Monday, June 23, 2008

Smart People = Bad Puns

I will be posting much more about the SF Masterclass soon, and rest assured we did more intellectual things than sit around and make each other laugh. (See Niall Harrison's fist post.) However, I did want to relate the following before I forgot it all:

Sitting around at dinner last night, a new movement emerged. Greekpunk! The ur-text would be Gene Wolfe's Soldier of Sidon, we could co-opt Le Guin's Lavinia, we'd photoshop some tattooed busts of Homer and Herodotus, and get either the VanderMeers or Kelly & Kessel to work up an anthology: The Frickin' 300.

However, the movement was immediately challenged by Gary Wolfe's Roman version: Tiberpunk. Graham Sleight suggested SF written about the border between India & Pakistan: Khyberpunk. Curtis Potterveld mentioned that Swiss SF is, of course, Eigerpunk.

Gary pointed out that the whole 'punk' appellation is soooo 1980s, and that we need things more like Nerdcore to stay relevant. Stefan Ekman pointed out that SF about Mac computers would be Applecore; Duncan Lawie suggested that SF about twins would be Pearcore.

Around this time the nascent movement dissolved into a fit of giggles, as was only appropriate.

3 comments:

Cheryl said...

Um, Ian McDonald has been referring to his Indian stuff as Khyberpunk for some time.

There are no new puns, just old ones told differently.

Anonymous said...

I think Bruce Bethke also coined "Khyberpunk" in his novel Headcrash, which I think dates from about '86 or so. :)

Karen Burnham said...

Ahh, nothing new under the sun then.

However, I think I've discovered the ur-text for Tiberpunk: I, Claudius by Robert Graves.