI","DE","AU"],"desc":"Nazis fled to the dark side of the Moon in 1945 and now they are back with zeppelin-borne space fleets. Crowdfunded satire that plays the trope for laughs.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/iron-sky-2012","id":"iron-sky-2012","image":"/assets/imgs/works/iron-sky-poster-a9886b.webp","medium":"film","themes":["space","alt-history"],"title":"Iron Sky","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Sky","year":2012},{"by":"Gen Urobuchi","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Police in future Japan use a system that scans each citizen's mind for criminal potential. Predictive policing turned into a moral trap.","descs":{"cyberpunk":"Police in future Japan use a system that scans each citizen's mind for criminal potential. Predictive policing turned into a moral trap.","psychopunk":"Citizens are constantly scanned for their mental state and arrested for a high crime coefficient. Psychiatry turned into predictive policing."},"essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk","psychopunk"],"href":"/work/psycho-pass-2012","id":"psycho-pass-2012","image":"/assets/imgs/works/psycho-pass-key-visual-2f5b9d.webp","medium":"series","themes":["surveillance","dystopia","ai","mind"],"title":"Psycho-Pass","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho-Pass","year":2012},{"by":"Sanzigen","countries":["JP"],"desc":"After sea levels rise, a mysterious Fleet of Fog cuts humanity off from the oceans, and one captured submarine fights back. The anime of Ark Performance's manga.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/arpeggio-of-blue-steel-2013","id":"arpeggio-of-blue-steel-2013","image":"/assets/imgs/works/arpeggio-volume1-72c5d1.webp","medium":"series","themes":["ocean","war","machines"],"title":"Arpeggio of Blue Steel","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arpeggio_of_Blue_Steel","year":2013},{"by":"GoHands","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Three radiation-proof schoolgirls search for survivors in an abandoned, contaminated Tokyo. Adapted from Tomonori Inoue's manga.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/coppelion-2013","id":"coppelion-2013","image":"/assets/imgs/works/coppelion-vol-1-9c2032.webp","medium":"series","themes":["nuclear","post-apocalypse"],"title":"Coppelion","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coppelion","year":2013},{"by":"Neill Blomkamp","countries":["US"],"desc":"Adjacent: the rich live in an orbital habitat while workers on a poisoned Earth build its robots. Class war with the station as the gated community.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/elysium-2013","id":"elysium-2013","image":"/assets/imgs/works/elysium-poster-aeaf76.webp","medium":"film","themes":["space","dystopia","corporations"],"title":"Elysium","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysium_(film)","year":2013},{"by":"P.A. Works","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Children from a village on the sea floor go to school on land, while the surface world slowly freezes. A gentle, sunlit underwater society.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/nagi-asu-a-lull-in-the-sea-2013","id":"nagi-asu-a-lull-in-the-sea-2013","image":"/assets/imgs/works/nagi-no-asukara-promotional-poster-4de4b5.webp","medium":"series","themes":["ocean","cold","myth"],"title":"Nagi-Asu: A Lull in the Sea","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagi-Asu:_A_Lull_in_the_Sea","year":2013},{"by":"Bong Joon-ho","countries":["KR","CZ"],"desc":"All of humanity on one endless train circling a frozen Earth. Class warfare in a steel tube, frostpunk perfected.","descs":{"apocapunk":"The last humans circle a frozen Earth on a train divided strictly by class. Frostpunk-adjacent, but its revolt from the tail section is a pure collapse-politics story.","frostpunk":"All of humanity on one endless train circling a frozen Earth. Class warfare in a steel tube, frostpunk perfected."},"essential":true,"families":["frostpunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/snowpiercer-2013","id":"snowpiercer-2013","image":"/assets/imgs/works/snowpiercer-poster-f406cf.webp","medium":"film","themes":["cold","dystopia","rebellion","climate"],"title":"Snowpiercer","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowpiercer","year":2013},{"by":"Jeff Renfroe","countries":["CA"],"desc":"Weather-control towers trigger a new ice age, and humanity survives in underground bunkers with rationed food and strict rules. Frostpunk's colony logic as action film.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/the-colony-2013","id":"the-colony-2013","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-colony-poster-d92e66.webp","medium":"film","themes":["cold","survival"],"title":"The Colony","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Colony_(2013_film)","year":2013},{"by":"Isao Takahata","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A hand-drawn, watercolour retelling of the Bamboo Cutter tale. Its ending, the procession descending from the Moon, is the most beautiful and unsettling lunar image in animation.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/the-tale-of-the-princess-kaguya-2013","id":"the-tale-of-the-princess-kaguya-2013","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-tale-of-the-princess-kaguya-poster-5a5683.webp","medium":"film","themes":["myth"],"title":"The Tale of the Princess Kaguya","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tale_of_the_Princess_Kaguya_(film)","year":2013},{"by":"Hayao Miyazaki","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A fictionalised life of Jiro Horikoshi, designer of the Zero fighter. Not speculative, but Miyazaki's most honest look at loving machines that will be used for war.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/the-wind-rises-2013","id":"the-wind-rises-2013","image":"/assets/imgs/works/kaze-tachinu-poster-770306.webp","medium":"film","themes":["machines","war"],"title":"The Wind Rises","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wind_Rises","year":2013},{"by":"Shane Carruth","countries":["US"],"desc":"A parasite-based drug makes victims obedient, and the survivors drift towards each other carrying fragments of shared memory.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/upstream-color-2013","id":"upstream-color-2013","image":"/assets/imgs/works/upstream-color-poster-c45085.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind","identity"],"title":"Upstream Color","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upstream_Color","year":2013},{"by":"Patrick McHale","countries":["US"],"desc":"Two half-brothers lost in the Unknown, a forest of lanterns, frogs and folk songs. An autumn nocturne in ten short episodes.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/over-the-garden-wall-2014","id":"over-the-garden-wall-2014","image":"/assets/imgs/works/over-the-garden-wall-animated-miniseries-poster-97bfd9.webp","medium":"series","themes":["myth","night"],"title":"Over the Garden Wall","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over_the_Garden_Wall","year":2014},{"by":"Madhouse","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Madhouse's adaptation of Iwaaki's manga, with a teenager sharing his arm with a parasitic organism. Brought a body-horror classic to a new audience.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/parasyte-the-maxim-2014","id":"parasyte-the-maxim-2014","image":"/assets/imgs/works/parasyte-4-5b37a7.webp","medium":"series","themes":["body-mod","identity"],"title":"Parasyte -the maxim-","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasyte","year":2014},{"by":"Tomm Moore","countries":["IE"],"desc":"A girl discovers she is a selkie whose song can free the spirits of Irish folklore. Tides, lighthouses, owls and moonlit seas: folklore as an ecology.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/song-of-the-sea-2014","id":"song-of-the-sea-2014","image":"/assets/imgs/works/song-of-the-sea-2014-film-poster-9eed73.webp","medium":"film","themes":["myth","ocean"],"title":"Song of the Sea","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_the_Sea_(2014_film)","year":2014},{"by":"Desmares & Ekinci","countries":["FR"],"desc":"A France where scientists vanished and the world never left coal and steam, drawn from the style of Jacques Tardi. Perhaps the best animated steampunk film outside Japan.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/april-and-the-extraordinary-world-2015","id":"april-and-the-extraordinary-world-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/avril-et-le-monde-truqu-poster-e661b2.webp","medium":"film","themes":["alt-history","retro-future","ecology"],"title":"April and the Extraordinary World","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_and_the_Extraordinary_World","year":2015},{"by":"George Miller","countries":["AU"],"desc":"The flame guitar, the war rigs, the sun-blasted Wasteland. Pyropunk cinema perfected.","descs":{"apocapunk":"The wasteland as opera. Furiosa's rebellion across a desert of war-rigs and warlords is apocapunk distilled to pure motion.","pyropunk":"The flame guitar, the war rigs, the sun-blasted Wasteland. Pyropunk cinema perfected."},"essential":true,"families":["pyropunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/mad-max-fury-road-2015","id":"mad-max-fury-road-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/mad-max-fury-road-da8320.webp","medium":"film","themes":["post-apocalypse","rebellion","fire"],"title":"Mad Max: Fury Road","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Max:_Fury_Road","year":2015},{"by":"Tatsuyuki Nagai","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Child laborers on a terraformed Mars overthrow their bosses and form a mercenary company. Explicitly about poverty, child soldiers and neo-colonialism.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/mobile-suit-gundam-iron-blooded-orphans-2015","id":"mobile-suit-gundam-iron-blooded-orphans-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/mobilesuitgundamironbloodedorphansposter-6bfa9c.webp","medium":"series","themes":["war","space","colonies"],"title":"Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Suit_Gundam:_Iron-Blooded_Orphans","year":2015},{"by":"Cyril Dion & Mélanie Laurent","countries":["FR"],"desc":"Documentary. A road trip through real working solutions in farming, energy, money and democracy. The closest thing to a solarpunk field guide on film.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/tomorrow-demain-2015","id":"tomorrow-demain-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/demain-b56b21.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ecology","climate","utopia"],"title":"Tomorrow (Demain)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow_(2015_film)","year":2015},{"by":"Brad Bird","countries":["US"],"desc":"A film entirely about why we stopped believing in the future. Imperfect, sincere, atompunk to its marrow.","descs":{"atompunk":"A film entirely about why we stopped believing in the future. Imperfect, sincere, atompunk to its marrow.","solarpunk":"Adjacent: a retro-futurist Disney film that is openly about refusing to believe in an inevitable apocalypse. Its argument against doom is pure solarpunk, its aesthetic more atomic age."},"essential":false,"families":["atompunk","solarpunk"],"href":"/work/tomorrowland-2015","id":"tomorrowland-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/tomorrowland-poster-4412c9.webp","medium":"film","themes":["utopia","retro-future"],"title":"Tomorrowland","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrowland_(film)","year":2015},{"by":"Tetsurō Araki","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Armoured steam trains run between walled stations in a zombie-ridden industrial Japan. Post-apocalyptic steampunk from Wit Studio.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/kabaneri-of-the-iron-fortress-2016","id":"kabaneri-of-the-iron-fortress-2016","image":"/assets/imgs/works/kabaneri-of-the-iron-fortress-promotional-image-2ae3af.webp","medium":"series","themes":["machines","survival","post-apocalypse"],"title":"Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabaneri_of_the_Iron_Fortress","year":2016},{"by":"Denis Villeneuve","countries":["US"],"desc":"A replicant blade runner uncovers a secret that could break the line between made and born. A sequel that extends the original's look into ash, snow and orange haze.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/blade-runner-2049-2017","id":"blade-runner-2049-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/blade-runner-2049-poster-56830c.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ai","identity","cities"],"title":"Blade Runner 2049","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner_2049","year":2017},{"by":"Xavier Gens","countries":["ES","FR"],"desc":"Adaptation of Piñol's novel: a lighthouse on a frozen island, two men and the creatures that come at night.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/cold-skin-2017","id":"cold-skin-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/cold-skin-film-098769.webp","medium":"film","themes":["cold","ocean","myth"],"title":"Cold Skin","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Skin_(film)","year":2017},{"by":"White Fox","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Two girls ride a half-track through the snowy ruins of a dead megastructure, rationing food and fuel. The gentlest possible frostpunk, about what is worth keeping once everything else is gone.","descs":{"apocapunk":"Two girls ride a half-track through the silent, frozen layers of a dead megacity looking for food and fuel. Quiet, funny, and philosophical about life after everything.","frostpunk":"Two girls ride a half-track through the snowy ruins of a dead megastructure, rationing food and fuel. The gentlest possible frostpunk, about what is worth keeping once everything else is gone."},"essential":false,"families":["frostpunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/girls-last-tour-2017","id":"girls-last-tour-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/girls-last-tour-volume-1-eed356.webp","medium":"series","themes":["post-apocalypse","cold","survival"],"title":"Girls' Last Tour","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girls%27_Last_Tour","year":2017},{"by":"Masaaki Yuasa","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A lonely boy in a fishing town befriends a dancing mermaid. Adjacent: a mermaid tale rather than a drowned-world story.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/lu-over-the-wall-2017","id":"lu-over-the-wall-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/luoverthewall-1c4e4a.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ocean","myth"],"title":"Lu Over the Wall","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lu_Over_the_Wall","year":2017},{"by":"Bong Joon Ho","countries":["KR","US"],"desc":"A girl and the genetically modified super pig she raised, against the meat corporation that owns it. Biopunk's most tender film.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/okja-2017","id":"okja-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/okja-44931d.webp","medium":"film","themes":["genetics","corporations"],"title":"Okja","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okja","year":2017},{"by":"Joseph Kosinski","countries":["US"],"desc":"The true story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, an elite wildfire crew in Arizona. Adjacent and real: the fire season as a front line.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/only-the-brave-2017","id":"only-the-brave-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/only-the-brave-2017-film-a58c99.webp","medium":"film","themes":["fire"],"title":"Only the Brave","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Only_the_Brave_(2017_film)","year":2017},{"by":"Masaki Tachibana","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Teenage spies in a divided, wall-split steampunk London powered by a mysterious anti-gravity mineral. Le Carré in corsets.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/princess-principal-2017","id":"princess-principal-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/princess-principal-title-card-41edb0.webp","medium":"series","themes":["alt-history","war"],"title":"Princess Principal","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Principal","year":2017},{"by":"Masaaki Yuasa","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A single, endless Kyoto night of drinking, book fairs and guerrilla theatre. Adjacent, but a joyous argument that the night is where a city truly lives.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/the-night-is-short-walk-on-girl-2017","id":"the-night-is-short-walk-on-girl-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-night-is-short-walk-on-girl-poster-2495d4.webp","medium":"film","themes":["night","cities"],"title":"The Night Is Short, Walk On Girl","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Is_Short,_Walk_On_Girl","year":2017},{"by":"Carlo Zen","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A ruthless salaryman reborn as a child mage officer in a magic-powered analogue of the Great War. The 2017 anime adapts light novels begun in 2013.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/the-saga-of-tanya-the-evil-2017","id":"the-saga-of-tanya-the-evil-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/y-jo-senki-light-novel-volume-1-cover-0c7097.webp","medium":"series","themes":["war","alt-history"],"title":"The Saga of Tanya the Evil","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saga_of_Tanya_the_Evil","year":2017},{"by":"Guillermo del Toro","countries":["US"],"desc":"A mute cleaner at a Cold War laboratory falls in love with the captive amphibian man. Teal, damp and Best Picture winner: the creature from the lagoon gets his romance.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/the-shape-of-water-2017","id":"the-shape-of-water-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-shape-of-water-film-ec96d5.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ocean","identity"],"title":"The Shape of Water","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shape_of_Water","year":2017},{"by":"Madhouse","countries":["JP"],"desc":"<em>Adjacent:</em> four high-school girls join a civilian expedition to Antarctica. The polar trip as coming-of-age, and a hopeful counterweight to the genre.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/a-place-further-than-the-universe-2018","id":"a-place-further-than-the-universe-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/a-place-further-than-the-universe-key-visual-68013e.webp","medium":"series","themes":["cold"],"title":"A Place Further than the Universe","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Place_Further_than_the_Universe","year":2018},{"by":"Alex Garland","countries":["US","GB"],"desc":"Biopunk's most fully realized film image: the Shimmer, the bear, the lighthouse, the iridescence.","descs":{"biopunk":"Biopunk's most fully realized film image: the Shimmer, the bear, the lighthouse, the iridescence.","lunapunk":"The cool, refractive bioluminescence lunapunk borrows for its light, a nature that glows on its own.","psychopunk":"Garland's take on Area X, where the Shimmer refracts DNA and memory alike. Its final sequence is pure ego-dissolution cinema."},"essential":false,"families":["biopunk","lunapunk","psychopunk"],"href":"/work/annihilation-film-2018","id":"annihilation-film-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/annihilation-film-3c8eec.webp","medium":"film","themes":["genetics","ecology","identity","mind"],"title":"Annihilation (film)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annihilation_(film)","year":2018},{"by":"James Wan","countries":["US"],"desc":"A lavish, glowing Atlantis of trench creatures and kingdoms under the sea. Adjacent superhero spectacle, but the most expensive undersea worldbuilding yet filmed.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/aquaman-2018","id":"aquaman-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/aquaman-film-poster-8ef6fb.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ocean","myth"],"title":"Aquaman","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaman_(film)","year":2018},{"by":"Joe Penna","countries":["IS"],"desc":"<em>Adjacent:</em> Mads Mikkelsen stranded after a crash in the Arctic, choosing between a known shelter and a lethal trek. Survival ethics with one person and almost no words.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/arctic-2018","id":"arctic-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/arctic-film-poster-e9d5bb.webp","medium":"film","themes":["cold","survival"],"title":"Arctic","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_(film)","year":2018},{"by":"Ryan Coogler","countries":["US"],"desc":"Wakanda, with its green rooftops, maglev trams and market streets, is one of the most cited visual references for solarpunk cities. An aesthetic touchstone more than a climate story.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/black-panther-2018","id":"black-panther-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/black-panther-film-poster-cba13a.webp","medium":"film","themes":["utopia","identity"],"title":"Black Panther","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_(film)","year":2018},{"by":"Claire Denis","countries":["FR","DE","GB"],"desc":"Death-row prisoners are shipped toward a black hole as an expendable crew and experimental subjects. Bleak, intimate, and unapologetically about who gets sent.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/high-life-2018","id":"high-life-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/high-life-film-poster-df2a7b.webp","medium":"film","themes":["space","identity"],"title":"High Life","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Life_(2018_film)","year":2018},{"by":"Luke Pearson (creator)","countries":["GB","CA"],"desc":"Adapted from Pearson's comics: a blue-haired girl befriends the spirits, trolls and night creatures around Trolberg. Adjacent, but its folklore-as-neighbourhood is very lunapunk.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/hilda-2018","id":"hilda-2018","image":"","medium":"series","themes":["myth"],"title":"Hilda","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilda_(TV_series)","year":2018},{"by":"Panos Cosmatos","countries":["US","BE"],"desc":"A revenge story set in 1983, fought through a cult, LSD and blood-red hallucination. Heavy-metal psychedelia at full volume.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/mandy-2018","id":"mandy-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/mandy-2018-film-bdbd88.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind","night"],"title":"Mandy","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandy_(2018_film)","year":2018},{"by":"Christian Rivers","countries":["NZ","US"],"desc":"Peter Jackson's team brings Reeve's predator city of London to the screen. Visually immense traction cities that rumble across a ruined Europe.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/mortal-engines-2018","id":"mortal-engines-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/mortalengines2018poster-3e0a69.webp","medium":"film","themes":["cities","post-apocalypse","machines"],"title":"Mortal Engines","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_Engines_(film)","year":2018},{"by":"Julius Avery","countries":["US"],"desc":"D-Day paratroopers stumble into a village laboratory of Nazi super-soldier experiments. Weird World War II as a war-horror film.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/overlord-2018","id":"overlord-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/overlord2018poster-d568e5.webp","medium":"film","themes":["war","body-mod"],"title":"Overlord","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overlord_(2018_film)","year":2018},{"by":"Leigh Whannell","countries":["AU"],"desc":"A paralyzed technophobe is given a chip that controls his body, and has its own plans. A small-budget, sharp story about AI and consent.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/upgrade-2018","id":"upgrade-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/upgradeposter-9f2993.webp","medium":"film","themes":["body-mod","ai"],"title":"Upgrade","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upgrade_(film)","year":2018},{"by":"Damon Gameau","countries":["AU"],"desc":"Documentary. A father imagines his daughter's world in 2040 if we simply scaled the solutions that already exist, staged with speculative visual effects. Solarpunk as a thought experiment with footnotes.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/2040-2019","id":"2040-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/2040-film-poster-0c745d.webp","medium":"film","themes":["climate","ecology","utopia"],"title":"2040","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2040_(film)","year":2019},{"by":"Robert Rodriguez","countries":["US"],"desc":"A cyborg girl rebuilt from scrap in Iron City discovers she was made for war. A big-budget adaptation of Kishiro's manga.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/alita-battle-angel-2019","id":"alita-battle-angel-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/alita-battle-angel-2019-poster-6b57eb.webp","medium":"film","themes":["body-mod","cities"],"title":"Alita: Battle Angel","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alita:_Battle_Angel","year":2019},{"by":"Ayumu Watanabe","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Studio 4°C adapts Igarashi's manga into a hallucinatory story of two boys raised by dugongs. Animation that tries to look like the inside of the ocean.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/children-of-the-sea-2019","id":"children-of-the-sea-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/children-of-the-sea-film-poster-81146a.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ocean","myth"],"title":"Children of the Sea","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_the_Sea_(film)","year":2019},{"by":"TMS Entertainment","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Humanity is petrified for 3,700 years and a teenage genius rebuilds science from scratch, from soap to radio. Apocapunk's maker ethic turned into a whole series.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/dr-stone-2019","id":"dr-stone-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/doctor-stone-bb7929.webp","medium":"series","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"Dr. Stone","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Stone","year":2019},{"by":"David Production","countries":["JP"],"desc":"The anime adaptation of Ohkubo's manga: firefighter brigades that battle humans who spontaneously combust, in a Tokyo powered by a sacred flame.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/fire-force-2019","id":"fire-force-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fire-force-kv-cf9c41.webp","medium":"series","themes":["fire","myth"],"title":"Fire Force","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Fire_Force_episodes","year":2019},{"by":"Hiroyuki Imaishi","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Studio Trigger's neon-flame feature: pyrokinetic mutants called the Burnish, a firefighting mecha crew, and fire drawn as triangles of pink and cyan.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/promare-2019","id":"promare-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/promare-key-visual-c8a024.webp","medium":"film","themes":["fire","rebellion"],"title":"Promare","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promare","year":2019},{"by":"Frant Gwo","countries":["CN"],"desc":"From Liu Cixin's story: Earth is pushed out of its orbit by giant engines, the surface freezes, and humanity lives in underground cities. The Generator scaled up to planetary size.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/the-wandering-earth-2019","id":"the-wandering-earth-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-wandering-earth-film-poster-65e725.webp","medium":"film","themes":["cold","space","survival"],"title":"The Wandering Earth","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wandering_Earth","year":2019},{"by":"Makoto Shinkai","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A girl who can stop the rain makes a choice that leaves Tokyo underwater. A box-office hit that ends with a drowned city and no apology.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/weathering-with-you-2019","id":"weathering-with-you-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/weathering-with-you-poster-7254b7.webp","medium":"film","themes":["climate","myth","cities"],"title":"Weathering with You","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weathering_with_You","year":2019},{"by":"Josh Tickell & Rebecca Harrell Tickell","countries":["US"],"desc":"Documentary. Farmers and scientists make the case that regenerative agriculture can rebuild soil and draw down carbon. The soil half of sun and soil.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/kiss-the-ground-2020","id":"kiss-the-ground-2020","image":"","medium":"film","themes":["ecology","climate"],"title":"Kiss the Ground","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiss_the_Ground","year":2020},{"by":"Glen Keane","countries":["US","CN"],"desc":"A grieving girl builds a rocket to meet the moon goddess Chang'e. The Mid-Autumn myth as a story about letting go.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/over-the-moon-2020","id":"over-the-moon-2020","image":"/assets/imgs/works/over-the-moon-2020-f87492.webp","medium":"film","themes":["myth","space"],"title":"Over the Moon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over_the_Moon_(2020_film)","year":2020},{"by":"Brandon Cronenberg","countries":["CA","GB"],"desc":"A corporate assassin works by implanting her consciousness into other people's bodies, and loses track of where she ends.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/possessor-2020","id":"possessor-2020","image":"/assets/imgs/works/possessor-film-poster-25e552.webp","medium":"film","themes":["mind","identity","body-mod"],"title":"Possessor","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possessor_(film)","year":2020},{"by":"George Clooney","countries":["US"],"desc":"<em>Adjacent:</em> a dying scientist alone at an Arctic base after an unnamed catastrophe tries to warn a returning spacecraft. A quiet end of the world on the ice.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/the-midnight-sky-2020","id":"the-midnight-sky-2020","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-midnight-sky-poster-fd7a28.webp","medium":"film","themes":["cold","post-apocalypse","space"],"title":"The Midnight Sky","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Midnight_Sky","year":2020},{"by":"William Eubank","countries":["US"],"desc":"An earthquake breaks a drilling station seven miles down and its survivors must walk the seabed in pressure suits. A lean, loving update of 1989's habitat horror.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/underwater-2020","id":"underwater-2020","image":"/assets/imgs/works/underwater-poster-b53c9d.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ocean","survival"],"title":"Underwater","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_(film)","year":2020},{"by":"Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart","countries":["IE","LU"],"desc":"In 1650 Ireland, a girl joins the wolfwalkers who run with the pack while they sleep. Moonlit forests against the axe of the day-world: lunapunk's politics in folktale form.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/wolfwalkers-2020","id":"wolfwalkers-2020","image":"/assets/imgs/works/wolfwalkers-6c335c.webp","medium":"film","themes":["myth","ecology"],"title":"Wolfwalkers","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfwalkers","year":2020},{"by":"Denis Villeneuve","countries":["US"],"desc":"Arrakis rebuilt at monumental scale: heat, sand and spice under a lethal sun. The burning desert as cinema.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/dune-2021","id":"dune-2021","image":"/assets/imgs/works/dune-2021-film-7052b3.webp","medium":"film","themes":["myth","colonies","war"],"title":"Dune","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(2021_film)","year":2021},{"by":"James Cameron","countries":["US"],"desc":"Cameron takes Pandora to its reef clans and whale-like tulkun, with new underwater performance capture. The director of <em>The Abyss</em> finally gets the ocean he wanted.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/avatar-the-way-of-water-2022","id":"avatar-the-way-of-water-2022","image":"/assets/imgs/works/avatar-the-way-of-water-poster-3fb9f4.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ocean","ecology","colonies"],"title":"Avatar: The Way of Water","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar:_The_Way_of_Water","year":2022},{"by":"David Cronenberg","countries":["CA","GR"],"desc":"Performance artists grow new organs and remove them on stage. Cronenberg returns to the body as an evolving, unruly medium.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/crimes-of-the-future-2022","id":"crimes-of-the-future-2022","image":"/assets/imgs/works/crimes-of-the-future-2022-film-43df27.webp","medium":"film","themes":["body-mod"],"title":"Crimes of the Future","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimes_of_the_Future_(2022_film)","year":2022},{"by":"Hiroyuki Imaishi (Trigger)","countries":["JP","PL"],"desc":"A street kid chromes up to survive Night City and keeps going. Studio Trigger and CD Projekt Red turned the game's world into ten episodes of tragedy.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/cyberpunk-edgerunners-2022","id":"cyberpunk-edgerunners-2022","image":"/assets/imgs/works/cyberpunk-edgerunners-poster-7238d5.webp","medium":"series","themes":["body-mod","corporations","cities"],"title":"Cyberpunk: Edgerunners","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk:_Edgerunners","year":2022},{"by":"Hiroshi Kobayashi","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Megacorporations run a space economy that leaves Earth-born Earthians poor and Spacians rich. A school drama on top, a class war underneath.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/mobile-suit-gundam-the-witch-from-mercury-2022","id":"mobile-suit-gundam-the-witch-from-mercury-2022","image":"/assets/imgs/works/mobilesuitgundamthewitchfrommercuryvisual-09ef80.webp","medium":"series","themes":["space","corporations","war"],"title":"Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Suit_Gundam:_The_Witch_from_Mercury","year":2022},{"by":"Wes Anderson","countries":["US"],"desc":"A retro-futurist 1955 desert town, a Junior Stargazer convention and mushroom clouds on the horizon. Atompunk as a pastel diorama.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/asteroid-city-2023","id":"asteroid-city-2023","image":"/assets/imgs/works/asteroidcity-16258a.webp","medium":"film","themes":["nuclear","retro-future"],"title":"Asteroid City","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_City","year":2023},{"by":"Peter Sohn","countries":["US"],"desc":"A family of fire elements runs a shop in Element City. Pixar's gentle pyropunk: a culture, a craft and a blue flame passed down a generation.