Where’s the Monkey?

I’ve been talking a lot recently with Lou Anders and Chris Roberson about Steampunk and its emergence/non-emergence as a commercial sub-genre in its own right. Lou’s posted some of his thoughts on the subject here, and I think he has a lot of wise things to say on the topic.

However, all of this debate has got me thinking about the issue of sub-genre in general and if, by the very act of attempting to define an emergent sub-genre, you limit its lifespan and set it on the road to dissolution. This is not necessarily a bad thing.

Let me explain.

At the point in which a sub-genre, such as the aforementioned Steampunk, (or indeed Cyberpunk, Clockpunk or the one I’m still actively attempting to initiate – Monkeypunk…) reaches the point at which it demands definition (or indeed recognition) in its own right, there is typically an established body of work that has come about in such a way that it shares themes, imagery, identity and – often – authors. By defining the parameters of this body of work and providing it with a label, you also give it validity as a movement and encourage readers to share in its adoption. This, in turn, implies that more and more readers will be attracted to the movement as it gathers momentum and its tropes, themes and devices become familiar to a wider group of people.

Of course, since the majority of writers are also readers, this then leads to a broadening of the sub-genre as it transcends its roots and others are inspired to add to the body of work that initially brought the sub-genre into being. But one of the glorious things about the SF field is the manner in which it grows and develops organically, as authors take influence from the themes and imagery of others, only to twist them into something new, to breathe new life into them and explore them in entirely different ways, to turn them into something that transcends the (often constrictive) definition of the sub-genre that originally gave birth to them. That’s not to say that the definition itself is not fluid, that it cannot evolve along with the writers and their work, but eventually, through a period of osmosis, the tropes and traditions will permeate out too far and become a kind of authorial shorthand, a part of the make-up of the wider genre, the oeuvre of SF as a whole.

Take Cyberpunk as an example – today, it’s difficult to imagine anyone writing a ‘pure’ Cyberpunk novel (partly because the political, technological and cultural triggers that inspired it have evolved and dissipated in many ways themselves), but many of the vital components of that sub-genre are now standard SF devices, in any variety of sub-genres; neural interfaces, cyberspace, cybernetic enhancements. Whilst people are still very much aware of Cyberpunk as a mode of SF, it’s been almost totally subsumed by the wider genre, and the wider genre is all the richer for it.

So, in the end, I suppose my question is this – will the same thing happen to Steampunk, and if so, how long have we got before this emergent sub-genre finds itself swallowed once again by the wider genre that gave birth to it?