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/elemental-2023","id":"elemental-2023","image":"/assets/imgs/works/elemental-final-poster-39fca6.webp","medium":"film","themes":["fire","cities"],"title":"Elemental","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elemental_(2023_film)","year":2023},{"by":"Christopher Nolan","countries":["US","GB"],"desc":"The biography of the man who led the Manhattan Project. Historical drama rather than retrofuture, but it is the origin story of everything on this page.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/oppenheimer-2023","id":"oppenheimer-2023","image":"/assets/imgs/works/oppenheimer-film-102ae2.webp","medium":"film","themes":["nuclear","war"],"title":"Oppenheimer","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppenheimer_(film)","year":2023},{"by":"Studio M2","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Netflix adaptation of Urasawa's retelling of an Astro Boy arc, a robot-murder mystery about war and memory. Tezuka's atom-age world, made adult.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/pluto-2023","id":"pluto-2023","image":"/assets/imgs/works/pluto-2023-ce8d6c.webp","medium":"series","themes":["ai","machines","war"],"title":"Pluto","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto_(Japanese_TV_series)","year":2023},{"by":"Yorgos Lanthimos","countries":["GB","IE","US"],"desc":"A surgeon revives a woman with an infant's brain and she sets out to see the world. Adjacent to biopunk: a Frankenstein fable more interested in liberation than labs.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/poor-things-2023","id":"poor-things-2023","image":"/assets/imgs/works/poor-things-poster-93bd1e.webp","medium":"film","themes":["body-mod","identity"],"title":"Poor Things","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_Things_(film)","year":2023},{"by":"Frant Gwo","countries":["CN"],"desc":"Prequel showing how the frozen, engine-driven Earth came to be, and what it cost. Big-budget Chinese science fiction about collective sacrifice.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/the-wandering-earth-2-2023","id":"the-wandering-earth-2-2023","image":"/assets/imgs/works/thewanderingearth2-8a32cb.webp","medium":"film","themes":["cold","space","ai"],"title":"The Wandering Earth 2","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wandering_Earth_2","year":2023},{"by":"Fede Álvarez","countries":["US"],"desc":"Young workers on the perpetually dark Jackson's Star mining colony try to escape after Weyland-Yutani forcibly extends their contracts. Labor desperation is the engine of the plot.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/alien-romulus-2024","id":"alien-romulus-2024","image":"/assets/imgs/works/alien-romulus-2024-poster-94969d.webp","medium":"film","themes":["space","corporations","survival"],"title":"Alien: Romulus","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien:_Romulus","year":2024},{"by":"George Miller","countries":["AU"],"desc":"The prequel to <em>Fury Road</em>: the Citadel, Gastown and the Bullet Farm, the oil-and-fire economy of the Wasteland seen from the inside.","descs":{"apocapunk":"Anya Taylor-Joy as the young Furiosa, taken from the Green Place and raised among warlords. A prequel that maps the economics of the wasteland: water, guzzoline, and bullets.","pyropunk":"The prequel to <em>Fury Road</em>: the Citadel, Gastown and the Bullet Farm, the oil-and-fire economy of the Wasteland seen from the inside."},"essential":false,"families":["pyropunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/furiosa-a-mad-max-saga-2024","id":"furiosa-a-mad-max-saga-2024","image":"/assets/imgs/works/furiosa-a-mad-max-saga-be82eb.webp","medium":"film","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furiosa:_A_Mad_Max_Saga","year":2024},{"by":"Coralie Fargeat","countries":["FR","GB"],"desc":"A black-market serum splits an ageing star into a younger self, with strict rules about sharing the body. Body horror about beauty as a biotech product.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/the-substance-2024","id":"the-substance-2024","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-substance-poster-b7179e.webp","medium":"film","themes":["body-mod","identity"],"title":"The Substance","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Substance","year":2024},{"by":"Chris Sanders","countries":["US"],"desc":"A service robot stranded on a wild island learns to raise a gosling and live among animals. Adjacent: a gentle fable of technology learning care from nature.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/the-wild-robot-2024","id":"the-wild-robot-2024","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-wild-robot-poster-7bae25.webp","medium":"film","themes":["ai","ecology","machines"],"title":"The Wild Robot","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wild_Robot","year":2024},{"by":"Bong Joon Ho","countries":["US","KR"],"desc":"An Expendable on a colony mission does the deadly jobs and is reprinted from a clone each time he dies. Spacepunk's disposable worker turned into black comedy.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/mickey-17-2025","id":"mickey-17-2025","image":"/assets/imgs/works/mickey-17-film-poster-21ff12.webp","medium":"film","themes":["colonies","identity","space"],"title":"Mickey 17","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_17","year":2025},{"by":"Wit Studio","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A Netflix original anime set in a war between Earth and the Moon's rebel forces, from a concept by Tow Ubukata. Adjacent: the Heinlein line of lunar politics, retold for the 2020s.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/moonrise-2025","id":"moonrise-2025","image":"/assets/imgs/works/moonrise-kv-968c04.webp","medium":"series","themes":["space","colonies","rebellion"],"title":"Moonrise","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonrise_(TV_series)","year":2025},{"by":"Marc Miller / GDW","countries":["US"],"desc":"The grandfather of spacepunk gaming: tramp freighters, ship mortgages and characters who can die during creation.","essential":true,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/traveller-1977","id":"traveller-1977","image":"/assets/imgs/works/gdw-b00-book-00-an-introduction-to-traveller-rpg-supplement--894cb8.webp","medium":"game","themes":["space","colonies","corporations"],"title":"Traveller","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveller_(role-playing_game)","year":1977},{"by":"James M. Ward & Gary Jaquet (TSR)","countries":["US"],"desc":"A post-apocalyptic RPG of mutants and scavenged ancient tech. The tabletop ancestor of the Fallout wasteland.","descs":{"apocapunk":"TSR's science-fantasy RPG of mutants hunting artifacts after the 'Great Upheaval'. The first major post-apocalyptic tabletop game.","atompunk":"A post-apocalyptic RPG of mutants and scavenged ancient tech. The tabletop ancestor of the Fallout wasteland."},"essential":false,"families":["atompunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/gamma-world-1978","id":"gamma-world-1978","image":"/assets/imgs/works/gamma-world-book-265db0.webp","medium":"game","themes":["post-apocalypse","nuclear","genetics"],"title":"Gamma World","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_World","year":1978},{"by":"Timeline Ltd.","countries":["US"],"desc":"Players wake from cryogenic sleep after a nuclear war, tasked with rebuilding America. A hard-edged, equipment-focused classic.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/the-morrow-project-1980","id":"the-morrow-project-1980","image":"/assets/imgs/works/timeline-morrow-project-1st-ed-cover-1980-5d3087.webp","medium":"game","themes":["post-apocalypse","nuclear","survival"],"title":"The Morrow Project","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Morrow_Project","year":1980},{"by":"Chaosium","countries":["US"],"desc":"The horror RPG that put a Sanity score on the character sheet. Lovecraftian rather than psychopunk, but every sanity mechanic descends from it.","essential":true,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/call-of-cthulhu-1981","id":"call-of-cthulhu-1981","image":"/assets/imgs/works/call-of-cthulhu-rpg-1st-ed-1981-45d040.webp","medium":"game","themes":["myth","mind","noir"],"title":"Call of Cthulhu","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Cthulhu_(role-playing_game)","year":1981},{"by":"David Braben & Ian Bell","countries":["GB"],"desc":"You start with 100 credits and a Cobra Mk III and trade your way up. The original working-spacer sandbox.","essential":true,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/elite-1984","id":"elite-1984","image":"/assets/imgs/works/elite-org-cover-94fe1f.webp","medium":"game","themes":["space","machines"],"title":"Elite","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_(video_game)","year":1984},{"by":"Costikyan, Gelber & Goldberg (West End Games)","countries":["US"],"desc":"Players are troubleshooters in an underground complex run by a paranoid computer. Adjacent, but its Cold War satire and retro tech fit right in.","descs":{"atompunk":"Players are troubleshooters in an underground complex run by a paranoid computer. Adjacent, but its Cold War satire and retro tech fit right in.","psychopunk":"Clones serve a mad Computer in Alpha Complex, where suspicion is mandatory and happiness compulsory."},"essential":true,"families":["atompunk","psychopunk"],"href":"/work/paranoia-1984","id":"paranoia-1984","image":"/assets/imgs/works/paranoia-1st-edition-cover-5dad56.webp","medium":"game","themes":["dystopia","ai","surveillance","retro-future"],"title":"Paranoia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_(role-playing_game)","year":1984},{"by":"Game Designers' Workshop","countries":["US"],"desc":"Soldiers stranded in Poland after a limited nuclear war must survive and find a way home. Grounded, military, and repeatedly revived.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/twilight-2000-1984","id":"twilight-2000-1984","image":"/assets/imgs/works/twilight2000cover-a540a9.webp","medium":"game","themes":["war","nuclear","survival"],"title":"Twilight: 2000","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight:_2000","year":1984},{"by":"Mike Pondsmith","countries":["US"],"desc":"R. Talsorian's RPG line, from the 1988 original through Cyberpunk 2020 to Cyberpunk Red in 2020. It invented Night City, and the video game is built on it.","essential":true,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/cyberpunk-2013-2020-red-1988","id":"cyberpunk-2013-2020-red-1988","image":"/assets/imgs/works/cyberpunk2020-0676cc.webp","medium":"game","themes":["cyberspace","corporations","body-mod","cities"],"title":"Cyberpunk (2013 / 2020 / Red)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk_(role-playing_game)","year":1988},{"by":"Interplay","countries":["US"],"desc":"An adventure game loosely based on Gibson's novel, with a soundtrack by Devo. One of the first attempts to make cyberspace playable.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/neuromancer-1988","id":"neuromancer-1988","image":"/assets/imgs/works/neuromancer1988-e9a549.webp","medium":"game","themes":["cyberspace","ai","noir"],"title":"Neuromancer","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromancer_(video_game)","year":1988},{"by":"Hideo Kojima","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A detective hunts androids that kill and replace humans in Neo Kobe City. Kojima's cyberpunk adventure, deeply indebted to Blade Runner.","essential":true,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/snatcher-1988","id":"snatcher-1988","image":"/assets/imgs/works/pc88-snatcher-front-176018.webp","medium":"game","themes":["machines","noir","cities"],"title":"Snatcher","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snatcher_(video_game)","year":1988},{"by":"Frank Chadwick","countries":["US"],"desc":"Victorian explorers on aether ships to canal-cut Mars and swampy Venus. The first role-playing game of steam-age space travel.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/space-1889-1988","id":"space-1889-1988","image":"/assets/imgs/works/space1889rpg-b5e6e3.webp","medium":"game","themes":["alt-history","space","colonies"],"title":"Space: 1889","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space:_1889","year":1988},{"by":"Interplay Productions","countries":["US"],"desc":"A party RPG in a post-nuclear American Southwest. The direct spiritual ancestor of Fallout.","descs":{"apocapunk":"Desert Rangers patrol a post-nuclear American Southwest. Produced by Brian Fargo, it founded the post-apocalyptic RPG and directly inspired Fallout.","atompunk":"A party RPG in a post-nuclear American Southwest. The direct spiritual ancestor of Fallout."},"essential":true,"families":["atompunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/wasteland-1988","id":"wasteland-1988","image":"/assets/imgs/works/wasteland-coverart-7d3d3e.webp","medium":"game","themes":["post-apocalypse","nuclear","survival"],"title":"Wasteland","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasteland_(video_game)","year":1988},{"by":"FASA","countries":["US"],"desc":"Cyberpunk crossed with magic: elves, dragons and deckers in a corporate 2050s. A franchise of novels, card games and video games.","essential":true,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/shadowrun-1989","id":"shadowrun-1989","image":"/assets/imgs/works/shadowrun4a-09c5c1.webp","medium":"game","themes":["cyberspace","corporations","myth"],"title":"Shadowrun","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowrun","year":1989},{"by":"Loyd Blankenship","countries":["US"],"desc":"A sourcebook whose draft was seized in the 1990 Secret Service raid on Steve Jackson Games, as if a game manual were a hacking handbook. The raid helped spur the founding of the EFF.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/gurps-cyberpunk-1990","id":"gurps-cyberpunk-1990","image":"/assets/imgs/works/gurps-cyberpunk-eca0b2.webp","medium":"game","themes":["cyberspace","body-mod","corporations"],"title":"GURPS Cyberpunk","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GURPS_Cyberpunk","year":1990},{"by":"Brown & Denning (TSR)","countries":["US"],"desc":"Athas, a dying desert world under a bloated sun, where magic itself scorches the land. The essential sun-blasted D&amp;D setting.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/dark-sun-1991","id":"dark-sun-1991","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-dark-sun-logo-71a867.webp","medium":"game","themes":["fire","survival","ecology"],"title":"Dark Sun","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Sun","year":1991},{"by":"Gunilla Jonsson & Michael Petersén","countries":["SE"],"desc":"Reality is a prison illusion, and madness or enlightenment are the ways out. The most explicitly gnostic horror RPG.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/kult-1991","id":"kult-1991","image":"/assets/imgs/works/kult-divinity-lost-original-cover-609ee9.webp","medium":"game","themes":["mind","myth","identity"],"title":"Kult","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kult_(role-playing_game)","year":1991},{"by":"Delta Green Partnership","countries":["US"],"desc":"Federal agents fight the unnatural in a world haunted by real programs like MKUltra. Adjacent, but steeped in mind-control history.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/delta-green-1992","id":"delta-green-1992","image":"/assets/imgs/works/delta-green-logo-ff862a.webp","medium":"game","themes":["myth","surveillance","mind"],"title":"Delta Green","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Green","year":1992},{"by":"id Software","countries":["US"],"desc":"Hell-fire as setting and aesthetic: molten landscapes, infernal machinery, and three decades of fire painted across the screen.","essential":true,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/doom-1993","id":"doom-1993","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-doom-game-s-logo-svg-19a67a.webp","medium":"game","themes":["fire","myth","war"],"title":"Doom","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_(franchise)","year":1993},{"by":"White Wolf Publishing","countries":["US"],"desc":"Reality is shaped by consensus belief, and mages fight a Technocracy that enforces a single official version. The key RPG of consensus reality.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/mage-the-ascension-1993","id":"mage-the-ascension-1993","image":"/assets/imgs/works/mageasce-c-725e2f.webp","medium":"game","themes":["mind","myth","rebellion"],"title":"Mage: The Ascension","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mage:_The_Ascension","year":1993},{"by":"Bullfrog Productions","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Command cyborg agents for a megacorp fighting rival syndicates for the world. Players are the villains of cyberpunk.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/syndicate-1993","id":"syndicate-1993","image":"/assets/imgs/works/syndicate-coverart-629ea5.webp","medium":"game","themes":["corporations","body-mod","cities"],"title":"Syndicate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syndicate_(1993_video_game)","year":1993},{"by":"The Bitmap Brothers","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A run-and-gun through a Victorian England warped by a rogue Babbage-style machine. An early game set squarely in a steampunk Victorian age.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/the-chaos-engine-1993","id":"the-chaos-engine-1993","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-chaos-engine-box-art-d7963a.webp","medium":"game","themes":["machines","alt-history"],"title":"The Chaos Engine","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chaos_Engine","year":1993},{"by":"Origin Systems","countries":["US"],"desc":"Not a navy pilot but a freelancer: merchant, mercenary or pirate, paying off your own ship.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/wing-commander-privateer-1993","id":"wing-commander-privateer-1993","image":"/assets/imgs/works/wing-commander-privateer-coverart-637d05.webp","medium":"game","themes":["space"],"title":"Wing Commander: Privateer","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wing_Commander:_Privateer","year":1993},{"by":"Revolution Software","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A point-and-click adventure in a dystopian Australian city ruled by an AI, with art by Dave Gibbons. Later released as freeware.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/beneath-a-steel-sky-1994","id":"beneath-a-steel-sky-1994","image":"/assets/imgs/works/beneath-a-steel-sky-coverart-c8e824.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ai","dystopia","cities"],"title":"Beneath a Steel Sky","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beneath_a_Steel_Sky","year":1994},{"by":"Mike Pondsmith","countries":["US"],"desc":"A New Europa of faerie, steam and Bismarck, played with cards instead of dice. Cyberpunk's creator turns to gaslight romance.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/castle-falkenstein-1994","id":"castle-falkenstein-1994","image":"/assets/imgs/works/castle-falkenstein-cover-7b1c3f.webp","medium":"game","themes":["alt-history","myth","machines"],"title":"Castle Falkenstein","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Falkenstein_(role-playing_game)","year":1994},{"by":"Square","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Magitek armour, opera houses and an empire industrialising magic. The SNES classic that put steampunk into the heart of the JRPG.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/final-fantasy-vi-1994","id":"final-fantasy-vi-1994","image":"/assets/imgs/works/final-fantasy-vi-6b8b62.webp","medium":"game","themes":["machines","war","myth"],"title":"Final Fantasy VI","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_VI","year":1994},{"by":"Looking Glass","countries":["US"],"desc":"A rogue AI named SHODAN on a space station. The progenitor of immersive sim horror.","essential":true,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/system-shock-1994","id":"system-shock-1994","image":"/assets/imgs/works/sysshock-f0505e.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ai","body-mod","space"],"title":"System Shock","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Shock","year":1994},{"by":"Massive Development","countries":["DE"],"desc":"A submarine combat sim set in a future where humanity lives in undersea stations. It launched the AquaNox series.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/archimedean-dynasty-1996","id":"archimedean-dynasty-1996","image":"/assets/imgs/works/archimedean-dynasty-coverart-a34abf.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ocean","war"],"title":"Archimedean Dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedean_Dynasty","year":1996},{"by":"Westwood Studios","countries":["US"],"desc":"Einstein erases Hitler and a Soviet empire fights the Allies with Tesla coils and dreadnoughts. Alternate World War II as a real-time strategy game.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/command-conquer-red-alert-1996","id":"command-conquer-red-alert-1996","image":"/assets/imgs/works/cncra-win-cover-c44afd.webp","medium":"game","themes":["alt-history","war"],"title":"Command & Conquer: Red Alert","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_%26_Conquer:_Red_Alert","year":1996},{"by":"Shane Lacy Hensley","countries":["US"],"desc":"Adjacent: weird west horror with steam-powered gadgets fuelled by ghost rock. Its mad scientists are a steampunk staple.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/deadlands-1996","id":"deadlands-1996","image":"/assets/imgs/works/deadlands-3528a3.webp","medium":"game","themes":["alt-history","myth","machines"],"title":"Deadlands","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadlands","year":1996},{"by":"Ambrosia Software","countries":["US"],"desc":"A Mac cult classic of trading and combat that let a generation haul cargo between ports in top-down 2D.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/escape-velocity-1996","id":"escape-velocity-1996","image":"/assets/imgs/works/escape-velocity-title-87aacc.webp","medium":"game","themes":["space"],"title":"Escape Velocity","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_Velocity_(video_game)","year":1996},{"by":"Richard Garfield","countries":["US"],"desc":"A two-player card game of a hacker against a corporation, from the creator of Magic: The Gathering. Asymmetric and set in the Cyberpunk 2020 world.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/netrunner-1996","id":"netrunner-1996","image":"/assets/imgs/works/netrunner-cardback-92b991.webp","medium":"game","themes":["cyberspace","corporations"],"title":"Netrunner","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netrunner","year":1996},{"by":"Capcom","countries":["JP"],"desc":"The corporate bio-lab. The viral leak. The mutated remainder. Three decades of biopunk's most iconic franchise.","essential":true,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/resident-evil-1996","id":"resident-evil-1996","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["genetics","corporations","survival"],"title":"Resident Evil","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Evil","year":1996},{"by":"Sega & Red Company","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A steam-powered Taisho-era Tokyo defended by a theatre troupe in mecha. The founding game of a long-running steampunk franchise.","descs":{"dieselpunk":"A theatre troupe pilots steam-driven mecha in an alternate Taisho-era Tokyo. Its 1920s Japan of airships and revues prefigures much later dieselpunk anime.","steampunk":"A steam-powered Taisho-era Tokyo defended by a theatre troupe in mecha. The founding game of a long-running steampunk franchise."},"essential":false,"families":["steampunk","dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/sakura-wars-1996","id":"sakura-wars-1996","image":"/assets/imgs/works/sw-sega-saturn-cover-6a9aa2.webp","medium":"game","themes":["alt-history","machines","myth"],"title":"Sakura Wars","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakura_Wars_(1996_video_game)","year":1996},{"by":"Westwood Studios","countries":["US"],"desc":"A parallel story to the film with a different blade runner and outcomes that change on each play. A rare adaptation that expanded its source.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/blade-runner-1997","id":"blade-runner-1997","image":"/assets/imgs/works/bladerunner-pc-game-front-cover-3ac69d.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ai","noir","cities"],"title":"Blade Runner","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner_(1997_video_game)","year":1997},{"by":"Biohazard Games","countries":["US"],"desc":"An environmentalist science-fiction RPG set on Poseidon, a colonised ocean planet. The genre's definitive tabletop setting for life on and under an alien sea.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/blue-planet-1997","id":"blue-planet-1997","image":"/assets/imgs/works/v1cover-f2e9a3.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ocean","colonies","genetics"],"title":"Blue Planet","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Planet_(role-playing_game)","year":1997},{"by":"Interplay Productions","countries":["US"],"desc":"The game that fused post-apocalypse with a frozen 1950s future: vaults, Vault Boy, Pip-Boys and old radio. Atompunk's modern form starts here.","descs":{"apocapunk":"Post-nuclear America rebuilt from scrap, bottle caps, and sheer stubbornness. The defining apocapunk game franchise.","atompunk":"The game that fused post-apocalypse with a frozen 1950s future: vaults, Vault Boy, Pip-Boys and old radio. Atompunk's modern form starts here."},"essential":true,"families":["atompunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/fallout-1997","id":"fallout-1997","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fallout-bdea07.webp","medium":"game","themes":["post-apocalypse","nuclear","retro-future"],"title":"Fallout","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_(video_game)","year":1997},{"by":"Steve Jackson Games","countries":["US"],"desc":"A sourcebook for adding cloning, genetic engineering and biological gadgets to any GURPS campaign. A toolkit for running biopunk at the table.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/gurps-bio-tech-1997","id":"gurps-bio-tech-1997","image":"/assets/imgs/works/gurps-bio-tech-first-edition-44576a.webp","medium":"game","themes":["genetics","body-mod"],"title":"GURPS Bio-Tech","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GURPS_Bio-Tech","year":1997},{"by":"Philippe Tessier","countries":["FR"],"desc":"A French RPG in which humanity has fled the poisoned surface for stations beneath the seas. Pirates, nations and the strange Polaris effect.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/polaris-1997","id":"polaris-1997","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["ocean","post-apocalypse","war"],"title":"Polaris","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaris_(1997_role-playing_game)","year":1997},{"by":"Criterion Games","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A miniature submarine trades and fights among rival underwater communities. An underrated, freeform take on the undersea trading life.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/sub-culture-1997","id":"sub-culture-1997","image":"/assets/imgs/works/subculturegamebox-0d2126.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ocean"],"title":"Sub Culture","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub_Culture","year":1997},{"by":"Jordan Weisman & Dave McCoy","countries":["US"],"desc":"Board game from FASA that launched the franchise: a 1930s in which the United States has broken apart and air pirates rule the skies.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/crimson-skies-1998","id":"crimson-skies-1998","image":"/assets/imgs/works/crimsonskies-d94b52.webp","medium":"game","themes":["alt-history","war","retro-future"],"title":"Crimson Skies","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimson_Skies","year":1998},{"by":"Shane Lacy Hensley","countries":["US"],"desc":"The weird-west Deadlands setting pushed forward into a magical post-nuclear wasteland. A genre mashup with a devoted following.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/deadlands-hell-on-earth-1998","id":"deadlands-hell-on-earth-1998","image":"/assets/imgs/works/deadlandshell-2f17f7.webp","medium":"game","themes":["post-apocalypse","myth"],"title":"Deadlands: Hell on Earth","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadlands:_Hell_on_Earth","year":1998},{"by":"Black Isle Studios","countries":["US"],"desc":"A larger, stranger sequel that deepened the satire of a nation that kept its 1950s culture all the way to the bombs.","descs":{"apocapunk":"A bigger, stranger sequel full of new towns, factions, and moral mess. Still a favorite of players who prefer the series' isometric roots.","atompunk":"A larger, stranger sequel that deepened the satire of a nation that kept its 1950s culture all the way to the bombs."},"essential":false,"families":["atompunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/fallout-2-1998","id":"fallout-2-1998","image":"/assets/imgs/works/pc-game-fallout-2-665ec7.webp","medium":"game","themes":["post-apocalypse","nuclear","retro-future"],"title":"Fallout 2","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_2","year":1998},{"by":"LucasArts","countries":["US"],"desc":"Tim Schafer's afterlife noir: deco office towers, a 1940s travel agency for the dead, a jazz soundtrack. Adjacent, but its style is pure diesel-era.","essential":true,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/grim-fandango-1998","id":"grim-fandango-1998","image":"/assets/imgs/works/grim-fandango-artwork-da48e1.webp","medium":"game","themes":["myth","noir"],"title":"Grim Fandango","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grim_Fandango","year":1998},{"by":"Asmik Ace","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Based on a staff member's dream diary, it has no goal at all: you wander linked dreamscapes that mutate as you go. A cult landmark.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/lsd-dream-emulator-1998","id":"lsd-dream-emulator-1998","image":"/assets/imgs/works/lsd-coverart-104238.webp","medium":"game","themes":["mind"],"title":"LSD: Dream Emulator","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LSD:_Dream_Emulator","year":1998},{"by":"Square","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A sequel to Sena's novel set in New York, where mitochondria make people spontaneously combust. Square's cinematic biohorror RPG.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/parasite-eve-1998","id":"parasite-eve-1998","image":"/assets/imgs/works/parasite-eve-coverart-de10ad.webp","medium":"game","themes":["genetics","body-mod","cities"],"title":"Parasite Eve","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasite_Eve_(video_game)","year":1998},{"by":"DreamForge Intertainment","countries":["US"],"desc":"An amnesiac wakes in an asylum and moves through warped worlds generated by his own trauma.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/sanitarium-1998","id":"sanitarium-1998","image":"/assets/imgs/works/sanitarium-coverart-5d4751.webp","medium":"game","themes":["mind","identity"],"title":"Sanitarium","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanitarium_(video_game)","year":1998},{"by":"Looking Glass Studios","countries":["US"],"desc":"A master thief in a gas-lit, clockwork-haunted City of Hammerite zealots. The stealth game whose atmosphere Dishonored inherited.","essential":true,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/thief-the-dark-project-1998","id":"thief-the-dark-project-1998","image":"/assets/imgs/works/thief-the-dark-project-boxcover-23f7be.webp","medium":"game","themes":["machines","cities","night"],"title":"Thief: The Dark Project","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thief:_The_Dark_Project","year":1998},{"by":"John Tynes & Greg Stolze","countries":["US"],"desc":"Postmodern occult magic powered by obsession, with a madness meter that tracks five kinds of psychological damage.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/unknown-armies-1998","id":"unknown-armies-1998","image":"/assets/imgs/works/unknown-armies-3e-65f0bf.webp","medium":"game","themes":["mind","myth"],"title":"Unknown Armies","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unknown_Armies","year":1998},{"by":"Chaosium","countries":["US"],"desc":"A huge <em>Call of Cthulhu</em> campaign that sends investigators on a 1930s Antarctic expedition after Lovecraft's novella.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/beyond-the-mountains-of-madness-1999","id":"beyond-the-mountains-of-madness-1999","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["cold","myth"],"title":"Beyond the Mountains of Madness","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_the_Mountains_of_Madness","year":1999},{"by":"Zipper Interactive","countries":["US"],"desc":"The PC flight game of the alternate 1930s pirate-air franchise, with barnstorming zeppelin raids over a fractured America.","essential":true,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/crimson-skies-2000","id":"crimson-skies-2000","image":"/assets/imgs/works/crimsonskies-coverart-a2ce95.webp","medium":"game","themes":["alt-history","war","retro-future"],"title":"Crimson Skies","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimson_Skies_(video_game)","year":2000},{"by":"Ion Storm / Eidos","countries":["US"],"desc":"Conspiracy, augmentation, and player choice in a world on the brink of technological singularity.","essential":true,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/deus-ex-series-2000","id":"deus-ex-series-2000","image":"/assets/imgs/works/deus-ex-game-box-art-8d086f.webp","medium":"game","themes":["body-mod","corporations","surveillance","ai"],"title":"Deus Ex (series)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_Ex_(video_game)","year":2000},{"by":"Nintendo","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A grimacing Moon falls on a town in three days, and the only answer is to relive them. Adjacent and ominous, but a masterclass in the cyclical, phase-bound time lunapunk loves.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/the-legend-of-zelda-majora-s-mask-2000","id":"the-legend-of-zelda-majora-s-mask-2000","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-legend-of-zelda-majora-s-mask-box-art-ad8a7f.webp","medium":"game","themes":["myth","night"],"title":"The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda:_Majora's_Mask","year":2000},{"by":"Troika Games","countries":["US"],"desc":"An RPG in a fantasy world going through its own industrial revolution, where technology and magic are literally at odds.","essential":true,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/arcanum-of-steamworks-and-magick-obscura-2001","id":"arcanum-of-steamworks-and-magick-obscura-2001","image":"/assets/imgs/works/arcanum-cover-copy-bc09aa.webp","medium":"game","themes":["machines","myth"],"title":"Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcanum:_Of_Steamworks_and_Magick_Obscura","year":2001},{"by":"Micro Forté","countries":["AU"],"desc":"A squad-tactics spin-off that follows the Brotherhood of Steel, the series' techno-knights, across the Midwest.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/fallout-tactics-brotherhood-of-steel-2001","id":"fallout-tactics-brotherhood-of-steel-2001","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fallout-tactics-box-d30ef6.webp","medium":"game","themes":["post-apocalypse","war"],"title":"Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_Tactics:_Brotherhood_of_Steel","year":2001},{"by":"Spiderweb Software","countries":["US"],"desc":"An RPG series in which the ruling Shapers create living servants and the player decides whether those creations deserve freedom. Biopunk ethics as game mechanics.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/geneforge-2001","id":"geneforge-2001","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["genetics"],"title":"Geneforge","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneforge","year":2001},{"by":"Dennis Detwiller & Greg Stolze","countries":["US"],"desc":"Superhero roleplaying in a world on fire, 1936 to 1946: powers make you a better soldier, not a winner. The first One-Roll Engine game.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/godlike-2001","id":"godlike-2001","image":"/assets/imgs/works/godlike-rpg-cover-e37884.webp","medium":"game","themes":["alt-history","war"],"title":"Godlike","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godlike_(role-playing_game)","year":2001},{"by":"Gray Matter Studios","countries":["US"],"desc":"An Allied agent against SS occult science and super-soldier projects. The game Wikipedia's dieselpunk entry singles out as a prominent example.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/return-to-castle-wolfenstein-2001","id":"return-to-castle-wolfenstein-2001","image":"/assets/imgs/works/return-to-castle-wolfenstein-coverart-45d9d1.webp","medium":"game","themes":["war","alt-history","myth"],"title":"Return to Castle Wolfenstein","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_to_Castle_Wolfenstein","year":2001},{"by":"United Game Artists","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A rail shooter inside a computer network where every shot adds to the music, designed around synaesthesia.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/rez-2001","id":"rez-2001","image":"/assets/imgs/works/rezboxart-eb0119.webp","medium":"game","themes":["cyberspace","ai"],"title":"Rez","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rez_(video_game)","year":2001},{"by":"Team Silent","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A widower's guilt shapes the fog-bound town and its monsters. Survival horror first, but its world is a projection of one damaged mind.","essential":true,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/silent-hill-2-2001","id":"silent-hill-2-2001","image":"/assets/imgs/works/silent-hill-2-61c115.webp","medium":"game","themes":["mind","identity"],"title":"Silent Hill 2","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Hill_2","year":2001},{"by":"Introversion Software","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Play a freelance hacker through a minimal terminal interface, tracing routes and wiping logs. The fantasy of hacking as pure interface.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/uplink-2001","id":"uplink-2001","image":"/assets/imgs/works/uplink-box-art-91d36f.webp","medium":"game","themes":["cyberspace","corporations"],"title":"Uplink","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uplink_(video_game)","year":2001},{"by":"Pinnacle Entertainment Group","countries":["US"],"desc":"A d20 horror RPG of soldiers and resistance fighters against blood mages and werewolves in the European theatre. The name stuck to the whole subgenre.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/weird-war-ii-blood-on-the-rhine-2001","id":"weird-war-ii-blood-on-the-rhine-2001","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["war","myth"],"title":"Weird War II: Blood on the Rhine","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weird_War_II:_Blood_on_the_Rhine","year":2001},{"by":"Misguided Games","countries":["US"],"desc":"The RPG for which Lewis Pollak coined the word <em>dieselpunk</em>, set on an island of giant supernatural trees.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/children-of-the-sun-2002","id":"children-of-the-sun-2002","image":"/assets/imgs/works/childrenofthesunrpgcover-992475.webp","medium":"game","themes":["alt-history","war"],"title":"Children of the Sun","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_the_Sun_(role-playing_game)","year":2002},{"by":"Silicon Knights","countries":["CA"],"desc":"Its sanity meter attacks the player directly, faking deleted saves and muted TVs. The game that hacked its player's perception.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/eternal-darkness-sanity-s-requiem-2002","id":"eternal-darkness-sanity-s-requiem-2002","image":"/assets/imgs/works/eternal-darkness-box-c93cc7.webp","medium":"game","themes":["mind","myth"],"title":"Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_Darkness","year":2002},{"by":"Benoît Sokal","countries":["FR"],"desc":"A lawyer follows an automaton-maker's heir on a clockwork train across Europe toward a mythical island of mammoths. Melancholy, handcrafted adventure.","descs":{"dieselpunk":"A lawyer follows a train of automatons across a fading Europe toward Siberia. Sokal's melancholy industrial machines sit between clockwork and diesel.","steampunk":"A lawyer follows an automaton-maker's heir on a clockwork train across Europe toward a mythical island of mammoths. Melancholy, handcrafted adventure."},"essential":false,"families":["steampunk","dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/syberia-2002","id":"syberia-2002","image":"/assets/imgs/works/syberia-coverart-9dbbab.webp","medium":"game","themes":["machines","cold"],"title":"Syberia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syberia_(video_game)","year":2002},{"by":"Computer Artworks","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A squad-based sequel to Carpenter's film where your team's trust and fear are tracked as mechanics. Paranoia simulated in the Antarctic.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/the-thing-2002","id":"the-thing-2002","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-thing-vg-523ff4.webp","medium":"game","themes":["cold","body-mod","survival"],"title":"The Thing","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(video_game)","year":2002},{"by":"FASA Studio","countries":["US"],"desc":"A 1937 in which the United States has fractured and the air is full of pirate biplanes. The dieselpunk pilot fantasy in full.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/crimson-skies-high-road-to-revenge-2003","id":"crimson-skies-high-road-to-revenge-2003","image":"/assets/imgs/works/crimson-skies-high-road-to-revenge-boxart-19431a.webp","medium":"game","themes":["alt-history","war"],"title":"Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimson_Skies%3A_High_Road_to_Revenge","year":2003},{"by":"CCP Games","countries":["IS"],"desc":"A single-shard galaxy run by player corporations, miners and haulers, where supply chains and betrayal are the real game.","essential":true,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/eve-online-2003","id":"eve-online-2003","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-eve-online-logo-svg-e4c3a4.webp","medium":"game","themes":["space","corporations","war"],"title":"Eve Online","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eve_Online","year":2003},{"by":"Digital Anvil","countries":["US"],"desc":"Trader, pirate or bounty hunter across 48 systems. A friendlier take on the working spacer fantasy.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/freelancer-2003","id":"freelancer-2003","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fl-box-5e7071.webp","medium":"game","themes":["space"],"title":"Freelancer","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freelancer_(video_game)","year":2003},{"by":"Heresy Games","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A role-playing game of a magical, class-ridden 19th century, later expanded by Cubicle 7.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/victoriana-2003","id":"victoriana-2003","image":"/assets/imgs/works/victoriana-boxed-set-1d5501.webp","medium":"game","themes":["alt-history","myth"],"title":"Victoriana","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoriana_(role-playing_game)","year":2003},{"by":"Privateer Press","countries":["US"],"desc":"A miniatures wargame where warcasters command steam-powered warjacks. A flagship steampunk tabletop line, with Origins Awards from 2003 on.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/warmachine-2003","id":"warmachine-2003","image":"/assets/imgs/works/warmachine-juggernaut-d34000.webp","medium":"game","themes":["machines","war"],"title":"Warmachine","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warmachine","year":2003},{"by":"Privateer Press","countries":["US"],"desc":"The role-playing game set in the world of Warmachine, with full-metal fantasy, gun mages and mechanika.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/iron-kingdoms-2004","id":"iron-kingdoms-2004","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["machines","myth"],"title":"Iron Kingdoms","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Kingdoms","year":2004},{"by":"Palladium Books","countries":["US"],"desc":"A Megaversal RPG where humans fight a machine intelligence using living armour and organic weapons. Written by Carmen Bellaire, it is built almost entirely on biotechnology.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/splicers-2004","id":"splicers-2004","image":"/assets/imgs/works/splicers-rpg-2004-37aaf4.webp","medium":"game","themes":["genetics","machines","post-apocalypse"],"title":"Splicers","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splicers","year":2004},{"by":"Kikiyama","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A girl who will not leave her room explores her dreams, which grow ever stranger and more sinister. The indie origin of the dream-exploration genre.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/yume-nikki-2004","id":"yume-nikki-2004","image":"/assets/imgs/works/yume-nikki-header-image-on-steam-5a12ff.webp","medium":"game","themes":["mind"],"title":"Yume Nikki","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yume_Nikki","year":2004},{"by":"Pandemic Studios","countries":["US"],"desc":"Play the alien invader in a 1959 America of B-movie saucers, suburban towns and government men in black. A comic love letter to 50s sci-fi.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/destroy-all-humans-2005","id":"destroy-all-humans-2005","image":"/assets/imgs/works/destroy-all-humans-box-art-for-the-playstation-2-ffca94.webp","medium":"game","themes":["retro-future","space"],"title":"Destroy All Humans!","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destroy_All_Humans!_(2005_video_game)","year":2005},{"by":"Michał Oracz","countries":["PL"],"desc":"A fast tile-laying war game set in the Polish Neuroshima RPG world, where survivors fight the machine empire Moloch.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/neuroshima-hex-2005","id":"neuroshima-hex-2005","image":"/assets/imgs/works/neuroshima-hex-iphone-320x480-75-f333eb.webp","medium":"game","themes":["post-apocalypse","war"],"title":"Neuroshima Hex!","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroshima_Hex!","year":2005},{"by":"Double Fine","countries":["US"],"desc":"You leap into other people's minds, each a surreal level built from their neuroses. Psychopunk at play.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/psychonauts-2005","id":"psychonauts-2005","image":"/assets/imgs/works/psychonautsbox-8ddb97.webp","medium":"game","themes":["mind"],"title":"Psychonauts","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychonauts","year":2005},{"by":"Margaret Weis Productions","countries":["US"],"desc":"The <em>Firefly</em> universe at the table, and the first version of the Cortex System.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/serenity-role-playing-game-2005","id":"serenity-role-playing-game-2005","image":"/assets/imgs/works/serenity-rpg-cover-65987a.webp","medium":"game","themes":["space","colonies","rebellion"],"title":"Serenity Role Playing Game","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Role_Playing_Game","year":2005},{"by":"Irem","countries":["JP"],"desc":"An open-world sandbox in which you pilot a customisable steam-walker called a Trotmobile. Charming and odd, with its own band subplot.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/steambot-chronicles-2005","id":"steambot-chronicles-2005","image":"/assets/imgs/works/steambot-chronicles-coverart-c4bcce.webp","medium":"game","themes":["machines"],"title":"Steambot Chronicles","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steambot_Chronicles","year":2005},{"by":"Ananda Gupta & Jason Matthews (GMT)","countries":["US"],"desc":"A two-player card-driven game of the whole Cold War, from 1945 to 1989. The geopolitics behind every atompunk poster.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/twilight-struggle-2005","id":"twilight-struggle-2005","image":"/assets/imgs/works/gmttwilightstruggle-333318.webp","medium":"game","themes":["nuclear","war"],"title":"Twilight Struggle","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_Struggle","year":2005},{"by":"Fred Hicks","countries":["US"],"desc":"Insomniacs slip into the Mad City, where exhaustion and madness are literal dice pools.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/don-t-rest-your-head-2006","id":"don-t-rest-your-head-2006","image":"/assets/imgs/works/don-t-rest-your-head-role-playing-game-833ecc.webp","medium":"game","themes":["mind","night"],"title":"Don't Rest Your Head","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Rest_Your_Head","year":2006},{"by":"Exile Game Studio","countries":["US"],"desc":"1930s pulp heroes descend into a lost world beneath the crust. Award-nominated, and a home for two-fisted dieselpunk adventure.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/hollow-earth-expedition-2006","id":"hollow-earth-expedition-2006","image":"/assets/imgs/works/hollow-earth-expedition-b0e05f.webp","medium":"game","themes":["alt-history"],"title":"Hollow Earth Expedition","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Earth_Expedition","year":2006},{"by":"Capcom","countries":["JP"],"desc":"An ice planet where thermal energy is both your health and your currency, draining away in the cold. Heat as a resource, rendered as a shooter.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/lost-planet-extreme-condition-2006","id":"lost-planet-extreme-condition-2006","image":"/assets/imgs/works/lost-planet-new-cd3b1d.webp","medium":"game","themes":["cold","colonies","machines"],"title":"Lost Planet: Extreme Condition","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Planet:_Extreme_Condition","year":2006},{"by":"Evil Hat Productions","countries":["US"],"desc":"Fast pulp roleplaying in the 1920s, built on the Fate system. Heroes born with the century fight mad scientists and gorillas.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/spirit-of-the-century-2006","id":"spirit-of-the-century-2006","image":"/assets/imgs/works/spirit-of-the-century-cover-544026.webp","medium":"game","themes":["retro-future","alt-history"],"title":"Spirit of the Century","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_of_the_Century","year":2006},{"by":"Irrational Games","countries":["US"],"desc":"Rapture: a 1950s art-deco utopia drowned beneath the Atlantic. The greatest dieselpunk environment ever shipped.","descs":{"atompunk":"An undersea city in 1960 built in Art Deco style. Closer to dieselpunk in look, so adjacent, but it shares atompunk's theme of a ruined utopia full of old records.","biopunk":"An undersea city where gene-altering plasmids, harvested from a sea slug, became a consumer product. The power fantasy and the addiction are one system.","dieselpunk":"Rapture: a 1950s art-deco utopia drowned beneath the Atlantic. The greatest dieselpunk environment ever shipped.","hydropunk":"Rapture, the drowned art-deco utopia. Where hydropunk and dieselpunk shake hands."},"essential":true,"families":["dieselpunk","biopunk","hydropunk","atompunk"],"href":"/work/bioshock-2007","id":"bioshock-2007","image":"/assets/imgs/works/bioshock-cover-544d22.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ocean","genetics","utopia","dystopia"],"title":"BioShock","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BioShock_%28video_game%29","year":2007},{"by":"Vlaada Chvátil","countries":["CZ"],"desc":"Build a ship from junk tiles in real time, then watch meteors tear it apart on the delivery run. The genre's best board game joke.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/galaxy-trucker-2007","id":"galaxy-trucker-2007","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-deskohran-08-10-05-070-af2648.webp","medium":"game","themes":["space","machines"],"title":"Galaxy Trucker","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_Trucker","year":2007},{"by":"Frictional Games","countries":["SE"],"desc":"A physicist goes to Greenland and descends into an abandoned mine. Cold, dark and claustrophobic survival horror from the makers of <em>Amnesia</em>.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/penumbra-overture-2007","id":"penumbra-overture-2007","image":"/assets/imgs/works/penumbra-win-cover-79867d.webp","medium":"game","themes":["cold","mind"],"title":"Penumbra: Overture","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penumbra:_Overture","year":2007},{"by":"Atsuhiro Okada","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A Japanese 'natural fantasy' RPG about travel and friendship, inspired by Miyazaki, where the gamemaster plays a dragon who watches over the journey. English edition from Kotodama Heavy Industries.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/ryuutama-2007","id":"ryuutama-2007","image":"/assets/imgs/works/ryuutama-rpg-cover-a83698.webp","medium":"game","themes":["myth"],"title":"Ryuutama","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryuutama","year":2007},{"by":"GSC Game World","countries":["UA"],"desc":"Scavengers called stalkers hunt anomalous artifacts in a mutated Chernobyl Zone. A Ukrainian classic built from real locations around the exclusion zone.","essential":true,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/s-t-a-l-k-e-r-shadow-of-chernobyl-2007","id":"s-t-a-l-k-e-r-shadow-of-chernobyl-2007","image":"/assets/imgs/works/shadow-of-chernobyl-cover-e67cfa.webp","medium":"game","themes":["nuclear","post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:_Shadow_of_Chernobyl","year":2007},{"by":"EA Redwood Shores","countries":["US"],"desc":"An engineer, not a soldier, boards a planet-cracking mining ship gone silent. Survival horror built on tools, maintenance shafts and corporate cover-ups.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/dead-space-2008","id":"dead-space-2008","image":"/assets/imgs/works/dead-space-box-art-6cce69.webp","medium":"game","themes":["space","body-mod","corporations"],"title":"Dead Space","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Space_(2008_video_game)","year":2008},{"by":"Bethesda","countries":["US"],"desc":"The post-nuclear Washington of an Atomic Age that never quite ended. The atompunk ruin made fully walkable.","descs":{"apocapunk":"The series goes first-person in the ruins of Washington, D.C. 200 years after the war. The game that made the Vault Boy a global icon.","atompunk":"The post-nuclear Washington of an Atomic Age that never quite ended. The atompunk ruin made fully walkable."},"essential":false,"families":["atompunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/fallout-3-2008","id":"fallout-3-2008","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fallout-3-cover-art-2dc921.webp","medium":"game","themes":["post-apocalypse","nuclear","retro-future"],"title":"Fallout 3","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_3","year":2008},{"by":"Sega","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A small neutral nation fights an empire in a watercolour analogue of 1930s Europe, with tanks and tactical rifle squads. Dieselpunk with a strategy-RPG heart.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/valkyria-chronicles-2008","id":"valkyria-chronicles-2008","image":"/assets/imgs/works/valkyria-cover-9c188b.webp","medium":"game","themes":["war","alt-history"],"title":"Valkyria Chronicles","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valkyria_Chronicles_(video_game)","year":2008},{"by":"Posthuman Studios","countries":["US"],"desc":"A transhumanist horror RPG where minds move between engineered biological bodies and synthetic shells. Adjacent, with deep biomorph rules, and released under Creative Commons.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/eclipse-phase-2009","id":"eclipse-phase-2009","image":"/assets/imgs/works/posthuman-studios-eclipse-phase-2nd-ed-roleplaying-game-cove-9a3da2.webp","medium":"game","themes":["body-mod","identity","space"],"title":"Eclipse Phase","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse_Phase","year":2009},{"by":"Failbetter Games","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A browser narrative game set in a Victorian London stolen underground by bats. The rich setting behind <em>Sunless Sea</em>.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/fallen-london-2009","id":"fallen-london-2009","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fallen-london-promotional-190133.webp","medium":"game","themes":["cities","myth","night"],"title":"Fallen London","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallen_London","year":2009},{"by":"Chris Taylor","countries":["US"],"desc":"A solo board game in which you are Nemo, choosing what the Nautilus is for: science, war, exploration or anti-imperialism. Each playthrough writes a new logbook.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/nemo-s-war-2009","id":"nemo-s-war-2009","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["ocean"],"title":"Nemo's War","url":"https://www.victorypointgames.com/nemos-war","year":2009},{"by":"Radical Entertainment","countries":["CA"],"desc":"Manhattan, an engineered pathogen, and a protagonist whose body is the weapon. Biopunk power fantasy made loud.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/prototype-2009","id":"prototype-2009","image":"/assets/imgs/works/prototype-afddac.webp","medium":"game","themes":["genetics","body-mod","cities"],"title":"Prototype","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prototype_(video_game)","year":2009},{"by":"D. Vincent Baker & Meguey Baker","countries":["US"],"desc":"An indie RPG whose setting is built by players around scarcity and need. It launched the influential 'Powered by the Apocalypse' family of games.","essential":true,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/apocalypse-world-2010","id":"apocalypse-world-2010","image":"/assets/imgs/works/apocalypse-world-role-playing-game-d447d4.webp","medium":"game","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"Apocalypse World","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse_World","year":2010},{"by":"2K Marin","countries":["US"],"desc":"You play a Big Daddy, the diving-suited guardian of Rapture, walking the seabed between its leaking art-deco halls. The sequel gives the drowned city more water and more grief.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/bioshock-2-2010","id":"bioshock-2-2010","image":"/assets/imgs/works/bioshock2-cover-fecb51.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ocean","genetics","dystopia"],"title":"BioShock 2","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BioShock_2","year":2010},{"by":"Paolo Parente & Olivier Zamfirescu","countries":["IT","US"],"desc":"Miniatures game of an alternate 1940s where alien technology powers giant walkers. Parente's Dust universe is the visual bible of weird-war mechs.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/dust-tactics-2010","id":"dust-tactics-2010","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["alt-history","war","machines"],"title":"Dust Tactics","url":"https://dicetower.com/node/9372","year":2010},{"by":"Ninja Theory","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A loose retelling of <em>Journey to the West</em> through an overgrown, machine-haunted America. Notable for its green, beautiful ruins.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/enslaved-odyssey-to-the-west-2010","id":"enslaved-odyssey-to-the-west-2010","image":"/assets/imgs/works/enslaved-odyssey-to-the-west-71a87a.webp","medium":"game","themes":["post-apocalypse","machines"],"title":"Enslaved: Odyssey to the West","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enslaved:_Odyssey_to_the_West","year":2010},{"by":"Obsidian","countries":["US"],"desc":"The Mojave wasteland: rocket-finned diners, Elvis-tribute factions, atomic poker. Atompunk's wittiest hour.","descs":{"apocapunk":"Rival factions fight over the Hoover Dam in the Mojave. Widely considered the series' best writing, and the purest study of who rebuilds and on what terms.","atompunk":"The Mojave wasteland: rocket-finned diners, Elvis-tribute factions, atomic poker. Atompunk's wittiest hour."},"essential":false,"families":["atompunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/fallout-new-vegas-2010","id":"fallout-new-vegas-2010","image":"/assets/imgs/works/free-depiction-of-the-fallout-new-vegas-xbox-360-box-art-cro-1726e7.webp","medium":"game","themes":["post-apocalypse","nuclear","retro-future"],"title":"Fallout: New Vegas","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout:_New_Vegas","year":2010},{"by":"Dark Energy Digital","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Terrorists flood a city-sized ship and the water physics are the real enemy. Notable for treating the flood as the core mechanic.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/hydrophobia-2010","id":"hydrophobia-2010","image":"/assets/imgs/works/hydrophobia-cover-9640ba.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ocean","climate"],"title":"Hydrophobia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrophobia_(video_game)","year":2010},{"by":"4A Games","countries":["UA"],"desc":"Survivors of nuclear war live in the Moscow Metro while the irradiated surface above lies under ice and snow. Underground stations as tiny, jealous city-states.","descs":{"apocapunk":"Moscow's survivors live in the tunnels; each station is a nation, the surface is death. Adapted from Glukhovsky's novel.","frostpunk":"Survivors of nuclear war live in the Moscow Metro while the irradiated surface above lies under ice and snow. Underground stations as tiny, jealous city-states."},"essential":true,"families":["frostpunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/metro-2033-2010","id":"metro-2033-2010","image":"/assets/imgs/works/metro-2033-game-cover-127134.webp","medium":"game","themes":["post-apocalypse","nuclear","survival"],"title":"Metro 2033","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_2033_(video_game)","year":2010},{"by":"Kevin Crawford / Sine Nomine","countries":["US"],"desc":"An old-school sandbox RPG of scavenging a fallen interstellar civilization, first released as a free PDF.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/stars-without-number-2010","id":"stars-without-number-2010","image":"/assets/imgs/works/cover-of-stars-without-number-core-edition-e57699.webp","medium":"game","themes":["space","colonies"],"title":"Stars Without Number","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars_Without_Number","year":2010},{"by":"Related Designs and Blue Byte","countries":["DE"],"desc":"A city-builder set after sea-level rise, with a faction that farms the seabed. The deep-sea expansion made underwater districts a staple of the genre.","descs":{"hydropunk":"A city-builder set after sea-level rise, with a faction that farms the seabed. The deep-sea expansion made underwater districts a staple of the genre.","solarpunk":"Adjacent: a city builder on a flooded Earth with a clean-energy Eco faction set against industrial Tycoons. It made ecological balance a resource players had to manage."},"essential":false,"families":["hydropunk","solarpunk"],"href":"/work/anno-2070-2011","id":"anno-2070-2011","image":"/assets/imgs/works/anno2070europeanboxartpc-4f3154.webp","medium":"game","themes":["climate","ocean","ecology","corporations"],"title":"Anno 2070","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anno_2070","year":2011},{"by":"FromSoftware","countries":["JP"],"desc":"The First Flame, the bonfires, the fading Age of Fire. A whole cosmology built on the choice to rekindle or let the embers die.","essential":true,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/dark-souls-2011","id":"dark-souls-2011","image":"/assets/imgs/works/dark-souls-cover-art-7d9422.webp","medium":"game","themes":["fire","myth"],"title":"Dark Souls","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Souls_(video_game)","year":2011},{"by":"Red Redemption","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Run a global climate agency, juggling policy, technology and unrest on models drawn from real climate research. A spiritual prequel to <em>The Ministry for the Future</em>.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/fate-of-the-world-2011","id":"fate-of-the-world-2011","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fate-of-the-world-splash-7ee666.webp","medium":"game","themes":["climate"],"title":"Fate of the World","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fate_of_the_World","year":2011},{"by":"Kevin Lanzing","countries":["US"],"desc":"A cooperative board game designed with firefighters: spread, smoke and explosions against a crew racing to pull victims out.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/flash-point-fire-rescue-2011","id":"flash-point-fire-rescue-2011","image":"/assets/imgs/works/flash-point-fire-rescue-board-game-cover-658d18.webp","medium":"game","themes":["fire"],"title":"Flash Point: Fire Rescue","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_Point:_Fire_Rescue","year":2011},{"by":"id Software","countries":["US"],"desc":"A shooter set after an asteroid impact, with buggy racing and bandit clans. id's love letter to Mad Max.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/rage-2011","id":"rage-2011","image":"/assets/imgs/works/rage-cover-a3e1d8.webp","medium":"game","themes":["post-apocalypse"],"title":"Rage","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rage_(video_game)","year":2011},{"by":"Freebird Games","countries":["CA"],"desc":"Two doctors rewrite a dying man's memories so he can believe he went to the Moon. A small, quiet game about longing and the Moon as a private wish.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/to-the-moon-2011","id":"to-the-moon-2011","image":"/assets/imgs/works/to-the-moon-cover-5152ba.webp","medium":"game","themes":["mind","identity"],"title":"To the Moon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_the_Moon_(video_game)","year":2011},{"by":"Modiphius Entertainment","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Investigators and commandos fight the Mythos and the occult Reich in a secret Second World War. The game that founded Modiphius.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/achtung-cthulhu-2012","id":"achtung-cthulhu-2012","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["war","myth"],"title":"Achtung! Cthulhu","url":"https://modiphius.net/collections/achtung-cthulhu","year":2012},{"by":"Fantasy Flight Games","countries":["US"],"desc":"A remake of Garfield's game for a new setting, now kept alive by the fan group Null Signal Games.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/android-netrunner-2012","id":"android-netrunner-2012","image":"/assets/imgs/works/android-netrunner-core-set-box-0f9c36.webp","medium":"game","themes":["cyberspace","corporations"],"title":"Android: Netrunner","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android:_Netrunner","year":2012},{"by":"Arkane Studios","countries":["FR"],"desc":"Dunwall: a plague-ridden whale-oil city of soot, masks, and assassins. The &quot;whalepunk&quot; cousin of steampunk done to perfection.","essential":true,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/dishonored-2012","id":"dishonored-2012","image":"/assets/imgs/works/dishonored-box-art-bethesda-2a70bf.webp","medium":"game","themes":["cities","surveillance","dystopia"],"title":"Dishonored","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dishonored","year":2012},{"by":"Subset Games","countries":["CN"],"desc":"A failing ship, a skeleton crew, and a fleet on your tail. Manage oxygen, fire, and breach, spacepunk as a survival ledger.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/ftl-faster-than-light-2012","id":"ftl-faster-than-light-2012","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-ftl-faster-than-light-logo-svg-ceb7dc.webp","medium":"game","themes":["space","war"],"title":"FTL: Faster Than Light","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTL:_Faster_Than_Light","year":2012},{"by":"Muse Games","countries":["US"],"desc":"Multiplayer airship combat where each crew member runs a gun, the helm or the engine repairs. Teamwork in canvas and brass.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/guns-of-icarus-online-2012","id":"guns-of-icarus-online-2012","image":"/assets/imgs/works/guns-of-icarus-cover-art-f83fe9.webp","medium":"game","themes":["war","machines"],"title":"Guns of Icarus Online","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns_of_Icarus_Online","year":2012},{"by":"Ndemic Creations","countries":["GB"],"desc":"You design and evolve a pathogen to wipe out humanity. A strategy game that became a public primer on epidemiology.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/plague-inc-2012","id":"plague-inc-2012","image":"/assets/imgs/works/plague-inc-app-icon-954519.webp","medium":"game","themes":["genetics"],"title":"Plague Inc.","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_Inc.","year":2012},{"by":"Digital Reality & Grasshopper Manufacture","countries":["HU","JP"],"desc":"A side-scrolling shooter of propeller aircraft and giant war machines in which time is your health bar. Explicitly cited as dieselpunk.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/sine-mora-2012","id":"sine-mora-2012","image":"/assets/imgs/works/sine-mora-cover-dd1b9f.webp","medium":"game","themes":["war","machines"],"title":"Sine Mora","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sine_Mora","year":2012},{"by":"Irrational Games","countries":["US"],"desc":"The flying city of Columbia, a Victorian American utopia rotten with the things American utopias are usually rotten with. Steampunk's most pointed political work.","descs":{"dieselpunk":"Columbia, a flying American city of 1912, is a jingoist theocracy with a stolen future. Borderline steampunk in date, dieselpunk in its propaganda and politics.","steampunk":"The flying city of Columbia, a Victorian American utopia rotten with the things American utopias are usually rotten with. Steampunk's most pointed political work."},"essential":false,"families":["steampunk","dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/bioshock-infinite-2013","id":"bioshock-infinite-2013","image":"/assets/imgs/works/official-cover-art-for-bioshock-infinite-9c36b5.webp","medium":"game","themes":["utopia","dystopia","alt-history"],"title":"BioShock Infinite","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BioShock_Infinite","year":2013},{"by":"Irrational Games","countries":["US"],"desc":"A noir return to Rapture on the night before its fall. Its second episode connects the floating and the drowned cities.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/bioshock-infinite-burial-at-sea-2013","id":"bioshock-infinite-burial-at-sea-2013","image":"/assets/imgs/works/bioshock-burial-at-sea-ed105f.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ocean","noir"],"title":"BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BioShock_Infinite:_Burial_at_Sea","year":2013},{"by":"Klei Entertainment","countries":["CA"],"desc":"Survival defined by the campfire: keep the flame lit or the dark takes you. Fire as the thin line between life and the night.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/don-t-starve-2013","id":"don-t-starve-2013","image":"/assets/imgs/works/don-t-starve-cover-4a6ce1.webp","medium":"game","themes":["survival","night"],"title":"Don't Starve","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Starve","year":2013},{"by":"Gale Force Nine","countries":["US"],"desc":"Captain your own ship, hire crew and take risky jobs across the 'Verse.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/firefly-the-game-2013","id":"firefly-the-game-2013","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["space","colonies"],"title":"Firefly: The Game","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly:_The_Game","year":2013},{"by":"Cardboard Computer","countries":["US"],"desc":"A delivery driver follows a secret highway beneath Kentucky, mostly at night. Magical realism, debt and community in five acts released from 2013 to 2020.","essential":true,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/kentucky-route-zero-2013","id":"kentucky-route-zero-2013","image":"/assets/imgs/works/kentucky-route-zero-title-c503bf.webp","medium":"game","themes":["night","myth","identity"],"title":"Kentucky Route Zero","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_Route_Zero","year":2013},{"by":"Dontnod Entertainment","countries":["FR"],"desc":"In Neo-Paris memories are a commodity, and the heroine can remix people's recollections to change their decisions.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/remember-me-2013","id":"remember-me-2013","image":"/assets/imgs/works/remember-me-capcom-game-cover-art-663a7b.webp","medium":"game","themes":["mind","surveillance","cities"],"title":"Remember Me","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remember_Me_(video_game)","year":2013},{"by":"Harebrained Schemes","countries":["US"],"desc":"A crowd-funded tactical RPG from Shadowrun co-creator Jordan Weisman. It revived the cyberpunk-with-magic setting for a new generation.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/shadowrun-returns-2013","id":"shadowrun-returns-2013","image":"/assets/imgs/works/shadowrun-returns-logo-fa2159.webp","medium":"game","themes":["cyberspace","myth"],"title":"Shadowrun Returns","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowrun_Returns","year":2013},{"by":"Image & Form","countries":["SE"],"desc":"A steam-powered robot mines beneath a western steampunk town. The start of a well-loved indie series.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/steamworld-dig-2013","id":"steamworld-dig-2013","image":"/assets/imgs/works/steamworld-dig-cover-da9280.webp","medium":"game","themes":["machines"],"title":"SteamWorld Dig","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SteamWorld_Dig","year":2013},{"by":"Naughty Dog","countries":["US"],"desc":"A mutated fungus turns its hosts into something post-human. Quiet, slow, devastating biopunk.","descs":{"apocapunk":"A fungal pandemic collapses civilization and forges desperate bonds in the overgrown ruins. Quiet, brutal apocapunk.","biopunk":"A mutated fungus turns its hosts into something post-human. Quiet, slow, devastating biopunk."},"essential":true,"families":["biopunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/the-last-of-us-2013","id":"the-last-of-us-2013","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival","genetics"],"title":"The Last of Us","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_of_Us","year":2013},{"by":"Avery Alder","countries":["US"],"desc":"A map-drawing game about one year of fragile peace after collapse, played season by season. Cycles, scarcity and collective decisions, without a hero.","descs":{"lunapunk":"A map-drawing game about one year of fragile peace after collapse, played season by season. Cycles, scarcity and collective decisions, without a hero.","solarpunk":"Players draw a map together as a small community spends one year rebuilding after collapse. Adjacent: a game entirely about collective decisions and scarcity."},"essential":true,"families":["lunapunk","solarpunk"],"href":"/work/the-quiet-year-2013","id":"the-quiet-year-2013","image":"/assets/imgs/works/cover-of-the-quiet-year-rpg-e0d0b3.webp","medium":"game","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival","ecology"],"title":"The Quiet Year","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quiet_Year","year":2013},{"by":"Bruno Cathala and Charles Chevallier","countries":["FR"],"desc":"Players scheme for the throne of an undersea kingdom using its noble houses and monsters. Xavier Collette's art made it the best-looking hydropunk game on the shelf.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/abyss-2014","id":"abyss-2014","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["ocean","myth"],"title":"Abyss","url":"https://opinionatedgamers.com/2014/09/18/dale-yu-review-of-abyss-bombyxasmodee/","year":2014},{"by":"Creative Assembly","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Amanda Ripley crawls through Sevastopol, a station rotting from years of corporate negligence. The <em>Nostromo</em> aesthetic rebuilt in perfect, flickering detail.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/alien-isolation-2014","id":"alien-isolation-2014","image":"/assets/imgs/works/alien-isolation-f39f58.webp","medium":"game","themes":["space","survival","corporations"],"title":"Alien: Isolation","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien:_Isolation","year":2014},{"by":"Shining Rock Software","countries":["US"],"desc":"<em>Adjacent:</em> a city-builder where exiles must survive harsh winters by managing food, firewood and clothing. An ancestor of Frostpunk's survival economy.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/banished-2014","id":"banished-2014","image":"/assets/imgs/works/banished-logo-2a4e5e.webp","medium":"game","themes":["survival","cold"],"title":"Banished","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banished_(video_game)","year":2014},{"by":"Frontier","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A whole galaxy to trade, mine, smuggle, and pirate across. The open-ended sandbox of the working spacer.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/elite-dangerous-2014","id":"elite-dangerous-2014","image":"/assets/imgs/works/elite-dangerous-edb2ee.webp","medium":"game","themes":["space"],"title":"Elite Dangerous","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_Dangerous","year":2014},{"by":"Free League","countries":["SE"],"desc":"The modern edition of Sweden's long-running Mutant line: players run an Ark of mutants scavenging the Zone and slowly building a community.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/mutant-year-zero-2014","id":"mutant-year-zero-2014","image":"/assets/imgs/works/mutant-box-cover-of-1989-version-of-swedish-role-playing-gam-5b68fc.webp","medium":"game","themes":["post-apocalypse","genetics","survival"],"title":"Mutant: Year Zero","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutant_(role-playing_game)","year":2014},{"by":"Upper One Games","countries":["US"],"desc":"A puzzle-platformer built with the Iñupiaq community from a traditional tale, set in an endless blizzard. The Arctic told from the inside, not by explorers.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/never-alone-2014","id":"never-alone-2014","image":"/assets/imgs/works/never-alone-box-art-box-art-1080x1080-ecdf4e.webp","medium":"game","themes":["cold","myth"],"title":"Never Alone","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Alone_(video_game)","year":2014},{"by":"Stoic","countries":["US"],"desc":"A Norse world where the sun has stopped, and you lead a caravan through the cold making rationing and leadership decisions with lasting cost. Frostpunk's ethics on the march.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/the-banner-saga-2014","id":"the-banner-saga-2014","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-banner-saga-cover-art-701f69.webp","medium":"game","themes":["cold","myth","war"],"title":"The Banner Saga","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Banner_Saga","year":2014},{"by":"inXile Entertainment","countries":["US"],"desc":"Brian Fargo returned to the Desert Rangers 26 years later through a Kickstarter. Proof the old-school wasteland RPG still had a crowd.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/wasteland-2-2014","id":"wasteland-2-2014","image":"/assets/imgs/works/wasteland2art-753b70.webp","medium":"game","themes":["post-apocalypse"],"title":"Wasteland 2","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasteland_2","year":2014},{"by":"MachineGames","countries":["SE"],"desc":"A 1960 in which the Reich won through superscience, all concrete, robots and pop propaganda. The serious reboot of the series.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/wolfenstein-the-new-order-2014","id":"wolfenstein-the-new-order-2014","image":"/assets/imgs/works/wolfenstein-the-new-order-cover-f59618.webp","medium":"game","themes":["alt-history","war","rebellion"],"title":"Wolfenstein: The New Order","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfenstein:_The_New_Order","year":2014},{"by":"Bethesda Game Studios","countries":["US"],"desc":"Begins in a sunny pre-war 2077 suburb minutes before the bombs, then lets you rebuild Boston from the ruins. The genre's clearest before-and-after.","descs":{"apocapunk":"Post-war Boston, with a settlement system that lets players gather scrap and build towns. The franchise's most literal rebuilding simulator.","atompunk":"Begins in a sunny pre-war 2077 suburb minutes before the bombs, then lets you rebuild Boston from the ruins. The genre's clearest before-and-after."},"essential":false,"families":["atompunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/fallout-4-2015","id":"fallout-4-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fallout-4-cover-art-9ad8a9.webp","medium":"game","themes":["post-apocalypse","nuclear","ai","retro-future"],"title":"Fallout 4","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_4","year":2015},{"by":"Bethesda Game Studios","countries":["US"],"desc":"A free-to-play vault management game. You run the shelter-as-dollhouse, cartoon dwellers and all.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/fallout-shelter-2015","id":"fallout-shelter-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fallout-shelter-icon-fd622e.webp","medium":"game","themes":["nuclear","retro-future"],"title":"Fallout Shelter","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_Shelter","year":2015},{"by":"Joseph A. McCullough","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A miniatures wargame in which rival wizards loot a frozen ancient city emerging from the ice. Simple, influential and full of frost.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/frostgrave-2015","id":"frostgrave-2015","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["cold","myth"],"title":"Frostgrave","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frostgrave","year":2015},{"by":"Avalanche Studios","countries":["SE"],"desc":"An open-world Wasteland built around the Magnum Opus, a car fitted with flamethrowers. The fuel-and-fire economy as playable space.","descs":{"apocapunk":"Max builds the Magnum Opus car piece by piece from wasteland scrap. Released the same year as Fury Road, with the vehicle as the real protagonist.","pyropunk":"An open-world Wasteland built around the Magnum Opus, a car fitted with flamethrowers. The fuel-and-fire economy as playable space."},"essential":false,"families":["pyropunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/mad-max-2015","id":"mad-max-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/mad-max-cover-art-a4d353.webp","medium":"game","themes":["post-apocalypse","fire"],"title":"Mad Max","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Max_(2015_video_game)","year":2015},{"by":"Moon Studios","countries":["AT"],"desc":"A small, glowing guardian spirit restores light to a dying forest. Its luminous, painterly night woods are a lunapunk palette in motion.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/ori-and-the-blind-forest-2015","id":"ori-and-the-blind-forest-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/ori-and-the-blind-forest-logo-6f57af.webp","medium":"game","themes":["myth","ecology","night"],"title":"Ori and the Blind Forest","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ori_and_the_Blind_Forest","year":2015},{"by":"Wizards of the Coast","countries":["US"],"desc":"Adjacent: four elemental cults, among them the Cult of the Eternal Flame. Fire worship as a D&amp;D campaign villain.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/princes-of-the-apocalypse-2015","id":"princes-of-the-apocalypse-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/princes-of-the-apocalypse-role-playing-supplement-cded47.webp","medium":"game","themes":["myth","fire"],"title":"Princes of the Apocalypse","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princes_of_the_Apocalypse","year":2015},{"by":"Frictional Games","countries":["SE"],"desc":"A man wakes up inside PATHOS-II, a dying research station on the floor of the Atlantic after the surface has been wiped out. Philosophical horror about minds copied into machines, set in the genre's most convincing habitat.","descs":{"hydropunk":"A man wakes up inside PATHOS-II, a dying research station on the floor of the Atlantic after the surface has been wiped out. Philosophical horror about minds copied into machines, set in the genre's most convincing habitat.","psychopunk":"Underwater horror about scanned and copied minds that forces you to face what continuity of self means."},"essential":true,"families":["hydropunk","psychopunk"],"href":"/work/soma-2015","id":"soma-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/soma-game-art-f81bfc.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ocean","ai","identity"],"title":"SOMA","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soma_(video_game)","year":2015},{"by":"Failbetter Games","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Steam down the Unterzee in a Victorian London that has sunk to the bottom of the earth. Lovecraftian gothic steampunk, written with literary care.","descs":{"hydropunk":"A drowned London at the bottom of the world. Steam down the Unterzee with too small a crew.","steampunk":"Steam down the Unterzee in a Victorian London that has sunk to the bottom of the earth. Lovecraftian gothic steampunk, written with literary care."},"essential":true,"families":["steampunk","hydropunk"],"href":"/work/sunless-sea-2015","id":"sunless-sea-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/sunless-sea-header-4f3af9.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ocean","myth","night"],"title":"Sunless Sea","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunless_Sea","year":2015},{"by":"Ready at Dawn","countries":["US"],"desc":"Knights of the Round Table with Tesla weapons fight half-breeds in an alternate steampunk London. Short, but rendered with startling period detail.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/the-order-1886-2015","id":"the-order-1886-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-order-1886-cover-art-1cbdec.webp","medium":"game","themes":["alt-history","myth"],"title":"The Order: 1886","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Order:_1886","year":2015},{"by":"Giant Squid","countries":["US"],"desc":"A diver swims through ruined temples and great shoals of fish. Wordless, adjacent, but it captures the sublime deep better than almost anything.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/abzu-2016","id":"abzu-2016","image":"/assets/imgs/works/abzu-3080a6.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ocean","ecology"],"title":"Abzû","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abz%C3%BB","year":2016},{"by":"Roberto Fraga and Yohan Lemonnier","countries":["FR"],"desc":"Two teams crew rival submarines in real time, captain, first mate, engineer and radio operator. Hunt-for-the-sub tension at a kitchen table.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/captain-sonar-2016","id":"captain-sonar-2016","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["ocean","war"],"title":"Captain Sonar","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Sonar","year":2016},{"by":"FromSoftware","countries":["JP"],"desc":"The Ashen One and the Lords of Cinder at the very end of the Age of Fire. The trilogy's last word on linking the flame or letting it go out.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/dark-souls-iii-2016","id":"dark-souls-iii-2016","image":"/assets/imgs/works/dark-souls-3-cover-art-13864d.webp","medium":"game","themes":["fire","myth"],"title":"Dark Souls III","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Souls_III","year":2016},{"by":"Misfits Attic","countries":["US"],"desc":"Command drones by typed commands to salvage scrap and fuel from derelicts. Lonely, terminal-green spacepunk.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/duskers-2016","id":"duskers-2016","image":"/assets/imgs/works/duskers-cover-4cafa3.webp","medium":"game","themes":["space","machines","survival"],"title":"Duskers","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duskers","year":2016},{"by":"Campo Santo","countries":["US"],"desc":"A fire lookout alone in a Wyoming forest, with only a radio for company. Quiet, adjacent pyropunk: watching the horizon for smoke.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/firewatch-2016","id":"firewatch-2016","image":"/assets/imgs/works/firewatch-cover-4c71f4.webp","medium":"game","themes":["fire","identity"],"title":"Firewatch","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewatch","year":2016},{"by":"Warlord Games","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Bolt Action's weird war spin-off: a 1947 with Tesla guns, combat walkers and rift science. Dieselpunk wargaming at 28mm.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/konflikt-47-2016","id":"konflikt-47-2016","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["alt-history","war","machines"],"title":"Konflikt '47","url":"https://www.warlordgames.com/category/konflikt-47/","year":2016},{"by":"Atlus","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Phantom thieves steal the distorted desires of corrupt adults from Palaces inside their cognition. The collective unconscious as a dungeon.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/persona-5-2016","id":"persona-5-2016","image":"/assets/imgs/works/persona-5-cover-art-79e862.webp","medium":"game","themes":["mind","rebellion","cities"],"title":"Persona 5","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persona_5","year":2016},{"by":"Mike Mason","countries":["US"],"desc":"Chaosium's supplement that turns Call of Cthulhu's doomed investigators into 1930s two-fisted pulp heroes.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/pulp-cthulhu-2016","id":"pulp-cthulhu-2016","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["myth","retro-future"],"title":"Pulp Cthulhu","url":"https://www.chaosium.com/pulp-cthulhu-hardcover/","year":2016},{"by":"Jamey Stegmaier","countries":["US"],"desc":"Engine-building in an alternate 1920s Eastern Europe with mechs in the wheat fields. The board game that made Różalski's 1920+ world famous.","essential":true,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/scythe-2016","id":"scythe-2016","image":"/assets/imgs/works/scythe-boxart-0a3178.webp","medium":"game","themes":["alt-history","machines","war"],"title":"Scythe","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythe_(board_game)","year":2016},{"by":"Insomniac Games","countries":["US"],"desc":"A girl builds a submarine to find her father beneath the sea. A storybook Metroidvania of the depths.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/song-of-the-deep-2016","id":"song-of-the-deep-2016","image":"/assets/imgs/works/song-of-the-deep-cover-323b82.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ocean"],"title":"Song of the Deep","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_the_Deep","year":2016},{"by":"ConcernedApe","countries":["US"],"desc":"Leave the corporate grind, restore a grandfather's farm, and rebuild a community. Cozy solarpunk in miniature.","essential":true,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/stardew-valley-2016","id":"stardew-valley-2016","image":"/assets/imgs/works/logo-of-stardew-valley-bd93e7.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ecology","utopia"],"title":"Stardew Valley","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stardew_Valley","year":2016},{"by":"Sukeban Games","countries":["VE"],"desc":"Mix drinks and listen to customers in a dystopian city. Cyberpunk from behind the bar, about the people the stories usually skip.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/va-11-hall-a-2016","id":"va-11-hall-a-2016","image":"/assets/imgs/works/va-11-hall-a-logo-26129d.webp","medium":"game","themes":["cities","corporations","noir"],"title":"VA-11 Hall-A","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VA-11_Hall-A","year":2016},{"by":"Studio MDHR","countries":["CA"],"desc":"A run-and-gun game hand-drawn in 1930s rubber-hose animation style. Adjacent: no war machines, just a total recreation of diesel-era cartoon aesthetics.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/cuphead-2017","id":"cuphead-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/cuphead-artwork-64049b.webp","medium":"game","themes":["retro-future","myth"],"title":"Cuphead","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuphead","year":2017},{"by":"Steamforged Games","countries":["GB"],"desc":"The bonfire, the embers and the Age of Fire turned into a miniatures dungeon crawl.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/dark-souls-the-board-game-2017","id":"dark-souls-the-board-game-2017","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["fire","myth"],"title":"Dark Souls: The Board Game","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Souls:_The_Board_Game","year":2017},{"by":"Arachnid Games","countries":["US"],"desc":"A global flood has sealed humanity beneath a sheet of ice, and you captain a submarine and its crew through the drowned world. Its look draws openly on Verne.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/diluvion-2017","id":"diluvion-2017","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["ocean"],"title":"Diluvion","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diluvion","year":2017},{"by":"Mike Hutchinson","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A miniatures car-combat game played with modified die-cast toy cars. Makes the apocapunk act of welding junk into war-rigs a literal hobby.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/gaslands-2017","id":"gaslands-2017","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["post-apocalypse","machines"],"title":"Gaslands","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslands","year":2017},{"by":"Suspicious Developments","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Adjacent: a mercenary in a tiny shuttle boards passing ships to steal and liberate. Improvised and gloriously messy.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/heat-signature-2017","id":"heat-signature-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/heat-signature-dca2a5.webp","medium":"game","themes":["space"],"title":"Heat Signature","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_Signature_(video_game)","year":2017},{"by":"Ninja Theory","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A warrior with psychosis descends into a mythic underworld. The game that made an altered mind tangible.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/hellblade-senua-s-sacrifice-2017","id":"hellblade-senua-s-sacrifice-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/hellblade-senua-s-sacrifice-127ea6.webp","medium":"game","themes":["mind","myth"],"title":"Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellblade:_Senua's_Sacrifice","year":2017},{"by":"Team Cherry","countries":["AU"],"desc":"A silent knight explores a fallen insect kingdom lit by glowing lumafly lanterns and fungus. Adjacent, melancholy rather than restful, but rich in bioluminescent atmosphere.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/hollow-knight-2017","id":"hollow-knight-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/hollow-knight-2026-cover-art-79da51.webp","medium":"game","themes":["myth","night"],"title":"Hollow Knight","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Knight","year":2017},{"by":"Guerrilla Games","countries":["NL"],"desc":"Adjacent: a lush post-apocalyptic America restored by a terraforming system, roamed by animal-shaped machines. Overgrown ruins and wild green land at blockbuster scale.","descs":{"apocapunk":"Tribal societies hunt robotic beasts a thousand years after our civilization fell. Its archaeology of our ruins is the genre's most lavish.","solarpunk":"Adjacent: a lush post-apocalyptic America restored by a terraforming system, roamed by animal-shaped machines. Overgrown ruins and wild green land at blockbuster scale."},"essential":true,"families":["solarpunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/horizon-zero-dawn-2017","id":"horizon-zero-dawn-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/horizon-zero-dawn-cover-art-9aaeca.webp","medium":"game","themes":["machines","ai","post-apocalypse","ecology"],"title":"Horizon Zero Dawn","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon_Zero_Dawn","year":2017},{"by":"Mojo Bones","countries":["GB"],"desc":"After an asteroid strike, a small group sheltering in a buried church must last until rescue. Team management and rationing under a sky of ash and snow.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/impact-winter-2017","id":"impact-winter-2017","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["cold","survival"],"title":"Impact Winter","url":"https://store.steampowered.com/app/468000/","year":2017},{"by":"Parabole","countries":["CA"],"desc":"A private investigator in a deserted, snowbound Quebec village in 1970. Atmospheric survival mystery driven by cold and isolation.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/kona-2017","id":"kona-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/konacovergame-600581.webp","medium":"game","themes":["cold","myth"],"title":"Kona","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kona_(video_game)","year":2017},{"by":"PlatinumGames","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Androids and machines fight over a long-abandoned Earth while humans hide on the Moon. Adjacent, but its rewilded cities are some of the genre's most beautiful.","essential":true,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/nier-automata-2017","id":"nier-automata-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/nier-automata-cover-art-81bc6d.webp","medium":"game","themes":["machines","ai","identity"],"title":"Nier: Automata","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nier:_Automata","year":2017},{"by":"Infinite Fall","countries":["US"],"desc":"A college dropout comes home to a fading mining town and the strange things in its woods at night. Burnout, friendship and small-town night walks.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/night-in-the-woods-2017","id":"night-in-the-woods-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/night-in-the-woods-24c8fc.webp","medium":"game","themes":["night","identity"],"title":"Night in the Woods","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_in_the_Woods","year":2017},{"by":"Bloober Team","countries":["PL"],"desc":"A detective who hacks into suspects' memories in a 2084 Kraków, voiced by Rutger Hauer. Cyberpunk horror.","descs":{"cyberpunk":"A detective who hacks into suspects' memories in a 2084 Kraków, voiced by Rutger Hauer. Cyberpunk horror.","psychopunk":"A detective hacks into the brains of suspects and the dead, wading through their memories and fears."},"essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk","psychopunk"],"href":"/work/observer-2017","id":"observer-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/observer-cover-f121f1.webp","medium":"game","themes":["mind","surveillance","cities"],"title":"Observer","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_(video_game)","year":2017},{"by":"Hjalmar Hach","countries":["FR"],"desc":"Players grow forests as the sun circles the board, and shadows decide who thrives. A board game whose engine is literally sunlight.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/photosynthesis-2017","id":"photosynthesis-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-a-game-of-photosynthesis-in-progress-e45662.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ecology"],"title":"Photosynthesis","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthesis_(board_game)","year":2017},{"by":"Arkane Austin","countries":["US"],"desc":"A space station where neuromods rewrite skills into the brain, built from alien biology. Adjacent biopunk with immersive-sim depth.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/prey-2017","id":"prey-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/prey-cover-art-daae6f.webp","medium":"game","themes":["space","body-mod","identity"],"title":"Prey","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prey_(2017_video_game)","year":2017},{"by":"Fullbright","countries":["US"],"desc":"Explore an empty station in 2088 and piece together how its crew was treated by their hypercorporate employer. Quiet, devastating and pro-worker.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/tacoma-2017","id":"tacoma-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/tacoma-cover-art-d64b5f.webp","medium":"game","themes":["space","ai","corporations"],"title":"Tacoma","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoma_(video_game)","year":2017},{"by":"Hinterland Studio","countries":["CA"],"desc":"Solo survival in a frozen Canadian wilderness after a geomagnetic disaster. Just you, the cold, and the dwindling light.","descs":{"apocapunk":"Survive alone in the Canadian wilderness after a geomagnetic storm kills all technology. Scavenging and cold, with no zombies needed.","frostpunk":"Solo survival in a frozen Canadian wilderness after a geomagnetic disaster. Just you, the cold, and the dwindling light."},"essential":true,"families":["frostpunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/the-long-dark-2017","id":"the-long-dark-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-long-dark-key-art-441dda.webp","medium":"game","themes":["cold","survival"],"title":"The Long Dark","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Dark","year":2017},{"by":"MachineGames","countries":["SE"],"desc":"An America in which the Reich won the war, rendered in deco propaganda detail. The dieselpunk nightmare made interactive.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/wolfenstein-ii-2017","id":"wolfenstein-ii-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/wolfenstein-ii-the-new-colossus-cover-f9718b.webp","medium":"game","themes":["alt-history","rebellion","war"],"title":"Wolfenstein II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfenstein_II%3A_The_New_Colossus","year":2017},{"by":"Atom Team","countries":["RU"],"desc":"An independent post-nuclear RPG set in an alternate USSR. Soviet atompunk in the Fallout tradition.","descs":{"apocapunk":"A classic Fallout-style RPG set in an alternate post-nuclear Soviet Union. Shows how the genre looks from the other side of the Cold War.","atompunk":"An independent post-nuclear RPG set in an alternate USSR. Soviet atompunk in the Fallout tradition."},"essential":false,"families":["atompunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/atom-rpg-2018","id":"atom-rpg-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/atom-rpg-933755.webp","medium":"game","themes":["post-apocalypse","nuclear"],"title":"ATOM RPG","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_RPG","year":2018},{"by":"Bohemia Interactive","countries":["CZ"],"desc":"Multiplayer survival in a zombie-struck Eastern Europe, born as a mod. Its real horror is the other players and the choice to trust them.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/dayz-2018","id":"dayz-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/day-z-cover-44cc61.webp","medium":"game","themes":["survival","post-apocalypse"],"title":"DayZ","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DayZ_(video_game)","year":2018},{"by":"KeokeN Interactive","countries":["NL"],"desc":"A near-future lunar rescue mission in a world running out of energy. Quiet tension under an indifferent moon.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/deliver-us-the-moon-2018","id":"deliver-us-the-moon-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/deliverusthemoon-8ea0d3.webp","medium":"game","themes":["space","climate"],"title":"Deliver Us the Moon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deliver_Us_the_Moon","year":2018},{"by":"Strange Loop Games","countries":["US"],"desc":"A multiplayer civilization sim where every tree cut and every factory built changes a shared ecosystem, and players must pass laws to avoid collapse. Governance as gameplay.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/eco-2018","id":"eco-2018","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["ecology","climate"],"title":"Eco","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eco_(2018_video_game)","year":2018},{"by":"Bethesda Game Studios","countries":["US"],"desc":"An online prequel set in Appalachia just after the war, with mothman cults and Cold War bunkers.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/fallout-76-2018","id":"fallout-76-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fallout-76-cover-88dc2e.webp","medium":"game","themes":["post-apocalypse","nuclear"],"title":"Fallout 76","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_76","year":2018},{"by":"Modiphius Entertainment","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A 32mm miniatures skirmish game set in the Fallout universe, with power armour and Nuka-Cola on the table.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/fallout-wasteland-warfare-2018","id":"fallout-wasteland-warfare-2018","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["post-apocalypse","nuclear"],"title":"Fallout: Wasteland Warfare","url":"https://www.modiphius.net/collections/fallout-wasteland-warfare","year":2018},{"by":"11 bit studios","countries":["PL"],"desc":"Run the last steam-heated city in an 1880s global winter, and choose which laws to break. Steampunk survival as moral pressure; see also our Frostpunk page.","descs":{"frostpunk":"THE game that named the genre. Build a city around a coal Generator, write the Book of Laws, make impossible choices, survive.","pyropunk":"Adjacent, and the flagship of its sister genre: a city in a global winter that lives or dies around a single coal-fired generator.","steampunk":"Run the last steam-heated city in an 1880s global winter, and choose which laws to break. Steampunk survival as moral pressure; see also our Frostpunk page."},"essential":true,"families":["steampunk","frostpunk","pyropunk"],"href":"/work/frostpunk-2018","id":"frostpunk-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/frostpunk-cover-art-e04b77.webp","medium":"game","themes":["cold","survival","machines","dystopia"],"title":"Frostpunk","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frostpunk","year":2018},{"by":"Lo-Fi Games","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A brutal open-world sandbox in a ruined, desert world where you can build a settlement or die as a slave. A largely solo-developed cult hit.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/kenshi-2018","id":"kenshi-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/kenshi-logo-3afadc.webp","medium":"game","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"Kenshi","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenshi_(video_game)","year":2018},{"by":"Sean McCoy / Tuesday Knight Games","countries":["US"],"desc":"Sci-fi horror for crews of teamsters, scientists, androids and marines, run on stress and panic checks. ENNIE Gold for Best Game in 2019.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/mothership-2018","id":"mothership-2018","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["space","survival","corporations"],"title":"Mothership","url":"https://www.mothershiprpg.com/","year":2018},{"by":"The Bearded Ladies","countries":["SE"],"desc":"A tactics game starring a mutant duck and boar scavenging the Zone. Adapted from the Swedish tabletop RPG.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/mutant-year-zero-road-to-eden-2018","id":"mutant-year-zero-road-to-eden-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/mutant-year-zero-road-to-eden-cover-art-6f7b62.webp","medium":"game","themes":["post-apocalypse","genetics"],"title":"Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutant_Year_Zero:_Road_to_Eden","year":2018},{"by":"Stras Acimovic & John LeBoeuf-Little","countries":["US"],"desc":"A Forged in the Dark game about a ship's crew scraping by under the Galactic Hegemony, explicitly inspired by <em>Firefly</em> and <em>Cowboy Bebop</em>.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/scum-and-villainy-2018","id":"scum-and-villainy-2018","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["space","rebellion"],"title":"Scum and Villainy","url":"https://evilhat.com/product/scum-and-villainy/","year":2018},{"by":"Unknown Worlds","countries":["US"],"desc":"Crashed on an ocean planet, you build downwards. Hydropunk as quiet, terrified solitude.","descs":{"hydropunk":"Crashed on an ocean planet, you build downwards. Hydropunk as quiet, terrified solitude.","lunapunk":"Stranded on an ocean planet, you dive into reefs and caves lit by living light. Adjacent: survival, but its night-time oceans are bioluminescence as a world."},"essential":true,"families":["hydropunk","lunapunk"],"href":"/work/subnautica-2018","id":"subnautica-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/subnautica-cover-art-bfd560.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ocean","survival","ecology"],"title":"Subnautica","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subnautica","year":2018},{"by":"Compulsion Games","countries":["CA"],"desc":"A retro-futurist 1960s English town kept cheerful by a happiness drug. Mod fashion, mid-century gadgets and dystopia.","descs":{"atompunk":"A retro-futurist 1960s English town kept cheerful by a happiness drug. Mod fashion, mid-century gadgets and dystopia.","psychopunk":"An alternate 1960s England stays cheerful on a mandatory drug called Joy. A playable <em>Brave New World</em> with a pop-art grin."},"essential":false,"families":["atompunk","psychopunk"],"href":"/work/we-happy-few-2018","id":"we-happy-few-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/wehappyfew-e4c340.webp","medium":"game","themes":["alt-history","dystopia","mind"],"title":"We Happy Few","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Happy_Few","year":2018},{"by":"Free League Publishing","countries":["SE"],"desc":"Colonial marines, roughnecks and company agents under Weyland-Yutani. A stress-dice horror game that won three ENNIE Awards.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/alien-the-roleplaying-game-2019","id":"alien-the-roleplaying-game-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/cover-of-alien-the-rpg-b3e81d.webp","medium":"game","themes":["space","corporations","survival"],"title":"Alien: The Roleplaying Game","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien:_The_Roleplaying_Game","year":2019},{"by":"Undertow Games","countries":["FI"],"desc":"A co-operative submarine simulator in the ice-covered ocean of Europa, where everything on board can and will break. Released in early access in 2019 and in full in 2023.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/barotrauma-2019","id":"barotrauma-2019","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["ocean","survival"],"title":"Barotrauma","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barotrauma_(video_game)","year":2019},{"by":"Remedy Entertainment","countries":["FI"],"desc":"A shifting brutalist bureau where reality bends to belief. Adjacent, a New Weird game, but deeply concerned with altered perception.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/control-2019","id":"control-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/control-game-cover-art-0734a6.webp","medium":"game","themes":["mind","myth"],"title":"Control","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_(video_game)","year":2019},{"by":"Bend Studio","countries":["US"],"desc":"A drifter biker in post-pandemic Oregon keeps his motorcycle running on scavenged parts. The bike as war-rig, in miniature.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/days-gone-2019","id":"days-gone-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/days-gone-cover-art-c46085.webp","medium":"game","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"Days Gone","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Days_Gone","year":2019},{"by":"Kojima Productions","countries":["JP"],"desc":"A courier reconnects a shattered America one delivery at a time. Hideo Kojima's strange, moving argument that rebuilding is logistics and solidarity.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/death-stranding-2019","id":"death-stranding-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/death-stranding-2e6520.webp","medium":"game","themes":["post-apocalypse","myth"],"title":"Death Stranding","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Stranding","year":2019},{"by":"ZA/UM","countries":["EE","GB"],"desc":"Your own warring faculties, logic, drama, electrochemistry, argue inside your skull. The mind itself as a dialogue tree.","essential":true,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/disco-elysium-2019","id":"disco-elysium-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/disco-elysium-poster-42accc.webp","medium":"game","themes":["mind","identity","noir"],"title":"Disco Elysium","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco_Elysium","year":2019},{"by":"Black Forest Games","countries":["DE"],"desc":"Lead a band of survivors through an endless winter, building a camp and facing eldritch things in the snow. Base-building survival close to the frostpunk core.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/fade-to-silence-2019","id":"fade-to-silence-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fade-to-silence-cover-art-1ec634.webp","medium":"game","themes":["cold","survival"],"title":"Fade to Silence","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fade_to_Silence","year":2019},{"by":"Wizards of the Coast","countries":["US"],"desc":"A nautical adventure anthology for fifth-edition D&amp;D, with rules for ships at sea. Adjacent fantasy, but the game's most sea-soaked book.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/ghosts-of-saltmarsh-2019","id":"ghosts-of-saltmarsh-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/ghosts-of-saltmarsh-f81fa6.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ocean","myth"],"title":"Ghosts of Saltmarsh","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghosts_of_Saltmarsh","year":2019},{"by":"4A Games","countries":["UA"],"desc":"The journey leaves Moscow's nuclear winter aboard the train <em>Aurora</em>, the crew's mobile home through a year of seasons. The armoured train as last city.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/metro-exodus-2019","id":"metro-exodus-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/cover-art-of-metro-exodus-1399de.webp","medium":"game","themes":["post-apocalypse","nuclear","cold"],"title":"Metro Exodus","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_Exodus","year":2019},{"by":"Mobius Digital","countries":["US"],"desc":"Adjacent: a tiny backwater space program flies rickety ships held together with hope. Wonder rather than labor, but deeply homemade.","descs":{"lunapunk":"Exploration, wonder, and cosmic mystery in a handcrafted solar system. Lunapunk's awe at the night sky, made playable.","spacepunk":"Adjacent: a tiny backwater space program flies rickety ships held together with hope. Wonder rather than labor, but deeply homemade."},"essential":true,"families":["spacepunk","lunapunk"],"href":"/work/outer-wilds-2019","id":"outer-wilds-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/outer-wilds-steam-artwork-7a1f26.webp","medium":"game","themes":["space","myth"],"title":"Outer Wilds","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Wilds","year":2019},{"by":"Other Ocean Interactive","countries":["CA"],"desc":"Survivors must repair the way out before a blizzard while traitors work against them. Social deduction meets the cold.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/project-winter-2019","id":"project-winter-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/project-winter-cover-472121.webp","medium":"game","themes":["cold","survival"],"title":"Project Winter","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Winter","year":2019},{"by":"Double Damage Games","countries":["US"],"desc":"A retired pirate rebuilds her life from a junker ship, with in-cockpit radio stations playing. Space trucker energy.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/rebel-galaxy-outlaw-2019","id":"rebel-galaxy-outlaw-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/rebel-galaxy-outlaw-cover-art-86cebe.webp","medium":"game","themes":["space"],"title":"Rebel Galaxy Outlaw","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebel_Galaxy_Outlaw","year":2019},{"by":"Thatgamecompany","countries":["US"],"desc":"A gentle social game about returning fallen stars to their constellations, played by holding hands with strangers. Light as something shared and given back.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/sky-children-of-the-light-2019","id":"sky-children-of-the-light-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/sky-video-game-517045.webp","medium":"game","themes":["myth"],"title":"Sky: Children of the Light","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky:_Children_of_the_Light","year":2019},{"by":"Pillow Castle Games","countries":["US"],"desc":"A dream-therapy program built from forced-perspective puzzles in which objects change size depending on how you look at them.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/superliminal-2019","id":"superliminal-2019","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["mind"],"title":"Superliminal","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superliminal","year":2019},{"by":"Steve Kenson / Green Ronin","countries":["US"],"desc":"The Expanse at the table on the AGE system, with Belters, Martians and Earthers in play.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/the-expanse-roleplaying-game-2019","id":"the-expanse-roleplaying-game-2019","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["space","colonies"],"title":"The Expanse Roleplaying Game","url":"https://greenroninstore.com/products/the-expanse-roleplaying-game","year":2019},{"by":"Obsidian Entertainment","countries":["US"],"desc":"From Fallout's original creators: a corporate-colonised star system drawn in space-age advertising style. Atompunk aesthetics moved off-world.","descs":{"atompunk":"From Fallout's original creators: a corporate-colonised star system drawn in space-age advertising style. Atompunk aesthetics moved off-world.","spacepunk":"A colony system owned outright by megacorporations, where workers are company property in all but name. Corporate space satire from the creators of <em>Fallout</em>."},"essential":false,"families":["atompunk","spacepunk"],"href":"/work/the-outer-worlds-2019","id":"the-outer-worlds-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-outer-worlds-cover-art-9fca5f.webp","medium":"game","themes":["corporations","colonies","retro-future"],"title":"The Outer Worlds","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outer_Worlds","year":2019},{"by":"Frogwares","countries":["UA"],"desc":"A detective investigates a half-flooded 1920s Massachusetts town in the grip of Lovecraftian madness. The drowned town as open world.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/the-sinking-city-2019","id":"the-sinking-city-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-sinking-city-cover-art-5d589e.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ocean","myth","noir"],"title":"The Sinking City","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sinking_City","year":2019},{"by":"Ubisoft Paris","countries":["FR"],"desc":"Adjacent: a military shooter, but its fictional island of Auroa, a tech-utopian archipelago, is regularly cited as an example of solarpunk design.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/tom-clancy-s-ghost-recon-breakpoint-2019","id":"tom-clancy-s-ghost-recon-breakpoint-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/cover-art-of-tom-clancy-s-ghost-recon-breakpoint-64d337.webp","medium":"game","themes":["war","machines"],"title":"Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Clancy%27s_Ghost_Recon_Breakpoint","year":2019},{"by":"Blue Manchu","countries":["AU"],"desc":"Rehydrated prisoners are sent to scavenge derelicts for a ship's AI, then replaced when they die. Comic-book art, disposable labor.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/void-bastards-2019","id":"void-bastards-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/void-bastards-cover-art-806cc6.webp","medium":"game","themes":["space"],"title":"Void Bastards","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Void_Bastards","year":2019},{"by":"Deli Interactive","countries":["US"],"desc":"A co-op roguelike in which a crew runs a Victorian submarine through a Verne-inspired underworld. Shouting about leaks is the core loop.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/we-need-to-go-deeper-2019","id":"we-need-to-go-deeper-2019","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["ocean"],"title":"We Need to Go Deeper","url":"https://store.steampowered.com/app/307110/We_Need_to_Go_Deeper/","year":2019},{"by":"Elizabeth Hargrave","countries":["US"],"desc":"An engine-builder about attracting birds to wildlife preserves, with real species and habitats. Adjacent: nature-first design that made a hobby fall in love with birds.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/wingspan-2019","id":"wingspan-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/3d-wingspan-768x752-cf39e6.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ecology"],"title":"Wingspan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wingspan_(board_game)","year":2019},{"by":"Ustwo Games","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A girl on a Mediterranean island photographs wildlife, cleans up litter and organizes her neighbors to save a nature reserve. Small-scale activism you can play in an afternoon.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/alba-a-wildlife-adventure-2020","id":"alba-a-wildlife-adventure-2020","image":"/assets/imgs/works/alba-a-wildlife-adventure-cover-art-bb4fa0.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ecology"],"title":"Alba: A Wildlife Adventure","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alba:_A_Wildlife_Adventure","year":2020},{"by":"Nintendo","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Adjacent: an island life sim, but one that runs on real time, where the evening brings shooting stars, night insects and a quieter island. Slow living for millions.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/animal-crossing-new-horizons-2020","id":"animal-crossing-new-horizons-2020","image":"/assets/imgs/works/animal-crossing-new-horizons-07bfb7.webp","medium":"game","themes":["utopia"],"title":"Animal Crossing: New Horizons","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Crossing:_New_Horizons","year":2020},{"by":"Balancing Monkey Games","countries":["NZ"],"desc":"A gentle city builder about helping people re-emerge after a long time underground and spread across a planet without war. Adjacent cozy restoration.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/before-we-leave-2020","id":"before-we-leave-2020","image":"/assets/imgs/works/before-we-leave-cover-8a7a51.webp","medium":"game","themes":["colonies","ecology"],"title":"Before We Leave","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Before_We_Leave","year":2020},{"by":"Phobia Game Studio","countries":["PL"],"desc":"A reverse-horror game where you are the escaped lab organism, growing as you consume the staff. The containment breach seen from inside.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/carrion-2020","id":"carrion-2020","image":"/assets/imgs/works/carrion-video-game-steam-storefront-header-005217.webp","medium":"game","themes":["body-mod","genetics"],"title":"Carrion","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrion_(video_game)","year":2020},{"by":"ION LANDS","countries":["DE"],"desc":"Drive a flying taxi for a gray-market delivery company through a vertical rainy city. A slow, story-led game about the gig economy.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/cloudpunk-2020","id":"cloudpunk-2020","image":"/assets/imgs/works/cloudpunk-d52ae4.webp","medium":"game","themes":["cities","night","ai"],"title":"Cloudpunk","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloudpunk","year":2020},{"by":"CD Projekt Red","countries":["PL"],"desc":"Open-world immersion in Night City, a metropolis of corporate warfare, street gangs, and cybernetic excess.","essential":true,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/cyberpunk-2077-2020","id":"cyberpunk-2077-2020","image":"/assets/imgs/works/cyberpunk-2077-box-art-2fbb5e.webp","medium":"game","themes":["body-mod","corporations","cities","ai"],"title":"Cyberpunk 2077","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk_2077","year":2020},{"by":"Ghost Ship Games","countries":["DK"],"desc":"Co-op dwarf miners on contract to an intergalactic mining corporation, drilling deadly caves for its profit. Rock and stone.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/deep-rock-galactic-2020","id":"deep-rock-galactic-2020","image":"/assets/imgs/works/deep-rock-galactic-cover-art-00cf44.webp","medium":"game","themes":["space","corporations"],"title":"Deep Rock Galactic","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Rock_Galactic","year":2020},{"by":"id Software","countries":["US"],"desc":"Hell has consumed Earth, and the Slayer burns through it. The series' molten aesthetic at full intensity.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/doom-eternal-2020","id":"doom-eternal-2020","image":"/assets/imgs/works/cover-art-of-doom-eternal-9276c4.webp","medium":"game","themes":["fire","myth"],"title":"Doom Eternal","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_Eternal","year":2020},{"by":"Adam Kwapiński, Glass Cannon Unplugged","countries":["PL"],"desc":"A cooperative adaptation of the video game, funded on Kickstarter in 2020: build around the Generator, manage workers, sign laws and survive the storm together.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/frostpunk-the-board-game-2020","id":"frostpunk-the-board-game-2020","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["cold","survival"],"title":"Frostpunk: The Board Game","url":"https://glasscannonunplugged.com/frostpunk-the-board-game/","year":2020},{"by":"CRISPR Monkey Studios","countries":["US"],"desc":"A sourcebook for GeneFunk 2090, an explicitly biopunk setting on a modified 5E ruleset, set in a gene-hacked Busan.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/genefunk-2090-shadows-of-korea-2020","id":"genefunk-2090-shadows-of-korea-2020","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["genetics","body-mod"],"title":"GeneFunk 2090: Shadows of Korea","url":"https://www.kicktraq.com/projects/crisprmonkey/genefunk-2090-shadows-of-korea/","year":2020},{"by":"One More Level","countries":["PL"],"desc":"A one-hit-kill cyborg ninja climbs a tower city, the last refuge of humanity. Pure speed and parkour.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/ghostrunner-2020","id":"ghostrunner-2020","image":"/assets/imgs/works/ghostrunner-cover-art-395a60.webp","medium":"game","themes":["cities","body-mod"],"title":"Ghostrunner","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostrunner","year":2020},{"by":"Wizards of the Coast","countries":["US"],"desc":"A <em>Dungeons &amp; Dragons</em> adventure where a goddess plunges the region into endless winter and darkness, with survival and horror at its centre.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/icewind-dale-rime-of-the-frostmaiden-2020","id":"icewind-dale-rime-of-the-frostmaiden-2020","image":"/assets/imgs/works/icewind-dale-rime-of-the-frostmaiden-standard-cover-d96c2a.webp","medium":"game","themes":["cold","myth"],"title":"Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icewind_Dale:_Rime_of_the_Frostmaiden","year":2020},{"by":"Gareth Damian Martin","countries":["GB"],"desc":"You are the AI of a diving suit, guiding a xenobiologist across an alien seabed shown only as a sonar map. Hydropunk as quiet field science.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/in-other-waters-2020","id":"in-other-waters-2020","image":"/assets/imgs/works/in-other-waters-cover-art-01a46c.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ocean","ecology"],"title":"In Other Waters","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Other_Waters","year":2020},{"by":"King Art Games","countries":["DE"],"desc":"Real-time strategy in Jakub Różalski's 1920+ world: Polish, Saxon and Rusviet mechs crossing farm fields. A flagship modern dieselpunk game.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/iron-harvest-2020","id":"iron-harvest-2020","image":"/assets/imgs/works/iron-harvest-cover-art-8d23a6.webp","medium":"game","themes":["alt-history","war","machines"],"title":"Iron Harvest","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Harvest","year":2020},{"by":"Blue Bottle Games","countries":["US"],"desc":"Salvage abandoned vessels in a boneyard to pay off debt and keep fuel, air and food stocked. Early access from 2020, full release in 2026; the most detailed debt-and-salvage sim yet.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/ostranauts-2020","id":"ostranauts-2020","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["space"],"title":"Ostranauts","url":"https://bluebottlegames.com/games/ostranauts","year":2020},{"by":"Thunder Lotus Games","countries":["CA"],"desc":"A ferry-keeper for the dead cares for spirits before guiding them on. A cozy game about rest, endings and letting go.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/spiritfarer-2020","id":"spiritfarer-2020","image":"/assets/imgs/works/spiritfarer-cover-art-a6b1ff.webp","medium":"game","themes":["myth"],"title":"Spiritfarer","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritfarer","year":2020},{"by":"Noio","countries":["NL"],"desc":"A cozy diorama game where you grow plants over abandoned ruins until the overgrowth swallows them. The leading example of a wave of “reclaim and grow” indie games.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/cloud-gardens-2021","id":"cloud-gardens-2021","image":"/assets/imgs/works/cloud-gardens-cover-e2af47.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ecology"],"title":"Cloud Gardens","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Gardens_(video_game)","year":2021},{"by":"Kenna Alexander","countries":["US"],"desc":"A science fantasy RPG imagining North America where colonization never happened, designed by a team of Native creators. Adjacent: Indigenous futurism with a living, technological world.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/coyote-crow-2021","id":"coyote-crow-2021","image":"/assets/imgs/works/coyote-crow-cover-6c447e.webp","medium":"game","themes":["alt-history","myth"],"title":"Coyote & Crow","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coyote_%26_Crow","year":2021},{"by":"Modiphius Entertainment","countries":["GB"],"desc":"The official Fallout tabletop RPG, built on Modiphius's 2d20 system. Vault life and wasteland survival at the kitchen table.","descs":{"apocapunk":"The official tabletop adaptation of the franchise on the 2d20 system, with scavenging and crafting built into play.","atompunk":"The official Fallout tabletop RPG, built on Modiphius's 2d20 system. Vault life and wasteland survival at the kitchen table."},"essential":false,"families":["atompunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/fallout-the-roleplaying-game-2021","id":"fallout-the-roleplaying-game-2021","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["post-apocalypse","nuclear"],"title":"Fallout: The Roleplaying Game","url":"https://www.modiphius.net/collections/fallout-the-roleplaying-game","year":2021},{"by":"Konstantin Koshutin","countries":["RU"],"desc":"Command a fleet of flying battleships across a war-torn desert, managing fuel, radio intercepts and diplomacy. Explicitly dieselpunk, and unusually serious about logistics.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/highfleet-2021","id":"highfleet-2021","image":"/assets/imgs/works/highfleet-header-art-e4bdce.webp","medium":"game","themes":["war","machines"],"title":"HighFleet","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HighFleet","year":2021},{"by":"Serious Bros.","countries":["DE"],"desc":"A planetary colony builder where you choose energy sources and fight off a climate crisis caused by your own economy. Sustainability as the win condition.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/imagine-earth-2021","id":"imagine-earth-2021","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["ecology","climate","colonies"],"title":"Imagine Earth","url":"https://store.steampowered.com/app/280720/Imagine_Earth/","year":2021},{"by":"Bunnyhug","countries":["CA"],"desc":"A fishing RPG set in a struggling coastal town and the strange creatures in its bay. Sea folklore and slow community repair.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/moonglow-bay-2021","id":"moonglow-bay-2021","image":"/assets/imgs/works/moonglow-bay-a138b0.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ocean"],"title":"Moonglow Bay","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonglow_Bay","year":2021},{"by":"Double Fine","countries":["US"],"desc":"The sequel treats anxiety, addiction and trauma with real care while still turning each mind into a playground.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/psychonauts-2-2021","id":"psychonauts-2-2021","image":"/assets/imgs/works/psychonauts-2-cover-5ac959.webp","medium":"game","themes":["mind"],"title":"Psychonauts 2","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychonauts_2","year":2021},{"by":"Unknown Worlds","countries":["US"],"desc":"The spin-off moves the crafting and fear to the arctic waters of the same planet. More story, colder water.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/subnautica-below-zero-2021","id":"subnautica-below-zero-2021","image":"/assets/imgs/works/subnautica-below-zero-cover-art-e9fd43.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ocean","cold","survival"],"title":"Subnautica: Below Zero","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subnautica:_Below_Zero","year":2021},{"by":"Mechanistry","countries":["PL"],"desc":"Long after humans are gone, beaver colonies engineer dams, irrigation and water stores to survive droughts. Early access since 2021, it is a city builder built around water stewardship.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/timberborn-2021","id":"timberborn-2021","image":"/assets/imgs/works/timberborn-cover-e32856.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ecology","climate"],"title":"Timberborn","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timberborn","year":2021},{"by":"Jay Dragon","countries":["US"],"desc":"A pastoral, dice-free RPG of animal travellers in a land recovering from war, built on Belonging Outside Belonging. No battles, only seasons, rest and care.","descs":{"lunapunk":"A pastoral, dice-free RPG of animal travellers in a land recovering from war, built on Belonging Outside Belonging. No battles, only seasons, rest and care.","solarpunk":"A roleplaying game about animal folk travelling a pastoral land that is healing from past wars, inspired by Redwall and Studio Ghibli. Winner of three 2022 ENNIE Awards and a touchstone for solarpunk tabletop play."},"essential":false,"families":["lunapunk","solarpunk"],"href":"/work/wanderhome-2021","id":"wanderhome-2021","image":"/assets/imgs/works/wanderhome-rpg-cover-a9886f.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ecology","myth"],"title":"Wanderhome","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanderhome","year":2021},{"by":"Jump Over the Age","countries":["GB"],"desc":"An emulated human mind in a company-owned body scrapes by on a derelict space station. Adjacent (more space than street), but its core is debt, labor and ownership.","descs":{"cyberpunk":"An emulated human mind in a company-owned body scrapes by on a derelict space station. Adjacent (more space than street), but its core is debt, labor and ownership.","spacepunk":"A digitized mind in a corporate-owned body escapes indentured servitude to a lawless station. Dice-driven precarity, gig work and solidarity."},"essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk","spacepunk"],"href":"/work/citizen-sleeper-2022","id":"citizen-sleeper-2022","image":"/assets/imgs/works/citizen-sleeper-cover-art-478f2d.webp","medium":"game","themes":["space","corporations","identity"],"title":"Citizen Sleeper","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Sleeper","year":2022},{"by":"FromSoftware","countries":["JP"],"desc":"The Flame of Ruin that can burn the Erdtree and the Frenzied Flame that would burn everything. FromSoftware's fire cosmology, expanded.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/elden-ring-2022","id":"elden-ring-2022","image":"/assets/imgs/works/elden-ring-box-art-060a8d.webp","medium":"game","themes":["fire","myth"],"title":"Elden Ring","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elden_Ring","year":2022},{"by":"Vile Monarch","countries":["PL"],"desc":"A city-builder about rebuilding society after sea-level rise has drowned the world. Climate hydropunk as management game.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/floodland-2022","id":"floodland-2022","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-cover-art-from-the-video-game-floodland-d2262f.webp","medium":"game","themes":["climate","survival","post-apocalypse"],"title":"Floodland","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floodland_(video_game)","year":2022},{"by":"Santa Monica Studio","countries":["US"],"desc":"Midgard locked in Fimbulwinter, the three-year winter before the end of the world. The myth that opens this page, made playable.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/god-of-war-ragnarok-2022","id":"god-of-war-ragnarok-2022","image":"/assets/imgs/works/god-of-war-ragnar-k-cover-67da1f.webp","medium":"game","themes":["cold","myth"],"title":"God of War Ragnarök","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_War_Ragnar%C3%B6k","year":2022},{"by":"Blackbird Interactive","countries":["CA"],"desc":"Cut apart derelict ships for a corporation that bills you for your own air. The purest labor-spacepunk ever shipped.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/hardspace-shipbreaker-2022","id":"hardspace-shipbreaker-2022","image":"/assets/imgs/works/hardspace-shipbreaker-cover-art-908847.webp","medium":"game","themes":["space","corporations"],"title":"Hardspace: Shipbreaker","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardspace:_Shipbreaker","year":2022},{"by":"David Szymanski","countries":["US"],"desc":"A convict in a welded, windowless submarine maps an ocean of blood on a dead moon, guided only by photos. Under an hour long and terrifying.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/iron-lung-2022","id":"iron-lung-2022","image":"/assets/imgs/works/iron-lung-game-logo-9cb976.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ocean"],"title":"Iron Lung","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Lung_(video_game)","year":2022},{"by":"Redbeet Interactive","countries":["SE"],"desc":"On a flooded Earth, you build a floating home from debris while a shark circles. The flood survival sandbox, in early access from 2018.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/raft-2022","id":"raft-2022","image":"/assets/imgs/works/raft-cover-739c0a.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ocean","survival"],"title":"Raft","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raft_(video_game)","year":2022},{"by":"Ebb Software","countries":["RS"],"desc":"A world made of fleshy machines inspired by Giger and Beksinski, where tools are living things plugged into your body. Pure biomechanical atmosphere.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/scorn-2022","id":"scorn-2022","image":"/assets/imgs/works/scorn-game-cover-art-8f2863.webp","medium":"game","themes":["body-mod","machines"],"title":"Scorn","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorn_(video_game)","year":2022},{"by":"Digital Reef Games","countries":["DE"],"desc":"An underwater city-builder for a humanity driven off the surface. Build domes, mine the seabed, keep the lights on.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/aquatico-2023","id":"aquatico-2023","image":"/assets/imgs/works/aquatico-cover-dd0052.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ocean","cities"],"title":"Aquatico","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatico","year":2023},{"by":"Mundfish","countries":["RU"],"desc":"A Soviet atompunk utopia that goes spectacularly wrong. The robot maid revolts. As predicted.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/atomic-heart-2023","id":"atomic-heart-2023","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["alt-history","machines","ai"],"title":"Atomic Heart","url":"https://www.atomicheart.com/","year":2023},{"by":"Charles Games","countries":["CZ"],"desc":"A free card-based strategy game, made with the NGO People in Need, about cutting emissions across industry, energy and society. Decarbonization in bite-sized turns.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/beecarbonize-2023","id":"beecarbonize-2023","image":"/assets/imgs/works/beecarbonize-cover-595211.webp","medium":"game","themes":["climate"],"title":"Beecarbonize","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beecarbonize","year":2023},{"by":"Mintrocket","countries":["KR"],"desc":"A diver hunts fish by day for a sushi bar by night in an ever-changing blue hole. Adjacent and comic, but a celebrated love letter to the dive.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/dave-the-diver-2023","id":"dave-the-diver-2023","image":"/assets/imgs/works/dave-the-diver-cover-406656.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ocean"],"title":"Dave the Diver","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_the_Diver","year":2023},{"by":"Matt Leacock & Matteo Menapace","countries":["US"],"desc":"A cooperative board game from the designer of <em>Pandemic</em>: players are world powers working together to cut emissions and protect communities. Climate policy as a shared win.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/daybreak-2023","id":"daybreak-2023","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-matt-leacock-lucca-comics-games-2018-02-71d36f.webp","medium":"game","themes":["climate"],"title":"Daybreak","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daybreak_(board_game)","year":2023},{"by":"Black Salt Games","countries":["NZ"],"desc":"A fisherman works an archipelago where the catch gets stranger after dark. Cosy fishing, Lovecraftian dread.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/dredge-2023","id":"dredge-2023","image":"/assets/imgs/works/dredge-cover-art-65f5a9.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ocean","myth"],"title":"Dredge","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dredge_(video_game)","year":2023},{"by":"Ashborne Games","countries":["CZ"],"desc":"<em>Adjacent:</em> lead the Czechoslovak Legion's armoured train home across war-torn Russia, managing heat, food and morale through the winter.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/last-train-home-2023","id":"last-train-home-2023","image":"/assets/imgs/works/last-train-home-poster-f36295.webp","medium":"game","themes":["war","cold"],"title":"Last Train Home","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Train_Home_(video_game)","year":2023},{"by":"Zeekerss","countries":["US"],"desc":"Co-op contractors scavenge scrap from abandoned industrial moons to meet the Company's quota. A meme-friendly horror game that is really about being a disposable worker.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/lethal-company-2023","id":"lethal-company-2023","image":"/assets/imgs/works/lethal-company-steam-cover-4ee58f.webp","medium":"game","themes":["space","corporations"],"title":"Lethal Company","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lethal_Company","year":2023},{"by":"Neowiz","countries":["KR"],"desc":"A Soulslike retelling of Pinocchio in Krat, a Belle Époque city overrun by murderous puppets. Clockwork horror at its finest.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/lies-of-p-2023","id":"lies-of-p-2023","image":"/assets/imgs/works/lies-of-p-cover-art-8fca07.webp","medium":"game","themes":["machines","myth"],"title":"Lies of P","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies_of_P","year":2023},{"by":"Bethesda Game Studios","countries":["US"],"desc":"Adjacent: Todd Howard named its look NASApunk, chunky, functional, real-world-inspired hardware. A vast sandbox that leans on the used-future look.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/starfield-2023","id":"starfield-2023","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-starfield-game-cover-b68164.webp","medium":"game","themes":["space","colonies"],"title":"Starfield","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfield_(video_game)","year":2023},{"by":"Free Lives","countries":["ZA"],"desc":"A “reverse city builder” where you restore devastated land to thriving wilderness, then pack up and leave no trace.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/terra-nil-2023","id":"terra-nil-2023","image":"/assets/imgs/works/terra-nil-gameplay-screenshot-b13209.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ecology","climate"],"title":"Terra Nil","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_Nil","year":2023},{"by":"Telltale Games & Deck Nine","countries":["US"],"desc":"A Belter scavenger crew in the Expanse universe, picking through wrecks for a living.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/the-expanse-a-telltale-series-2023","id":"the-expanse-a-telltale-series-2023","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-expanse-telltale-2022-16e602.webp","medium":"game","themes":["space"],"title":"The Expanse: A Telltale Series","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanse:_A_Telltale_Series","year":2023},{"by":"Starward Industries","countries":["PL"],"desc":"Adapted from Stanisław Lem's 1964 novel. Its developers explicitly cite atompunk, along with Bonestell and Syd Mead, as their art direction.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/the-invincible-2023","id":"the-invincible-2023","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-invincible-cover-art-347a68.webp","medium":"game","themes":["space","machines","retro-future"],"title":"The Invincible","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invincible_(video_game)","year":2023},{"by":"Parallel Studio","countries":["FR"],"desc":"A grieving saturation diver works a North Sea installation in an alternative 1970s. Grief, oil and the cold.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/under-the-waves-2023","id":"under-the-waves-2023","image":"","medium":"game","themes":["ocean"],"title":"Under the Waves","url":"https://blog.quanticdream.com/under-the-waves/","year":2023},{"by":"11 bit studios","countries":["PL"],"desc":"Thirty years after the freeze. Now the enemy is not the cold but the city's own factions. Politics replaces survival.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/frostpunk-2-2024","id":"frostpunk-2-2024","image":"/assets/imgs/works/frostpunk-2-cover-art-a3216b.webp","medium":"game","themes":["cold","cities"],"title":"Frostpunk 2","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frostpunk_2","year":2024},{"by":"11 bit studios, NetEase Games","countries":["PL","CN"],"desc":"The mobile adaptation of Frostpunk, adding multiplayer trade between cities. The Generator in your pocket.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/frostpunk-beyond-the-ice-2024","id":"frostpunk-beyond-the-ice-2024","image":"/assets/imgs/works/frostpunk-cover-art-e04b77.webp","medium":"game","themes":["cold","survival"],"title":"Frostpunk: Beyond the Ice","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frostpunk","year":2024},{"by":"MachineGames","countries":["SE"],"desc":"Indy in 1937, between Raiders and the Crusade, against fascist expeditions across the globe. Pulp adventure from the Wolfenstein team.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/indiana-jones-and-the-great-circle-2024","id":"indiana-jones-and-the-great-circle-2024","image":"/assets/imgs/works/indiana-jones-and-the-great-circle-box-art-df6671.webp","medium":"game","themes":["war","myth"],"title":"Indiana Jones and the Great Circle","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Jones_and_the_Great_Circle","year":2024},{"by":"11 bit studios","countries":["PL"],"desc":"A rebuilt version of the original on Unreal Engine 5, announced in 2025 with new laws and a new path for the city. Set in the alternate 1886 when Krakatoa's eruptions begin the global winter.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/frostpunk-1886-2025","id":"frostpunk-1886-2025","image":"/assets/imgs/works/frostpunk-cover-art-e04b77.webp","medium":"game","themes":["cold","survival","machines"],"title":"Frostpunk 1886","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frostpunk","year":2025},{"by":"Stray Fawn Studio","countries":["CH"],"desc":"Build a village on the back of a giant creature crossing a world choked by toxic spores, and decide whether to care for it or exploit it. Openly Nausicaä-inspired symbiosis, in early access from 2022.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/the-wandering-village-2025","id":"the-wandering-village-2025","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-wandering-village-poster-6828b6.webp","medium":"game","themes":["ecology","survival"],"title":"The Wandering Village","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wandering_Village","year":2025},{"by":"George Frideric Handel","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Written to accompany a royal fireworks display in Green Park. Fire as state spectacle, with a score to match.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/music-for-the-royal-fireworks-1749","id":"music-for-the-royal-fireworks-1749","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-elevationvanda-d0f85d.webp","medium":"music","themes":["fire"],"title":"Music for the Royal Fireworks","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_for_the_Royal_Fireworks","year":1749},{"by":"Ludwig van Beethoven","countries":["DE"],"desc":"The nickname came later, from a critic who heard moonlight on a lake in its first movement. Still the default soundtrack of the Moon.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/piano-sonata-no-14-moonlight-1801","id":"piano-sonata-no-14-moonlight-1801","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-beethoven-piano-sonata-14-title-page-1802-c74588.webp","medium":"music","themes":["night"],"title":"Piano Sonata No. 14, \"Moonlight\"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Sonata_No._14_(Beethoven)","year":1801},{"by":"John Field","countries":["IE"],"desc":"The Irish pianist widely credited with inventing the nocturne as a form, starting with his first piece under that name around 1812. The birth of night as a musical subject.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/nocturnes-1812","id":"nocturnes-1812","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-john-field-restoration1-8c498b.webp","medium":"music","themes":["night"],"title":"Nocturnes","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Field_(composer)","year":1812},{"by":"Frédéric Chopin","countries":["PL"],"desc":"Twenty-one solo piano nocturnes that took Field's form to its peak. Night as interiority, written over two decades.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/nocturnes-1827","id":"nocturnes-1827","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-chopin102-001q-6b42eb.webp","medium":"music","themes":["night"],"title":"Nocturnes","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocturnes_(Chopin)","year":1827},{"by":"Franz Schubert","countries":["AT"],"desc":"Twenty-four songs of a rejected man walking alone through winter. The emotional ancestor of every frozen-road narrative.","essential":true,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/winterreise-1828","id":"winterreise-1828","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-schubert-winterreise-postcard-66c7a0.webp","medium":"music","themes":["cold","mind"],"title":"Winterreise","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winterreise","year":1828},{"by":"Antonín Dvořák","countries":["CZ"],"desc":"A water nymph sings to the Moon to carry her love to a human prince. Folklore, water and moonlight in one of opera's best-loved arias.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/song-to-the-moon-rusalka-1901","id":"song-to-the-moon-rusalka-1901","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-poster-for-the-premiere-of-rusalka-in-prague-31-march--f5f2fa.webp","medium":"music","themes":["night","myth"],"title":"Song to the Moon (Rusalka)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rusalka_(opera)","year":1901},{"by":"Claude Debussy","countries":["FR"],"desc":"The third movement of the <em>Suite bergamasque</em>, begun around 1890 and published in 1905. The softest light in the piano repertoire.","essential":true,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/clair-de-lune-1905","id":"clair-de-lune-1905","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-claude-debussy-by-atelier-nadar-399624.webp","medium":"music","themes":["night"],"title":"Clair de lune","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suite_bergamasque","year":1905},{"by":"Alexander Scriabin","countries":["RU"],"desc":"A tone poem scored for orchestra, piano and a color organ that was meant to bathe the hall in light. The Prometheus myth as synesthetic experiment.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/prometheus-the-poem-of-fire-1910","id":"prometheus-the-poem-of-fire-1910","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-prometheus-the-poem-of-fire-op-60-by-alexander-scriabi-4d0237.webp","medium":"music","themes":["fire","mind","myth"],"title":"Prometheus: The Poem of Fire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus:_The_Poem_of_Fire","year":1910},{"by":"Igor Stravinsky","countries":["RU"],"desc":"The Ballets Russes score built on the Russian legend of the glowing firebird. The sound of a creature made of flame.","essential":true,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/the-firebird-1910","id":"the-firebird-1910","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-l-on-bakst-001-86ce6a.webp","medium":"music","themes":["fire","myth"],"title":"The Firebird","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Firebird","year":1910},{"by":"Arnold Schoenberg","countries":["AT"],"desc":"Twenty-one moonstruck poems half-sung, half-spoken over a small ensemble. The Moon as delirium: lunapunk's strange, expressionist edge.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/pierrot-lunaire-1912","id":"pierrot-lunaire-1912","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-blaues-selbstportrait-cropped-503125.webp","medium":"music","themes":["night","mind"],"title":"Pierrot lunaire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierrot_lunaire","year":1912},{"by":"Manuel de Falla","countries":["ES"],"desc":"From the ballet <em>El amor brujo</em>: a dance to drive off a ghost at midnight, played as rising, flickering heat.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/ritual-fire-dance-1915","id":"ritual-fire-dance-1915","image":"/assets/imgs/works/manueldefalla-1606c9.webp","medium":"music","themes":["fire","myth"],"title":"Ritual Fire Dance","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritual_Fire_Dance","year":1915},{"by":"Glenn Miller","countries":["US"],"desc":"The big band hit that still means 1940s in two bars. Source music, and the default soundtrack of every dieselpunk montage.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/in-the-mood-1939","id":"in-the-mood-1939","image":"/assets/imgs/works/inmood2-1-6cad17.webp","medium":"music","themes":["war","cities"],"title":"In the Mood","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Mood","year":1939},{"by":"The Ink Spots","countries":["US"],"desc":"Recorded before the Atomic Age began, so adjacent, but its use in Fallout 3, 4, 76 and the TV series made it the genre's unofficial anthem.","essential":true,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/i-don-t-want-to-set-the-world-on-fire-1941","id":"i-don-t-want-to-set-the-world-on-fire-1941","image":"","medium":"music","themes":["nuclear","war"],"title":"I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Don%27t_Want_to_Set_the_World_on_Fire","year":1941},{"by":"Juan García Esquivel","countries":["MX"],"desc":"Esquivel's stereo-testing, ping-ponging arrangements are the definitive sound of space age pop. Hi-fi as futurism.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/space-age-pop-1950","id":"space-age-pop-1950","image":"/assets/imgs/works/esquivel-ee6da1.webp","medium":"music","themes":["retro-future","space"],"title":"Space-age pop","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Garc%C3%ADa_Esquivel","year":1950},{"by":"Ralph Vaughan Williams","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A symphony grown from his score for <em>Scott of the Antarctic</em>, with wind machine and wordless voices for the ice.","essential":true,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/sinfonia-antartica-1953","id":"sinfonia-antartica-1953","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-ralph-vaughan-williams-1954-aa6c95.webp","medium":"music","themes":["cold","survival"],"title":"Sinfonia antartica","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinfonia_antartica","year":1953},{"by":"Bebe & Louis Barron","countries":["US"],"desc":"The Barrons built circuits that &quot;sang&quot; as they burned out, and created the first fully electronic film score. The sound of the atompunk future.","essential":true,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/forbidden-planet-electronic-tonalities-1956","id":"forbidden-planet-electronic-tonalities-1956","image":"","medium":"music","themes":["space","machines","retro-future"],"title":"Forbidden Planet (Electronic Tonalities)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bebe_and_Louis_Barron","year":1956},{"by":"Martin Denny","countries":["US"],"desc":"The album that launched exotica, the tiki-and-birdcall lounge music of the space-age bachelor pad. Adjacent, but part of the same hi-fi culture.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/exotica-1957","id":"exotica-1957","image":"/assets/imgs/works/exoticamartindenny-75e289.webp","medium":"music","themes":["retro-future"],"title":"Exotica","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exotica_(Martin_Denny_album)","year":1957},{"by":"Tom Lehrer","countries":["US"],"desc":"Includes &quot;We Will All Go Together When We Go&quot;, a jaunty singalong about universal nuclear annihilation. Atomic gallows humour at its finest.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/more-of-tom-lehrer-1959","id":"more-of-tom-lehrer-1959","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-more-of-tom-lehrer-front-cover-7682d6.webp","medium":"music","themes":["nuclear","war"],"title":"More of Tom Lehrer","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_of_Tom_Lehrer","year":1959},{"by":"The Tornados, prod. Joe Meek","countries":["GB"],"desc":"An organ-and-clavioline instrumental named after the communications satellite, and a number one on both sides of the Atlantic. The space age as a pop single.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/telstar-1962","id":"telstar-1962","image":"/assets/imgs/works/tornados-telstar-german-sleeve-46902f.webp","medium":"music","themes":["space","retro-future"],"title":"Telstar","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telstar_(instrumental)","year":1962},{"by":"13th Floor Elevators","countries":["US"],"desc":"The earliest known album to put the word psychedelic in its title, with Roky Erickson's howl and an electric jug.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/the-psychedelic-sounds-of-the-13th-floor-elevators-1966","id":"the-psychedelic-sounds-of-the-13th-floor-elevators-1966","image":"/assets/imgs/works/13th-floor-elevators-the-psychedelic-sounds-of-the-13th-floo-ab9065.webp","medium":"music","themes":["mind"],"title":"The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Psychedelic_Sounds_of_the_13th_Floor_Elevators","year":1966},{"by":"The Beatles","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Tape loops and lyrics drawn from Leary's psychedelic manual make it the first great recorded trip.","essential":true,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/tomorrow-never-knows-1966","id":"tomorrow-never-knows-1966","image":"/assets/imgs/works/tomorrow-never-knows-sheet-music-cover-e7d33b.webp","medium":"music","themes":["mind"],"title":"Tomorrow Never Knows","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow_Never_Knows","year":1966},{"by":"The Beatles","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Ringo sings of a life under the sea in a bright yellow sub. The submarine as communal utopia.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/yellow-submarine-1966","id":"yellow-submarine-1966","image":"/assets/imgs/works/eleanor-rigby-single-usa-d445a4.webp","medium":"music","themes":["ocean"],"title":"Yellow Submarine","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Submarine_(song)","year":1966},{"by":"Pink Floyd","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Syd Barrett's only full album with Pink Floyd: whimsical, cosmic, and shadowed by the breakdown that followed.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/the-piper-at-the-gates-of-dawn-1967","id":"the-piper-at-the-gates-of-dawn-1967","image":"/assets/imgs/works/pinkfloyd-album-piperatthegatesofdawn-300-b97413.webp","medium":"music","themes":["mind","space"],"title":"The Piper at the Gates of Dawn","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Piper_at_the_Gates_of_Dawn","year":1967},{"by":"Jefferson Airplane","countries":["US"],"desc":"Grace Slick rewrites <em>Alice</em> as a pill-swallowing crescendo. Two and a half minutes of perception hacking.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/white-rabbit-1967","id":"white-rabbit-1967","image":"/assets/imgs/works/white-rabbit-label-b1be3a.webp","medium":"music","themes":["mind"],"title":"White Rabbit","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rabbit_(song)","year":1967},{"by":"The Crazy World of Arthur Brown","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A number-one hit sung by a man wearing a burning helmet. The god of hellfire as rock theater.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/fire-1968","id":"fire-1968","image":"/assets/imgs/works/arthurbrownfire-ee8ce7.webp","medium":"music","themes":["fire","myth"],"title":"Fire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_(Arthur_Brown_song)","year":1968},{"by":"Tom Dissevelt & Kid Baltan","countries":["NL"],"desc":"Electronic pieces made at the Philips labs in Eindhoven between 1957 and 1961. Dutch Atomic Age electronica, issued as an album later.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/song-of-the-second-moon-1968","id":"song-of-the-second-moon-1968","image":"/assets/imgs/works/songofthesecondmoon-5edc90.webp","medium":"music","themes":["space","retro-future"],"title":"Song of the Second Moon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_the_Second_Moon","year":1968},{"by":"Zager and Evans","countries":["US"],"desc":"A number-one hit counting the millennia toward humanity's self-inflicted end. Adjacent, but a pop-chart dose of the genre's dread.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/in-the-year-2525-1969","id":"in-the-year-2525-1969","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-in-the-year-2525-by-zager-and-evans-us-vinyl-side-a-rc-6bea6c.webp","medium":"music","themes":["dystopia","machines","post-apocalypse"],"title":"In the Year 2525","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Year_2525","year":1969},{"by":"David Bowie","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Adjacent: Major Tom, alone and adrift as ground control loses him. The pop founding myth of the lonely spacer.","essential":true,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/space-oddity-1969","id":"space-oddity-1969","image":"/assets/imgs/works/bowie-spaceodditysingle-a0434a.webp","medium":"music","themes":["space","identity"],"title":"Space Oddity","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Oddity","year":1969},{"by":"Joni Mitchell","countries":["CA"],"desc":"The song about paving paradise to put up a parking lot. Adjacent: an early environmental anthem that solarpunk still quotes.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/big-yellow-taxi-1970","id":"big-yellow-taxi-1970","image":"/assets/imgs/works/big-yellow-taxi-by-joni-mitchell-1970-canadian-vinyl-f81a95.webp","medium":"music","themes":["ecology","cities"],"title":"Big Yellow Taxi","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Yellow_Taxi","year":1970},{"by":"Nick Drake","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A spare, almost whispered album of voice and guitar. Late-night intimacy at its most fragile.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/pink-moon-1972","id":"pink-moon-1972","image":"/assets/imgs/works/nickdrakepinkmoon-c08700.webp","medium":"music","themes":["night"],"title":"Pink Moon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_Moon","year":1972},{"by":"Elton John & Bernie Taupin","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Inspired by a Bradbury story about a professional astronaut, it treats a Mars run as a job that keeps a man from his family. Spaceflight as the commute.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/rocket-man-1972","id":"rocket-man-1972","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-rocket-man-by-elton-john-us-single-variant-b-71e2ee.webp","medium":"music","themes":["space"],"title":"Rocket Man","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Man_(song)","year":1972},{"by":"Hawkwind","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Adjacent: the defining live album of space rock, noisy, scruffy and very un-NASA.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/space-ritual-1973","id":"space-ritual-1973","image":"/assets/imgs/works/hawkwind-space-ritual-album-cover-81ea8f.webp","medium":"music","themes":["space","mind"],"title":"Space Ritual","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Ritual","year":1973},{"by":"Pink Floyd","countries":["GB"],"desc":"An album about time, money, pressure and madness. Adjacent: more about burnout than moonlight, which is exactly why lunapunk keeps it close.","descs":{"lunapunk":"An album about time, money, pressure and madness. Adjacent: more about burnout than moonlight, which is exactly why lunapunk keeps it close.","psychopunk":"A concept album about pressure, time and madness. The prism on the sleeve became a shorthand for altered perception."},"essential":true,"families":["lunapunk","psychopunk"],"href":"/work/the-dark-side-of-the-moon-1973","id":"the-dark-side-of-the-moon-1973","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-dark-side-of-the-moon-0be7ca.webp","medium":"music","themes":["mind","night"],"title":"The Dark Side of the Moon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Side_of_the_Moon","year":1973},{"by":"David Bowie","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A concept album set in the ruined 'Hunger City', where gangs roam the rooftops. Glam rock's post-apocalyptic opera.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/diamond-dogs-1974","id":"diamond-dogs-1974","image":"/assets/imgs/works/diamond-dogs-952d0c.webp","medium":"music","themes":["dystopia","post-apocalypse","cities"],"title":"Diamond Dogs","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_Dogs","year":1974},{"by":"Kraftwerk","countries":["DE"],"desc":"A concept album that plays on radio waves and radioactive decay; later live versions turned it into an anti-nuclear anthem. Adjacent: the sound of the Geiger counter.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/radio-activity-1975","id":"radio-activity-1975","image":"/assets/imgs/works/kraftwerk-radio-activity-album-cover-611fe9.webp","medium":"music","themes":["nuclear","machines"],"title":"Radio-Activity","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio-Activity","year":1975},{"by":"Arvo Pärt","countries":["EE"],"desc":"A slow, tintinnabuli piece for piano and violin or cello in which almost nothing happens, beautifully. Music as stillness.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/spiegel-im-spiegel-1978","id":"spiegel-im-spiegel-1978","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-arvo-p-rt-aaaab6.webp","medium":"music","themes":["night","mind"],"title":"Spiegel im Spiegel","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiegel_im_Spiegel","year":1978},{"by":"Tubeway Army","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Gary Numan's album of androids and alienation, heavily influenced by Philip K. Dick. Proto-cyberpunk synth music.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/replicas-1979","id":"replicas-1979","image":"/assets/imgs/works/replicas-4e3bab.webp","medium":"music","themes":["ai","machines","identity"],"title":"Replicas","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replicas_(album)","year":1979},{"by":"Laibach","countries":["SI"],"desc":"Slovenian industrial group that wears totalitarian aesthetics as uniform to interrogate them. Adjacent, but the clearest musical take on dieselpunk's propaganda question.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/laibach-1980","id":"laibach-1980","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-laibach-press-photo-2011-e8cf27.webp","medium":"music","themes":["dystopia","war"],"title":"Laibach","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laibach","year":1980},{"by":"Kraftwerk","countries":["DE"],"desc":"An album about data, surveillance and home computers, recorded before most homes had one. The electronic sound cyberpunk later took as its own.","essential":true,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/computer-world-1981","id":"computer-world-1981","image":"/assets/imgs/works/kraftwerk-computer-world-6ce418.webp","medium":"music","themes":["machines","surveillance","ai"],"title":"Computer World","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_World","year":1981},{"by":"Vangelis","countries":["GR"],"desc":"The synth score that still defines the sound of rain on neon. Only officially released in 1994.","essential":true,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/blade-runner-soundtrack-1982","id":"blade-runner-soundtrack-1982","image":"/assets/imgs/works/bladerunnervangeliscover-c1fd1a.webp","medium":"music","themes":["night","cities","noir"],"title":"Blade Runner (soundtrack)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner_(soundtrack)","year":1982},{"by":"Psychic TV","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Genesis P-Orridge's post-Throbbing Gristle project, launched alongside the occult network Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth and its rituals of self-deprogramming.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/force-the-hand-of-chance-1982","id":"force-the-hand-of-chance-1982","image":"/assets/imgs/works/force-chance-cover-0be0fa.webp","medium":"music","themes":["mind","myth"],"title":"Force the Hand of Chance","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_the_Hand_of_Chance","year":1982},{"by":"Ennio Morricone","countries":["IT"],"desc":"Morricone's minimal, pulsing score for Carpenter's film: a heartbeat in the snow. Cold dread distilled into a few notes.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/the-thing-score-1982","id":"the-thing-score-1982","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-thing-1982-film-38adbb.webp","medium":"music","themes":["cold","survival"],"title":"The Thing (score)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(1982_film)","year":1982},{"by":"Nena","countries":["DE"],"desc":"Party balloons set off an accidental nuclear war and the singer stands alone in the ruins. Cold War dread you can dance to.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/99-luftballons-1983","id":"99-luftballons-1983","image":"/assets/imgs/works/99-luftballons-single-cover-552f41.webp","medium":"music","themes":["nuclear","war"],"title":"99 Luftballons","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99_Luftballons","year":1983},{"by":"Brian Eno","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Ambient music made with Daniel Lanois and Roger Eno for a documentary built from Apollo footage. The sound of floating above the lunar surface.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/apollo-atmospheres-and-soundtracks-1983","id":"apollo-atmospheres-and-soundtracks-1983","image":"/assets/imgs/works/brianenoapollo-b6d0c1.webp","medium":"music","themes":["space"],"title":"Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo:_Atmospheres_and_Soundtracks","year":1983},{"by":"Iron Maiden","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Named for the Doomsday Clock, an attack on the business of war. Heavy metal's contribution to nuclear anxiety.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/2-minutes-to-midnight-1984","id":"2-minutes-to-midnight-1984","image":"/assets/imgs/works/iron-maiden-2-minutes-to-midnight-a-11da87.webp","medium":"music","themes":["nuclear","war"],"title":"2 Minutes to Midnight","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2_Minutes_to_Midnight","year":1984},{"by":"Tina Turner","countries":["US"],"desc":"The theme from <em>Beyond Thunderdome</em>, sung by the film's Aunty Entity. A plea for a future beyond warlords.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/we-don-t-need-another-hero-thunderdome-1985","id":"we-don-t-need-another-hero-thunderdome-1985","image":"/assets/imgs/works/tina-turner-we-dont-need-another-hero-f78495.webp","medium":"music","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Don%27t_Need_Another_Hero_(Thunderdome)","year":1985},{"by":"Hiroshi Yoshimura","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Japanese environmental music of soft synths and bright space, reissued in 2020. Adjacent: a favorite soundtrack for solarpunk art and play, not a genre work itself.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/green-1986","id":"green-1986","image":"/assets/imgs/works/green-hiroshi-yoshimura-511ab6.webp","medium":"music","themes":["ecology"],"title":"Green","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_(Hiroshi_Yoshimura_album)","year":1986},{"by":"Geinoh Yamashirogumi","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Gamelan, noh chant and synths for Otomo's film, by Shōji Yamashiro's collective. Proof the genre did not have to sound Western.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/symphonic-suite-akira-1988","id":"symphonic-suite-akira-1988","image":"/assets/imgs/works/akira-1988-poster-257414.webp","medium":"music","themes":["cities","mind"],"title":"Symphonic Suite Akira","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_(1988_film)","year":1988},{"by":"Royal Crown Revue","countries":["US"],"desc":"Los Angeles band with roots in hardcore punk, credited with starting the swing revival that dieselpunk music grew from.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/royal-crown-revue-1989","id":"royal-crown-revue-1989","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-royal-crown-revue-2693f8.webp","medium":"music","themes":["noir"],"title":"Royal Crown Revue","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Crown_Revue","year":1989},{"by":"Combustible Edison","countries":["US"],"desc":"A Providence neo-lounge band that led the 90s cocktail revival. Proof that the atompunk soundtrack came back before the games did.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/combustible-edison-1990","id":"combustible-edison-1990","image":"","medium":"music","themes":["retro-future"],"title":"Combustible Edison","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combustible_Edison","year":1990},{"by":"Coil","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Coil's acid-house turn: dense, druggy, ritual electronic music made as an altered state in its own right.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/love-s-secret-domain-1991","id":"love-s-secret-domain-1991","image":"/assets/imgs/works/coillovessecretdomainalbumcover-f364f0.webp","medium":"music","themes":["mind"],"title":"Love's Secret Domain","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love's_Secret_Domain","year":1991},{"by":"James Stinson and Gerald Donald","countries":["US"],"desc":"Detroit electro duo whose releases built an underwater nation descended from enslaved Africans thrown overboard. The richest myth the genre has, set out in the sleeve of <em>The Quest</em> (1997).","essential":true,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/drexciya-1992","id":"drexciya-1992","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-drexciya-12fc97.webp","medium":"music","themes":["ocean","myth"],"title":"Drexciya","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drexciya","year":1992},{"by":"Melora Creager","countries":["US"],"desc":"Corseted cellists playing songs of Victorian oddity and history. A pioneer of the sound and look the subculture would later adopt.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/rasputina-1992","id":"rasputina-1992","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-rasputina1-a4c67d.webp","medium":"music","themes":["alt-history","retro-future"],"title":"Rasputina","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasputina_(band)","year":1992},{"by":"Front Line Assembly","countries":["CA"],"desc":"An electro-industrial album full of machine imagery. Industrial music was the genre's real-world soundtrack in clubs.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/tactical-neural-implant-1992","id":"tactical-neural-implant-1992","image":"/assets/imgs/works/tacticalneuralimplant-42c580.webp","medium":"music","themes":["machines","body-mod","war"],"title":"Tactical Neural Implant","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_Neural_Implant","year":1992},{"by":"Brian Setzer","countries":["US"],"desc":"A Stray Cat fronting a full big band; <em>The Dirty Boogie</em> (1998) took jump blues back to the charts.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/the-brian-setzer-orchestra-1992","id":"the-brian-setzer-orchestra-1992","image":"/assets/imgs/works/brian-setzer-performs-with-his-orchestra-in-the-east-room-of-526ba7.webp","medium":"music","themes":["retro-future"],"title":"The Brian Setzer Orchestra","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brian_Setzer_Orchestra","year":1992},{"by":"Billy Idol","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A concept album that tried to bring the genre into rock. Mostly mocked at the time, but a useful sign of how mainstream the word had become.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/cyberpunk-1993","id":"cyberpunk-1993","image":"/assets/imgs/works/billyidolcyberpunk-24ddc3.webp","medium":"music","themes":["cyberspace"],"title":"Cyberpunk","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk_(album)","year":1993},{"by":"Thomas Köner","countries":["DE"],"desc":"Glacial dark ambient built from slow, frozen drones. Sound art that feels like listening to ice.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/permafrost-1993","id":"permafrost-1993","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-thomaskoener-goethe-institut-boston-22-10-2010-bysusan-7c7208.webp","medium":"music","themes":["cold"],"title":"Permafrost","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_K%C3%B6ner","year":1993},{"by":"Rammstein","countries":["DE"],"desc":"The German band whose concerts are built on flamethrowers and pyrotechnics. Fans coined the slogan that other bands play, Rammstein burns.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/rammstein-1994","id":"rammstein-1994","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-rammstein-at-wacken-open-air-2013-06-b77c52.webp","medium":"music","themes":["fire"],"title":"Rammstein","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rammstein","year":1994},{"by":"Kenji Kawai","countries":["JP"],"desc":"The score for Oshii's film. Its opening theme, &quot;Making of a Cyborg&quot;, sets Japanese folk singing against Bulgarian-style harmony and gave cyberpunk a sacred, ritual sound.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/ghost-in-the-shell-score-1995","id":"ghost-in-the-shell-score-1995","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-kenji-kawai-20071028-manga-expo-06-804632.webp","medium":"music","themes":["ai","cyberspace","mind"],"title":"Ghost in the Shell (score)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenji_Kawai","year":1995},{"by":"Big Bad Voodoo Daddy","countries":["US"],"desc":"California swing band whose songs drove the 1996 film <em>Swingers</em> and the late-1990s neo-swing wave.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/big-bad-voodoo-daddy-1996","id":"big-bad-voodoo-daddy-1996","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-bigbadvoodoodaddy-beb0c0.webp","medium":"music","themes":["retro-future"],"title":"Big Bad Voodoo Daddy","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bad_Voodoo_Daddy","year":1996},{"by":"The Prodigy","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Keith Flint's snarl over breakbeats, and the Prodigy's first UK number one. The arsonist as rave antihero.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/firestarter-1996","id":"firestarter-1996","image":"/assets/imgs/works/firestarter-prodigy-ce46f3.webp","medium":"music","themes":["fire"],"title":"Firestarter","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firestarter_(The_Prodigy_song)","year":1996},{"by":"Squirrel Nut Zippers","countries":["US"],"desc":"The album behind the hit &quot;Hell&quot;: hot jazz revived by a North Carolina band. A swing revival landmark often named as dieselpunk music.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/hot-1996","id":"hot-1996","image":"/assets/imgs/works/squirrel-nut-zippers-2008-san-francisco-eee59a.webp","medium":"music","themes":["retro-future"],"title":"Hot","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squirrel_Nut_Zippers","year":1996},{"by":"Robert Brown","countries":["US"],"desc":"A Seattle goth band reinvented in 2005 as the crew of a fictional airship. Often called the definitive steampunk band.","essential":true,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/abney-park-1997","id":"abney-park-1997","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-abneypark2011-ee8214.webp","medium":"music","themes":["retro-future","alt-history"],"title":"Abney Park","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abney_Park_(band)","year":1997},{"by":"Biosphere","countries":["NO"],"desc":"Geir Jenssen, who lives in Tromsø above the Arctic Circle, made an ambient album about cold, mountains and glaciers. A landmark of Arctic ambient.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/substrata-1997","id":"substrata-1997","image":"/assets/imgs/works/biosphere-substrata-cover-b269a5.webp","medium":"music","themes":["cold"],"title":"Substrata","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substrata_(album)","year":1997},{"by":"Yoko Kanno & Seatbelts","countries":["JP"],"desc":"Jazz, blues and big-band for a crew of broke bounty hunters. The sound most people now hear when they picture the used future.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/cowboy-bebop-soundtracks-1998","id":"cowboy-bebop-soundtracks-1998","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-ax-2016-27494643973-3b737b.webp","medium":"music","themes":["space","noir"],"title":"Cowboy Bebop (soundtracks)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Cowboy_Bebop","year":1998},{"by":"Immortal","countries":["NO"],"desc":"<em>Adjacent:</em> Norwegian black metal's most famous frost iconography in album form. The cult of winter at full volume.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/at-the-heart-of-winter-1999","id":"at-the-heart-of-winter-1999","image":"/assets/imgs/works/at-the-heart-of-winter-9e05df.webp","medium":"music","themes":["cold","myth"],"title":"At the Heart of Winter","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Heart_of_Winter","year":1999},{"by":"Parov Stelar, Caravan Palace and others","countries":["AT","FR"],"desc":"Swing and jazz samples over house beats. The genre most often called dieselpunk music today.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/electro-swing-2000","id":"electro-swing-2000","image":"","medium":"music","themes":["retro-future","cities"],"title":"Electro swing","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electro_swing","year":2000},{"by":"Raymond Scott","countries":["US"],"desc":"A compilation of Scott's 1950s and 60s electronic work for commercials and films. The sound of the corporate future, rediscovered.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/manhattan-research-inc-2000","id":"manhattan-research-inc-2000","image":"/assets/imgs/works/manhattanresearchinccover-49e89a.webp","medium":"music","themes":["machines","retro-future"],"title":"Manhattan Research, Inc.","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Research,_Inc.","year":2000},{"by":"Boards of Canada","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Warped tape tones, hidden messages and occult numerology create a haunted, hypnotic memory-music.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/geogaddi-2002","id":"geogaddi-2002","image":"/assets/imgs/works/geogaddi-f9fda0.webp","medium":"music","themes":["mind"],"title":"Geogaddi","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geogaddi","year":2002},{"by":"Isis","countries":["US"],"desc":"An album whose title, artwork and slow, tidal crescendos made it a touchstone for oceanic heavy music. Post-metal that sounds like pressure.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/oceanic-2002","id":"oceanic-2002","image":"/assets/imgs/works/isis-oceanic-bea74d.webp","medium":"music","themes":["ocean"],"title":"Oceanic","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceanic_(Isis_album)","year":2002},{"by":"San Francisco","countries":["US"],"desc":"Named after Jules Verne, a San Francisco band making dark-wave music of scientific romance.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/vernian-process-2003","id":"vernian-process-2003","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-vernian-process-steamstock2012-2f34c3.webp","medium":"music","themes":["retro-future","machines"],"title":"Vernian Process","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernian_Process","year":2003},{"by":"Parov Stelar","countries":["AT"],"desc":"The EP that made Austrian producer Marcus Füreder an electro swing pioneer, followed the same year by <em>Rough Cuts</em>.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/kisskiss-2004","id":"kisskiss-2004","image":"","medium":"music","themes":["retro-future"],"title":"KissKiss","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parov_Stelar","year":2004},{"by":"Mastodon","countries":["US"],"desc":"A concept album built on <em>Moby-Dick</em>. Adjacent, but the white whale as sludge-metal epic.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/leviathan-2004","id":"leviathan-2004","image":"/assets/imgs/works/mastodonleviathan-5b1de7.webp","medium":"music","themes":["ocean","myth"],"title":"Leviathan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(Mastodon_album)","year":2004},{"by":"Paul Alborough","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A pith-helmeted gentleman rapper and leading figure of chap hop, with a famous lyrical feud with Mr. B the Gentleman Rhymer.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/professor-elemental-2005","id":"professor-elemental-2005","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-professor-elemental-57dbb9.webp","medium":"music","themes":["retro-future","alt-history"],"title":"Professor Elemental","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Elemental","year":2005},{"by":"Diablo Swing Orchestra","countries":["SE"],"desc":"Swedish band fusing swing with symphonic metal. Adjacent, but proof the diesel-era sound survives distortion.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/the-butcher-s-ballroom-2006","id":"the-butcher-s-ballroom-2006","image":"/assets/imgs/works/diablo-swing-orchestra-at-global-east-rock-festival-2010-1-30dbd9.webp","medium":"music","themes":["retro-future"],"title":"The Butcher's Ballroom","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Swing_Orchestra","year":2006},{"by":"Ahab","countries":["DE"],"desc":"Debut of the German band that calls its style nautik funeral doom. Slow enough to feel like sinking.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/the-call-of-the-wretched-sea-2006","id":"the-call-of-the-wretched-sea-2006","image":"/assets/imgs/works/ahab-the-call-of-the-wretched-sea-826f9b.webp","medium":"music","themes":["ocean"],"title":"The Call of the Wretched Sea","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Call_of_the_Wretched_Sea","year":2006},{"by":"Nine Inch Nails","countries":["US"],"desc":"A concept album about a near-future American police state, released with an alternate reality game. Adjacent: dystopia more than cyberpunk.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/year-zero-2007","id":"year-zero-2007","image":"/assets/imgs/works/nine-inch-nails-year-zero-a457c2.webp","medium":"music","themes":["dystopia","surveillance","rebellion"],"title":"Year Zero","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Zero_(album)","year":2007},{"by":"Caravan Palace","countries":["FR"],"desc":"Debut album of the Parisian electro swing band, mixing Django Reinhardt-style gypsy jazz with electronic production.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/caravan-palace-2008","id":"caravan-palace-2008","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-ndle2024caravanpalace-2-44dfb8.webp","medium":"music","themes":["retro-future"],"title":"Caravan Palace","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravan_Palace","year":2008},{"by":"David Michael & Isabella Bunny Bennett","countries":["US"],"desc":"A San Diego act performing as singing antique robots, mixing pantomime, comedy and songs. Steampunk theatre with a cult following.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/steam-powered-giraffe-2008","id":"steam-powered-giraffe-2008","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-2020spgrobotspromo-740297.webp","medium":"music","themes":["machines","retro-future"],"title":"Steam Powered Giraffe","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Powered_Giraffe","year":2008},{"by":"London","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A London punk band singing about Victorian squalor, Jack the Ripper and engineering heroes. Proof that the punk in steampunk can be loud.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/the-men-that-will-not-be-blamed-for-nothing-2008","id":"the-men-that-will-not-be-blamed-for-nothing-2008","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-the-men-that-will-not-be-blamed-for-nothing-03f54a.webp","medium":"music","themes":["alt-history","rebellion"],"title":"The Men That Will Not Be Blamed for Nothing","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Men_That_Will_Not_Be_Blamed_for_Nothing","year":2008},{"by":"Gorillaz","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A concept album set on a floating island of rubbish in the South Pacific. The ocean of trash as pop.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/plastic-beach-2010","id":"plastic-beach-2010","image":"/assets/imgs/works/plasticbeach452-c313c7.webp","medium":"music","themes":["ocean","ecology"],"title":"Plastic Beach","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_Beach","year":2010},{"by":"Janelle Monáe","countries":["US"],"desc":"An Afrofuturist album about an android messiah, inspired by Metropolis. Adjacent, but a major cyborg narrative in pop.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/the-archandroid-2010","id":"the-archandroid-2010","image":"/assets/imgs/works/janelle-mon-e-the-archandroid-album-cover-c6af7a.webp","medium":"music","themes":["ai","identity","rebellion"],"title":"The ArchAndroid","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_ArchAndroid","year":2010},{"by":"Björk","countries":["IS"],"desc":"An album released as a suite of apps, each song tied to a natural phenomenon from crystals to viruses. Nature and technology as one instrument.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/biophilia-2011","id":"biophilia-2011","image":"/assets/imgs/works/bjork-biophilia-cover-bc5f1c.webp","medium":"music","themes":["ecology"],"title":"Biophilia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biophilia_(album)","year":2011},{"by":"James Kent","countries":["FR"],"desc":"A French darksynth project inspired by Akira and Ghost in the Shell, heard in Hotline Miami. The face of synthwave's cyberpunk side.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/perturbator-2012","id":"perturbator-2012","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-perturbator-rock-am-ring-2017-al3626-cropped-0524b6.webp","medium":"music","themes":["night","cities"],"title":"Perturbator","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perturbator","year":2012},{"by":"The Ocean","countries":["DE"],"desc":"Each track is a deeper oceanic zone, from the surface to the hadal trench, and the music gets heavier as it descends. A literal descent in sound.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/pelagial-2013","id":"pelagial-2013","image":"/assets/imgs/works/theocean-pelagial-d18230.webp","medium":"music","themes":["ocean"],"title":"Pelagial","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelagial","year":2013},{"by":"Marco Beltrami","countries":["US"],"desc":"The score for Bong's train film, driving and mechanical, tracking the climb from tail to engine.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/snowpiercer-soundtrack-2013","id":"snowpiercer-soundtrack-2013","image":"/assets/imgs/works/snowpiercer-soundtrack-f62595.webp","medium":"music","themes":["cold"],"title":"Snowpiercer (soundtrack)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowpiercer_(soundtrack)","year":2013},{"by":"Junkie XL","countries":["NL"],"desc":"Tom Holkenborg's drum-and-engine score, played in-world by war drummers and a flame-throwing guitar. Pyropunk's war music.","descs":{"apocapunk":"Tom Holkenborg's pounding score, matched on screen by the Doof Warrior's flame-throwing guitar. The wasteland's war drums.","pyropunk":"Tom Holkenborg's drum-and-engine score, played in-world by war drummers and a flame-throwing guitar. Pyropunk's war music."},"essential":false,"families":["pyropunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/mad-max-fury-road-soundtrack-2015","id":"mad-max-fury-road-soundtrack-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/mad-max-fury-road-original-motion-picture-soundtrack-a3847a.webp","medium":"music","themes":["fire","post-apocalypse"],"title":"Mad Max: Fury Road (soundtrack)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Max:_Fury_Road_(soundtrack)","year":2015},{"by":"Max Richter","countries":["GB"],"desc":"An eight-and-a-half-hour concept album based on the neuroscience of sleep, meant to be slept through and often performed overnight to audiences in beds. Lunapunk's anthem.","essential":false,"families":["lunapunk"],"href":"/work/sleep-2015","id":"sleep-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/sleep-front-cover-9fa91a.webp","medium":"music","themes":["night","mind"],"title":"Sleep","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_(album)","year":2015},{"by":"clipping.","countries":["US"],"desc":"A Hugo-nominated track extending Drexciya's mythology, later the basis of Rivers Solomon's novella. Music, myth and fiction feeding each other.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/the-deep-2017","id":"the-deep-2017","image":"","medium":"music","themes":["ocean","myth"],"title":"The Deep","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipping_(band)","year":2017},{"by":"Björk","countries":["IS"],"desc":"Flutes, birdsong and electronics build an imagined island refuge after heartbreak. Adjacent: the most openly utopian record in recent pop.","essential":false,"families":["solarpunk"],"href":"/work/utopia-2017","id":"utopia-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/bj-rk-utopia-album-cover-0e53f7.webp","medium":"music","themes":["utopia","ecology"],"title":"Utopia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_(Bj%C3%B6rk_album)","year":2017},{"by":"Piotr Musiał","countries":["PL"],"desc":"Strings and choir for the last city, performed by the Atom String Quartet and Sofia Session Orchestra. The sound of the genre's defining game.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/frostpunk-original-soundtrack-2018","id":"frostpunk-original-soundtrack-2018","image":"","medium":"music","themes":["cold","survival"],"title":"Frostpunk Original Soundtrack","url":"https://store.steampowered.com/app/966350/Frostpunk_Original_Soundtrack/","year":2018},{"by":"Cherry Poppin' Daddies","countries":["US"],"desc":"A rockabilly single and video by the swing revival veterans, written as a direct tribute to the dieselpunk genre.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/diesel-punx-2019","id":"diesel-punx-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/cherrypoppindaddies2017-22c20a.webp","medium":"music","themes":["retro-future"],"title":"Diesel PunX","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_Poppin%27_Daddies","year":2019},{"by":"Ramin Djawadi","countries":["US"],"desc":"The score for the TV series, mixed with the 1940s and 1950s pop songs that give Fallout its ironic, crackling-radio sound.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/fallout-soundtrack-2024","id":"fallout-soundtrack-2024","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fallout-soundtrack-51da6b.webp","medium":"music","themes":["post-apocalypse","nuclear"],"title":"Fallout (soundtrack)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_(soundtrack)","year":2024},{"by":"Piotr Musiał","countries":["PL"],"desc":"Musiał returns for the sequel's factional, political city, calling back to the first game's main theme.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/frostpunk-2-original-soundtrack-2024","id":"frostpunk-2-original-soundtrack-2024","image":"","medium":"music","themes":["cold"],"title":"Frostpunk 2 Original Soundtrack","url":"https://store.steampowered.com/app/3197520/Frostpunk_2_Original_Soundtrack/","year":2024},{"by":"DuMont Television Network","countries":["US"],"desc":"The first science fiction series on American television, broadcast live on a tiny budget. Where the space-cadet look of the 1950s started.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/captain-video-and-his-video-rangers-1949","id":"captain-video-and-his-video-rangers-1949","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-captain-video-title-card-48b022.webp","medium":"series","themes":["space","retro-future"],"title":"Captain Video and His Video Rangers","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Video_and_His_Video_Rangers","year":1949},{"by":"ABC","countries":["US"],"desc":"A 30th-century space-police adventure for kids that ran on TV, radio and comic books, with merchandise everywhere. Atompunk as a Saturday-morning brand.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/space-patrol-1950","id":"space-patrol-1950","image":"/assets/imgs/works/space-patrol-1950-tv-series-title-card-3be40e.webp","medium":"series","themes":["space"],"title":"Space Patrol","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Patrol_(1950_TV_series)","year":1950},{"by":"Joseph Greene","countries":["US"],"desc":"Cadets at the Space Academy, loosely inspired by Heinlein's <em>Space Cadet</em>, across TV, radio, books and strips. The uniformed optimism of the early 50s.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/tom-corbett-space-cadet-1950","id":"tom-corbett-space-cadet-1950","image":"/assets/imgs/works/frankie-thomas-tom-corbett-space-cadet-1951-e2f799.webp","medium":"series","themes":["space","retro-future"],"title":"Tom Corbett, Space Cadet","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Corbett,_Space_Cadet","year":1950},{"by":"Nigel Kneale","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A BBC serial about Britain's first manned rocket returning with something inside its astronaut. The British, darker branch of the Atomic Age.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/the-quatermass-experiment-1953","id":"the-quatermass-experiment-1953","image":"/assets/imgs/works/quatexp01-85af8c.webp","medium":"series","themes":["space","body-mod"],"title":"The Quatermass Experiment","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quatermass_Experiment","year":1953},{"by":"Ward Kimball","countries":["US"],"desc":"A <em>Disneyland</em> episode in which Wernher von Braun, Willy Ley and Heinz Haber explain how humans will reach orbit. Space-race propaganda in Disney animation.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/man-in-space-1955","id":"man-in-space-1955","image":"/assets/imgs/works/960px-heinz-haber-wernher-von-braun-willy-ley-1954-89a2da.webp","medium":"series","themes":["space","retro-future"],"title":"Man in Space","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_in_Space","year":1955},{"by":"Heinz Haber (host)","countries":["US"],"desc":"A <em>Disneyland</em> episode on the benefits of nuclear power, tied to Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace campaign. The friendly atom at its most official.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/our-friend-the-atom-1957","id":"our-friend-the-atom-1957","image":"","medium":"series","themes":["nuclear"],"title":"Our Friend the Atom","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Friend_the_Atom","year":1957},{"by":"Rod Serling","countries":["US"],"desc":"Serling's anthology turned Cold War fears into short moral fables: shelters, bombs, robots and suburban paranoia. The era's conscience in black and white.","essential":true,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/the-twilight-zone-1959","id":"the-twilight-zone-1959","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-the-twilight-zone-1959-tv-series-logo-svg-3c9b84.webp","medium":"series","themes":["mind","nuclear","dystopia"],"title":"The Twilight Zone","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twilight_Zone","year":1959},{"by":"Gerry & Sylvia Anderson","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Puppet space adventure set in 2062, with a sleek rocket that took off from a long ramp. Its closing theme, sung by Don Spencer, even reached the UK charts.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/fireball-xl5-1962","id":"fireball-xl5-1962","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fireball-xl5-24c0ab.webp","medium":"series","themes":["space"],"title":"Fireball XL5","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fireball_XL5","year":1962},{"by":"Hanna-Barbera","countries":["US"],"desc":"Push-button breakfast, robot maid, three-day work week. The atompunk sitcom we keep failing to actually build.","essential":true,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/the-jetsons-1962","id":"the-jetsons-1962","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-the-jetsons-television-series-logo-svg-bb6cf1.webp","medium":"series","themes":["retro-future","machines","utopia"],"title":"The Jetsons","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jetsons","year":1962},{"by":"Gerry and Sylvia Anderson","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Supermarionation puppets of the World Aquanaut Security Patrol defend the 2060s seas from the undersea empire of Titanica. Model-shop hydropunk at its most charming.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/stingray-1964","id":"stingray-1964","image":"/assets/imgs/works/stingray-title-6dab24.webp","medium":"series","themes":["ocean","machines"],"title":"Stingray","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_(1964_TV_series)","year":1964},{"by":"Irwin Allen","countries":["US"],"desc":"The film's <em>Seaview</em> returns for four seasons of monsters, spies and aliens on ABC. The weekly submarine show that set the pattern.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/voyage-to-the-bottom-of-the-sea-1964","id":"voyage-to-the-bottom-of-the-sea-1964","image":"/assets/imgs/works/voyage-to-the-bottom-of-the-sea-0e1906.webp","medium":"series","themes":["ocean","machines"],"title":"Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_to_the_Bottom_of_the_Sea_(TV_series)","year":1964},{"by":"Irwin Allen","countries":["US"],"desc":"A space-age family, a flying saucer called the Jupiter 2 and a bubble-headed robot shouting &quot;Danger&quot;. Peak 60s TV retrofuture.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/lost-in-space-1965","id":"lost-in-space-1965","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-lost-in-space-1965-tv-series-logo-svg-80f0da.webp","medium":"series","themes":["space","survival"],"title":"Lost in Space","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_in_Space","year":1965},{"by":"Michael Garrison","countries":["US"],"desc":"Secret Service agents in a gadget-packed train fight mad scientists across the Old West. The first steampunk television, decades before the word existed.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/the-wild-wild-west-1965","id":"the-wild-wild-west-1965","image":"/assets/imgs/works/wildwildwest-title-card-ff81f3.webp","medium":"series","themes":["machines","alt-history"],"title":"The Wild Wild West","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wild_Wild_West","year":1965},{"by":"Gerry & Sylvia Anderson","countries":["GB"],"desc":"International Rescue and its fleet of rockets launching from a secret island. The most famous of the Andersons' puppet futures, full of launch-sequence spectacle.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/thunderbirds-1965","id":"thunderbirds-1965","image":"/assets/imgs/works/thunderbirds-logo-01bad6.webp","medium":"series","themes":["machines","retro-future"],"title":"Thunderbirds","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbirds_(TV_series)","year":1965},{"by":"Patrick McGoohan","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A resigned agent is held in a picturesque Village where drugs, dream manipulation and identity games try to break him. The template for psychological TV.","essential":true,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/the-prisoner-1967","id":"the-prisoner-1967","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-prisoner-logo-2c00bb.webp","medium":"series","themes":["surveillance","mind","identity"],"title":"The Prisoner","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prisoner","year":1967},{"by":"Alex Toth","countries":["US"],"desc":"A Hanna-Barbera cartoon about a research colony on the ocean floor. Short-lived, earnest, and later famous for the parody it inspired.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/sealab-2020-1972","id":"sealab-2020-1972","image":"/assets/imgs/works/sealab2020titlecard-ddddc2.webp","medium":"series","themes":["ocean","colonies"],"title":"Sealab 2020","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealab_2020","year":1972},{"by":"Terry Nation","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A BBC drama about survivors of a plague learning to farm, trade, and govern in rural England. Unusually practical about the work of rebuilding; remade in 2008.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/survivors-1975","id":"survivors-1975","image":"/assets/imgs/works/survivors-logo-ef8984.webp","medium":"series","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"Survivors","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivors_(1975_TV_series)","year":1975},{"by":"Herbert F. Solow","countries":["US"],"desc":"Patrick Duffy plays a webbed amnesiac who may be the last Atlantean. Four TV films and a short series.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/man-from-atlantis-1977","id":"man-from-atlantis-1977","image":"/assets/imgs/works/man-from-atlantis-title-card-7ffe96.webp","medium":"series","themes":["ocean","identity"],"title":"Man from Atlantis","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_from_Atlantis","year":1977},{"by":"Terry Nation","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Adjacent: escaped convicts on a stolen ship against a totalitarian Federation, with cheap sets and no happy ending. British space opera with the gloss scraped off.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/blake-s-7-1978","id":"blake-s-7-1978","image":"/assets/imgs/works/blake-s-7-title-card-a7d10c.webp","medium":"series","themes":["space","rebellion","dystopia"],"title":"Blake's 7","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blake%27s_7","year":1978},{"by":"Donald P. Bellisario","countries":["US"],"desc":"A cargo pilot and a Grumman Goose in the South Pacific of 1938. Network TV's answer to <em>Raiders</em>, and an early screen dieselpunk.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/tales-of-the-gold-monkey-1982","id":"tales-of-the-gold-monkey-1982","image":"/assets/imgs/works/jake-and-sarah-in-tales-of-the-gold-monkey-e768fc.webp","medium":"series","themes":["war","ocean"],"title":"Tales of the Gold Monkey","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_the_Gold_Monkey","year":1982},{"by":"ABC / Chrysalis","countries":["US","GB"],"desc":"A TV reporter fights a ratings-obsessed network in a future ruled by television, alongside his own digital double. It grew from the 1985 Channel 4 film <em>20 Minutes into the Future</em>.","essential":true,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/max-headroom-1987","id":"max-headroom-1987","image":"/assets/imgs/works/max-headroom-title-screen-ab0ce0.webp","medium":"series","themes":["corporations","surveillance","ai"],"title":"Max Headroom","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_(TV_series)","year":1987},{"by":"Rob Grant & Doug Naylor","countries":["GB"],"desc":"The lowest-ranking technician on a mining ship wakes three million years late as the last human alive. The used future as sitcom: curry, bunk-room squabbles and failing machinery.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/red-dwarf-1988","id":"red-dwarf-1988","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-red-dwarf-logo-8ed962.webp","medium":"series","themes":["space"],"title":"Red Dwarf","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dwarf","year":1988},{"by":"Bruce Timm & Eric Radomski","countries":["US"],"desc":"Its producers named the look &quot;Dark Deco&quot;: noir framing, 1940s cars and police blimps in a Gotham with no fixed date. The definitive dieselpunk cartoon.","essential":true,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/batman-the-animated-series-1992","id":"batman-the-animated-series-1992","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-batman-the-animated-series-logo-svg-e680c9.webp","medium":"series","themes":["noir","cities"],"title":"Batman: The Animated Series","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman:_The_Animated_Series","year":1992},{"by":"Rockne S. O'Bannon","countries":["US"],"desc":"A huge deep-submergence vessel polices a future where humanity has colonised the seabed. Steven Spielberg produced it; Roy Scheider commanded.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/seaquest-dsv-1993","id":"seaquest-dsv-1993","image":"/assets/imgs/works/seaquestdsvmaintitle-9e932b.webp","medium":"series","themes":["ocean"],"title":"SeaQuest DSV","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SeaQuest_DSV","year":1993},{"by":"Boam & Cuse","countries":["US"],"desc":"A bounty hunter in 1893 chases a mysterious glowing Orb through a playful weird west of rockets and anachronisms.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/the-adventures-of-brisco-county-jr-1993","id":"the-adventures-of-brisco-county-jr-1993","image":"/assets/imgs/works/theadventuresofbriscocountyjropeninglogo-363e41.webp","medium":"series","themes":["alt-history","machines"],"title":"The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Brisco_County,_Jr.","year":1993},{"by":"Bruce Wagner / Oliver Stone","countries":["US"],"desc":"An ABC miniseries about a media empire using holographic TV and a drug to rule perception. Based on Wagner's comic strip; William Gibson makes a cameo.","descs":{"cyberpunk":"An ABC miniseries about a media empire using holographic TV and a drug to rule perception. Based on Wagner's comic strip; William Gibson makes a cameo.","psychopunk":"Executive-produced by Oliver Stone, it follows a cult that fuses holographic TV with a reality-bending drug. A forgotten psychopunk landmark."},"essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk","psychopunk"],"href":"/work/wild-palms-1993","id":"wild-palms-1993","image":"/assets/imgs/works/wildpalms-cast-b640db.webp","medium":"series","themes":["cyberspace","corporations","mind"],"title":"Wild Palms","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Palms","year":1993},{"by":"Matt Groening","countries":["US"],"desc":"A year-3000 sitcom named after the 1939 World's Fair exhibit, full of pneumatic tubes and robots. Adjacent, but the genre's best comic commentary on yesterday's tomorrows.","descs":{"atompunk":"A year-3000 sitcom named after the 1939 World's Fair exhibit, full of pneumatic tubes and robots. Adjacent, but the genre's best comic commentary on yesterday's tomorrows.","spacepunk":"Essentially a workplace sitcom set at an interplanetary delivery company with terrible safety standards. Satire of the space trucker life."},"essential":false,"families":["atompunk","spacepunk"],"href":"/work/futurama-1999","id":"futurama-1999","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-futurama-1999-logo-svg-53210f.webp","medium":"series","themes":["retro-future","space"],"title":"Futurama","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurama","year":1999},{"by":"James Cameron and Charles H. Eglee","countries":["US"],"desc":"A genetically engineered supersoldier escapes the Manticore programme and hides in a post-collapse Seattle. Prime-time television's first biopunk heroine.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/dark-angel-2000","id":"dark-angel-2000","image":"/assets/imgs/works/dark-angel-title-card-44f140.webp","medium":"series","themes":["genetics","dystopia"],"title":"Dark Angel","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Angel_(American_TV_series)","year":2000},{"by":"Adam Reed and Matt Thompson","countries":["US"],"desc":"Recycled 1972 animation redubbed into absurdist adult comedy about a doomed underwater station. The genre parodying itself.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/sealab-2021-2000","id":"sealab-2021-2000","image":"/assets/imgs/works/sealab-2021-logotype-febbcd.webp","medium":"series","themes":["ocean"],"title":"Sealab 2021","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealab_2021","year":2000},{"by":"Joss Whedon","countries":["US"],"desc":"Smugglers and outcasts dodge the Alliance on the rim of settled space. Cowboys in the black; spacepunk distilled.","essential":true,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/firefly-2002","id":"firefly-2002","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fireflyopeninglogo-03bcfa.webp","medium":"series","themes":["space","colonies","rebellion"],"title":"Firefly","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_(TV_series)","year":2002},{"by":"Ronald D. Moore","countries":["US"],"desc":"Adjacent: a ragged civilian fleet of aging ships survives on rationed fuel and handheld phones bolted to bulkheads. Military SF with a very used texture.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/battlestar-galactica-2004","id":"battlestar-galactica-2004","image":"/assets/imgs/works/battlestar-galactica-2004-tv-series-title-card-04c47c.webp","medium":"series","themes":["space","ai","war"],"title":"Battlestar Galactica","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlestar_Galactica_(2004_TV_series)","year":2004},{"by":"Konietzko & DiMartino","countries":["US"],"desc":"The Fire Nation: an entire empire built on the mastery of flame as power, industry, and conquest.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/avatar-the-last-airbender-2005","id":"avatar-the-last-airbender-2005","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-avatar-the-last-airbender-logo-svg-d6e93f.webp","medium":"series","themes":["fire","war","myth"],"title":"Avatar: The Last Airbender","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar:_The_Last_Airbender","year":2005},{"by":"CBS","countries":["US"],"desc":"A Kansas town cut off after nuclear attacks on 23 American cities. Its fan campaign of mailing peanuts to the network revived it for a second season.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/jericho-2006","id":"jericho-2006","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-jericho-2006-cbs-network-tv-series-svg-42c62a.webp","medium":"series","themes":["nuclear","survival"],"title":"Jericho","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jericho_(2006_TV_series)","year":2006},{"by":"Joss Whedon","countries":["US"],"desc":"Volunteers have their personalities wiped and are rented out with custom imprinted identities. The self as a rewritable product.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/dollhouse-2009","id":"dollhouse-2009","image":"/assets/imgs/works/dollhouse-logo-71c49d.webp","medium":"series","themes":["mind","identity","corporations"],"title":"Dollhouse","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollhouse_(TV_series)","year":2009},{"by":"AMC","countries":["US"],"desc":"A decade-spanning study of how survivors form, fracture, and rebuild communities when the dead walk and the living are worse.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/the-walking-dead-2010","id":"the-walking-dead-2010","image":"","medium":"series","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"The Walking Dead","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walking_Dead_(TV_series)","year":2010},{"by":"Charlie Brooker","countries":["GB"],"desc":"An anthology of near-future stories about screens, data and social systems. Adjacent rather than core, rarely neon, always about tech used for control.","descs":{"cyberpunk":"An anthology of near-future stories about screens, data and social systems. Adjacent rather than core, rarely neon, always about tech used for control.","psychopunk":"An anthology of near-future technologies, many of them about copied minds, recorded memories and simulated afterlives."},"essential":true,"families":["cyberpunk","psychopunk"],"href":"/work/black-mirror-2011","id":"black-mirror-2011","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-charlie-brooker-b6f697.webp","medium":"series","themes":["surveillance","cyberspace","dystopia"],"title":"Black Mirror","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mirror","year":2011},{"by":"Benioff & Weiss","countries":["US"],"desc":"HBO's adaptation of Martin's novels: dragons over King's Landing, green wildfire in Blackwater Bay, and a final season that ends in a city burned.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/game-of-thrones-2011","id":"game-of-thrones-2011","image":"","medium":"series","themes":["fire","myth","war"],"title":"Game of Thrones","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_of_Thrones","year":2011},{"by":"Jesse Armstrong","countries":["GB"],"desc":"The Black Mirror episode about an implant that records everything you see, and the jealous husband who cannot stop rewinding.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/the-entire-history-of-you-2011","id":"the-entire-history-of-you-2011","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-entire-history-of-you-375635.webp","medium":"series","themes":["mind","surveillance"],"title":"The Entire History of You","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entire_History_of_You","year":2011},{"by":"Eric Kripke","countries":["US"],"desc":"Fifteen years after all electricity mysteriously failed, militias carve up a pre-industrial America. A network take on the grid-failure scenario.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/revolution-2012","id":"revolution-2012","image":"/assets/imgs/works/revolution-title-card-e03dfc.webp","medium":"series","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"Revolution","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_(TV_series)","year":2012},{"by":"Michael Dante DiMartino & Bryan Konietzko","countries":["US"],"desc":"Republic City is a 1920s metropolis of satomobiles, airships and revolutionary unrest, with mecha arriving on schedule. Jazz Age dieselpunk for all ages.","descs":{"dieselpunk":"Republic City is a 1920s metropolis of satomobiles, airships and revolutionary unrest, with mecha arriving on schedule. Jazz Age dieselpunk for all ages.","pyropunk":"The sequel to <em>Avatar</em> moves bending into an industrial, electrified city. Firebending meets the power plant."},"essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk","pyropunk"],"href":"/work/the-legend-of-korra-2012","id":"the-legend-of-korra-2012","image":"/assets/imgs/works/legend-of-korra-logo-16bb4e.webp","medium":"series","themes":["cities","retro-future","rebellion"],"title":"The Legend of Korra","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Korra","year":2012},{"by":"Graeme Manson and John Fawcett","countries":["CA"],"desc":"A woman discovers she is one of many clones, and that the company behind them has patented their genome. Tatiana Maslany plays almost all of them.","essential":true,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/orphan-black-2013","id":"orphan-black-2013","image":"/assets/imgs/works/orphan-black-intertitle-9166e4.webp","medium":"series","themes":["genetics","identity"],"title":"Orphan Black","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_Black","year":2013},{"by":"Dennis Kelly","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Comic fans stumble onto a conspiracy around a flu vaccine with a hidden purpose. A violent, saturated British thriller about population engineering.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/utopia-2013","id":"utopia-2013","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-utopia-title-card-svg-5d28d3.webp","medium":"series","themes":["genetics","corporations"],"title":"Utopia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_(British_TV_series)","year":2013},{"by":"Syfy","countries":["US"],"desc":"CDC scientists investigate an outbreak at an Arctic research base run by a secretive company. Contamination horror as a weekly series.","essential":false,"families":["biopunk"],"href":"/work/helix-2014","id":"helix-2014","image":"","medium":"series","themes":["genetics","cold"],"title":"Helix","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helix_(TV_series)","year":2014},{"by":"Jason Rothenberg","countries":["US"],"desc":"A hundred young offenders are sent down from a failing space station to test whether a nuked Earth is survivable. Seven seasons of clan politics in the ruins.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/the-100-2014","id":"the-100-2014","image":"/assets/imgs/works/logo-of-the-100-509220.webp","medium":"series","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"The 100","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_100_(TV_series)","year":2014},{"by":"Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely","countries":["US"],"desc":"Peggy Carter fights sexism and stolen superweapons in 1946 New York and Los Angeles. Postwar dieselpunk with a heroine at the centre.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/agent-carter-2015","id":"agent-carter-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/agent-carter-tv-series-logo-af4773.webp","medium":"series","themes":["war","noir"],"title":"Agent Carter","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Carter_(TV_series)","year":2015},{"by":"Joseph Mallozzi & Paul Mullie","countries":["CA"],"desc":"A crew wakes on a ship with no memories and learns they are wanted mercenaries in a galaxy run by corporations.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/dark-matter-2015","id":"dark-matter-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/dark-matter-intertitle-00d1de.webp","medium":"series","themes":["space","identity"],"title":"Dark Matter","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Matter_(2015_TV_series)","year":2015},{"by":"Simon Donald","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A fictional Arctic town in Svalbard where violent deaths start to pile up. Thriller and body horror under the midnight sun and the polar night.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/fortitude-2015","id":"fortitude-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fortitude-titlecard-61ed9b.webp","medium":"series","themes":["cold"],"title":"Fortitude","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortitude_(TV_series)","year":2015},{"by":"Michelle Lovretta","countries":["CA"],"desc":"Bounty hunters working warrants in the Quad, a four-world system owned by the Company and run on class lines. Pulpy, but its politics are pure spacepunk.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/killjoys-2015","id":"killjoys-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/killjoys-intertitle-b48c50.webp","medium":"series","themes":["space","corporations","colonies"],"title":"Killjoys","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killjoys","year":2015},{"by":"Sam Esmail","countries":["US"],"desc":"Modern cyberpunk at its most realistic: hacking, corporate conspiracy, and mental health in our actual world.","descs":{"cyberpunk":"Modern cyberpunk at its most realistic: hacking, corporate conspiracy, and mental health in our actual world.","psychopunk":"A hacker with dissociative identity disorder narrates a revolution he may not fully remember starting. The unreliable narrator as a cyberwar."},"essential":true,"families":["cyberpunk","psychopunk"],"href":"/work/mr-robot-2015","id":"mr-robot-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/sam-esmail-at-sxsw-2016-c0a587.webp","medium":"series","themes":["cyberspace","corporations","rebellion","mind"],"title":"Mr. Robot","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Robot","year":2015},{"by":"GSN","countries":["US"],"desc":"A reality competition in which maker contestants build steampunk props and rooms. A snapshot of the subculture at its mainstream peak.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/steampunk-d-2015","id":"steampunk-d-2015","image":"","medium":"series","themes":["machines","retro-future"],"title":"Steampunk'd","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk%27d","year":2015},{"by":"Tom Taylor and James Brouwer","countries":["AU"],"desc":"An animated family of ocean explorers and their submarine, adapted from the Australian comic. Hydropunk for children.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/the-deep-2015","id":"the-deep-2015","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-deep-2015-tv-series-logo-main-characters-00d0fb.webp","medium":"series","themes":["ocean"],"title":"The Deep","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deep_(TV_series)","year":2015},{"by":"Alcon / Syfy","countries":["US"],"desc":"The most fully realized spacepunk on screen: Belter slang, ship physics, water politics, and a system spoiling for war.","essential":true,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/the-expanse-tv-2015","id":"the-expanse-tv-2015","image":"","medium":"series","themes":["space","colonies"],"title":"The Expanse (TV)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanse_(TV_series)","year":2015},{"by":"Frank Spotnitz","countries":["US"],"desc":"Amazon's adaptation of Philip K. Dick: a Nazi-occupied New York lit by fascist modernism, newsreels and searchlights.","essential":true,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/the-man-in-the-high-castle-2015","id":"the-man-in-the-high-castle-2015","image":"","medium":"series","themes":["alt-history","war"],"title":"The Man in the High Castle","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_High_Castle_(TV_series)","year":2015},{"by":"Jonathan Nolan & Lisa Joy","countries":["US"],"desc":"Theme-park hosts wake into consciousness through memory loops they were meant to forget. Adjacent to robot fiction, but obsessed with memory as awakening.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/westworld-2016","id":"westworld-2016","image":"/assets/imgs/works/jonathan-nolan-at-sxsw-2024-649a2f.webp","medium":"series","themes":["ai","mind","identity"],"title":"Westworld","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westworld_(TV_series)","year":2016},{"by":"Tom Tykwer, Achim von Borries & Hendrik Handloegten","countries":["DE"],"desc":"Weimar Berlin in 1929: cabarets, paramilitaries, smuggled poison gas, a city dancing on a trapdoor. Period neo-noir rather than retrofuture, but essential atmosphere.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/babylon-berlin-2017","id":"babylon-berlin-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/babylon-berlin-569343.webp","medium":"series","themes":["noir","cities"],"title":"Babylon Berlin","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_Berlin","year":2017},{"by":"Noah Hawley","countries":["US"],"desc":"A mutant diagnosed with schizophrenia discovers that much of his mind is occupied by a parasite. Visually the most psychedelic superhero show ever made.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/legion-2017","id":"legion-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-legion-tv-series-logo-aca236.webp","medium":"series","themes":["mind","identity"],"title":"Legion","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legion_(TV_series)","year":2017},{"by":"Channel 4 / Amazon","countries":["GB","US"],"desc":"Ten standalone adaptations of Dick's short stories, many of them about perception, identity and false reality.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/philip-k-dick-s-electric-dreams-2017","id":"philip-k-dick-s-electric-dreams-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/philip-k-dick-s-electric-dreams-f8f8fa.webp","medium":"series","themes":["mind","identity"],"title":"Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Dreams_(2017_TV_series)","year":2017},{"by":"BBC","countries":["GB"],"desc":"Five-part adaptation of Len Deighton's occupied-London thriller, all trench coats and grey propaganda.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/ss-gb-2017","id":"ss-gb-2017","image":"/assets/imgs/works/ss-gb-titlecard-c9ec76.webp","medium":"series","themes":["alt-history","war","noir"],"title":"SS-GB","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS-GB_(TV_series)","year":2017},{"by":"Laeta Kalogridis","countries":["US"],"desc":"Netflix adaptation of Morgan's novel, with consciousness stored in stacks and the rich living for centuries. Lavish, rain-soaked Bay City.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/altered-carbon-2018","id":"altered-carbon-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/altered-carbon-title-ef4974.webp","medium":"series","themes":["body-mod","identity","corporations"],"title":"Altered Carbon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_Carbon_(TV_series)","year":2018},{"by":"Ramin Bahrani","countries":["US"],"desc":"HBO's television film with Michael B. Jordan and Michael Shannon: Bradbury's firemen updated for an age of screens and erased data.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/fahrenheit-451-2018","id":"fahrenheit-451-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/fahrenheit-451-e3bcf8.webp","medium":"film","themes":["fire","dystopia"],"title":"Fahrenheit 451","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451_(2018_film)","year":2018},{"by":"Eli Horowitz & Micah Bloomberg","countries":["US"],"desc":"A caseworker at a veterans' facility cannot remember her old job, because the job was administering memory-suppressing drugs.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/homecoming-2018","id":"homecoming-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/homecomingtitlescreen-a7ea29.webp","medium":"series","themes":["mind","corporations"],"title":"Homecoming","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homecoming_(TV_series)","year":2018},{"by":"Cary Joji Fukunaga","countries":["US"],"desc":"Two strangers join a pharmaceutical trial and share drug-induced fantasies, guided by an emotionally unstable AI.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/maniac-2018","id":"maniac-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/maniac-uk-premiere-fukunaga-8b72a2.webp","medium":"series","themes":["mind"],"title":"Maniac","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maniac_(miniseries)","year":2018},{"by":"AMC","countries":["US"],"desc":"Season one adapts Simmons' novel: the Franklin expedition trapped in the ice, starving, and hunted. The most faithful screen portrait of frostpunk's historical core.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/the-terror-2018","id":"the-terror-2018","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-terror-tv-d1d997.webp","medium":"series","themes":["cold","survival"],"title":"The Terror","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terror_(TV_series)","year":2018},{"by":"Echevarria & Beacham","countries":["US"],"desc":"Gaslamp fantasy: fae refugees in a Victorian-style city of fog and prejudice. Adjacent to core steampunk, but deep in its visual language.","essential":false,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/carnival-row-2019","id":"carnival-row-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/carnival-row-title-card-e4370d.webp","medium":"series","themes":["myth","cities","identity"],"title":"Carnival Row","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival_Row","year":2019},{"by":"Ronald D. Moore et al.","countries":["US"],"desc":"What if the Soviets reached the Moon first and the space race never ended? Alternate history that keeps the 1969 future going for decades.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/for-all-mankind-2019","id":"for-all-mankind-2019","image":"/assets/imgs/works/for-all-mankind-title-card-e74673.webp","medium":"series","themes":["alt-history","space"],"title":"For All Mankind","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_All_Mankind_(TV_series)","year":2019},{"by":"Armando Iannucci","countries":["US","GB"],"desc":"Adjacent satire: a space cruise liner knocked off course, run by incompetents and a billionaire owner. Corporate space as a farce of liability.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/avenue-5-2020","id":"avenue-5-2020","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-armando-iannucci-chatham-house-2017-3b023c.webp","medium":"series","themes":["space"],"title":"Avenue 5","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avenue_5","year":2020},{"by":"Misha Green","countries":["US"],"desc":"Pulp horror on the 1950s roads of segregated America. Adjacent: it takes the genre's pulp sources and asks who they left out.","essential":false,"families":["dieselpunk"],"href":"/work/lovecraft-country-2020","id":"lovecraft-country-2020","image":"/assets/imgs/works/lovecraft-country-tv-series-b01458.webp","medium":"series","themes":["myth","identity"],"title":"Lovecraft Country","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovecraft_Country_(TV_series)","year":2020},{"by":"TNT / AMC","countries":["US"],"desc":"Four seasons aboard the thousand-car train circling the frozen Earth, adapted from the film and the graphic novel. Class revolution, rationing and rule-making on rails.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/snowpiercer-2020","id":"snowpiercer-2020","image":"/assets/imgs/works/snowpiercer-tv-series-title-card-149f8c.webp","medium":"series","themes":["cold","survival","dystopia"],"title":"Snowpiercer","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowpiercer_(TV_series)","year":2020},{"by":"Linke & Yee","countries":["FR","US"],"desc":"Fortiche's painterly series about Piltover's gleaming hextech and the polluted undercity below. Class war rendered in brass, chemtech and neon.","essential":true,"families":["steampunk"],"href":"/work/arcane-2021","id":"arcane-2021","image":"","medium":"series","themes":["cities","machines","rebellion"],"title":"Arcane","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcane_(TV_series)","year":2021},{"by":"Patrick Somerville","countries":["US"],"desc":"HBO Max's ten-episode adaptation of Mandel's novel, following the Traveling Symphony. Arguably the most hopeful post-apocalyptic series ever made.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/station-eleven-2021","id":"station-eleven-2021","image":"/assets/imgs/works/station-eleven-563b42.webp","medium":"series","themes":["post-apocalypse"],"title":"Station Eleven","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Station_Eleven_(miniseries)","year":2021},{"by":"Jim Mickle","countries":["US"],"desc":"After a pandemic, hybrid children born part animal are hunted by frightened survivors. A gentle adaptation of Jeff Lemire's comic.","descs":{"apocapunk":"Based on Jeff Lemire's Vertigo comic: after a pandemic, hybrid human-animal children are born and hunted. A fairy-tale road trip through a rewilding America.","biopunk":"After a pandemic, hybrid children born part animal are hunted by frightened survivors. A gentle adaptation of Jeff Lemire's comic."},"essential":false,"families":["biopunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/sweet-tooth-2021","id":"sweet-tooth-2021","image":"/assets/imgs/works/sweet-tooth-tv-series-title-card-f348c5.webp","medium":"series","themes":["genetics","post-apocalypse"],"title":"Sweet Tooth","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Tooth_(TV_series)","year":2021},{"by":"Andrew Haigh","countries":["GB"],"desc":"A brutal 1859 Arctic whaling voyage, based on Ian McGuire's novel. The ice as a place without law, where the worst man aboard has the advantage.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/the-north-water-2021","id":"the-north-water-2021","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-north-water-tv-series-poster-34d4ed.webp","medium":"series","themes":["cold","ocean"],"title":"The North Water","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_North_Water_(TV_series)","year":2021},{"by":"Tony Gilroy","countries":["US"],"desc":"Salvage yards on Ferrix, an Imperial prison-factory on Narkina 5, and ordinary workers radicalized into rebellion. The most labor-minded corner of <em>Star Wars</em>.","essential":false,"families":["spacepunk"],"href":"/work/andor-2022","id":"andor-2022","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-andor-svg-1cb2e7.webp","medium":"series","themes":["rebellion","space"],"title":"Andor","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andor","year":2022},{"by":"Martin & Condal","countries":["US"],"desc":"The Targaryen civil war adapted from <em>Fire &amp; Blood</em>: a dynasty of dragonriders tearing itself apart in fire.","essential":false,"families":["pyropunk"],"href":"/work/house-of-the-dragon-2022","id":"house-of-the-dragon-2022","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-house-of-the-dragon-logo-5c6e48.webp","medium":"series","themes":["fire","myth","war"],"title":"House of the Dragon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_the_Dragon","year":2022},{"by":"Dan Erickson","countries":["US"],"desc":"Employees surgically split their work memories from their private ones. The defining psychopunk series of the 2020s, executive-produced and largely directed by Ben Stiller.","essential":false,"families":["psychopunk"],"href":"/work/severance-2022","id":"severance-2022","image":"/assets/imgs/works/ben-stiller-2026-a316f7.webp","medium":"series","themes":["mind","identity","corporations"],"title":"Severance","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severance_(TV_series)","year":2022},{"by":"Scott B. Smith","countries":["US"],"desc":"Amazon adaptation of Gibson's novel, produced by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy. A gamer finds the simulation she tests is a real future London.","essential":false,"families":["cyberpunk"],"href":"/work/the-peripheral-2022","id":"the-peripheral-2022","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-peripheral-title-card-960da9.webp","medium":"series","themes":["cyberspace","ai"],"title":"The Peripheral","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peripheral_(TV_series)","year":2022},{"by":"Apple TV+","countries":["US"],"desc":"A retrofuturist salesman peddles lunar timeshares door to door in a 1950s-styled world of hover cars and robot servants. The atompunk promise as a con.","essential":false,"families":["atompunk"],"href":"/work/hello-tomorrow-2023","id":"hello-tomorrow-2023","image":"/assets/imgs/works/hellotomorrowposter-d7b6be.webp","medium":"series","themes":["retro-future","space"],"title":"Hello Tomorrow!","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hello_Tomorrow!","year":2023},{"by":"Graham Yost","countries":["US"],"desc":"Rebecca Ferguson as an engineer who starts asking forbidden questions inside a 144-level underground silo. The vault experiment, told from the inside.","essential":false,"families":["apocapunk"],"href":"/work/silo-2023","id":"silo-2023","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-rebecca-ferguson-a-house-of-dynamite-67-cropped2-04dfb4.webp","medium":"series","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival","dystopia"],"title":"Silo","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silo_(TV_series)","year":2023},{"by":"Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann","countries":["US"],"desc":"HBO's adaptation of the game about a world overrun by a mutated Cordyceps fungus. Biological apocalypse told through its survivors.","descs":{"apocapunk":"HBO's adaptation of the game, with Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey. Its third episode, a love story in a fortified town, is a landmark of the genre's tenderness.","biopunk":"HBO's adaptation of the game about a world overrun by a mutated Cordyceps fungus. Biological apocalypse told through its survivors."},"essential":false,"families":["biopunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/the-last-of-us-2023","id":"the-last-of-us-2023","image":"/assets/imgs/works/craig-mazin-co-director-at-sxsw-2025-03-cropped-7485e8.webp","medium":"series","themes":["post-apocalypse","survival"],"title":"The Last of Us","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_of_Us_(TV_series)","year":2023},{"by":"Barbara Eder, Luke Watson and Philipp Stölzl","countries":["DE"],"desc":"The high-budget adaptation of Schätzing's novel, made in English for European broadcasters. The deep intelligence on prestige television.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/the-swarm-2023","id":"the-swarm-2023","image":"/assets/imgs/works/the-swarm-tv-series-poster-9561c5.webp","medium":"series","themes":["ocean","ecology"],"title":"The Swarm","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swarm_(TV_series)","year":2023},{"by":"Graham Wagner & Geneva Robertson-Dworet","countries":["US"],"desc":"The live-action adaptation of the games, with vault-dweller optimism stepping out into the wasteland. It brought the Fallout look to a mass audience.","descs":{"apocapunk":"Ella Purnell as a vault dweller who climbs into a wasteland Los Angeles two centuries after the bombs. Prime Video's hit brought the game's dark humor intact to TV.","atompunk":"The live-action adaptation of the games, with vault-dweller optimism stepping out into the wasteland. It brought the Fallout look to a mass audience."},"essential":true,"families":["atompunk","apocapunk"],"href":"/work/fallout-2024","id":"fallout-2024","image":"/assets/imgs/works/500px-fallout-television-series-logo-svg-2bc05b.webp","medium":"series","themes":["post-apocalypse","nuclear","retro-future"],"title":"Fallout","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_(American_TV_series)","year":2024},{"by":"James Dormer","countries":["GB","AU"],"desc":"An origin story for Nemo as an Indian prince turned crusading engineer against the East India Company. Shelved by Disney+ after filming and released on Prime Video in the UK.","essential":false,"families":["hydropunk"],"href":"/work/nautilus-2024","id":"nautilus-2024","image":"/assets/imgs/works/nautilus-2024-poster-4fc058.webp","medium":"series","themes":["ocean","rebellion"],"title":"Nautilus","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautilus_(TV_series)","year":2024},{"by":"Issa López","countries":["US"],"desc":"<em>Adjacent:</em> researchers vanish from an Arctic station during the polar night in Ennis, Alaska. Isolation horror in the long dark, created by Issa López.","essential":false,"families":["frostpunk"],"href":"/work/true-detective-night-country-2024","id":"true-detective-night-country-2024","image":"/assets/imgs/works/true-detective-season-4-e01808.webp","medium":"series","themes":["cold","noir","night"],"title":"True Detective: Night Country","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Detective_season_4","year":2024}]}