#scifi westerns

[mysticdragon3md3]

"What Happened to the Space Western?" by Lextorias

[lanada]

MOEBIUS / Jean Giraud

[midstpodcast]

Season 3, Episode XIX Finale Appendices 🔎 | Lark's Final Journal Entry #MidstSpoilers

[thatanimescreencapguy]

Scavengers Reign Episode 2

[alpaca-clouds]

The History of Cyberpunk

Or why every other SciFi Genre is called [something]punk

You know what? Let's do this. Because I have seen the discussion on whether or not Solarpunk is "punk" over the last few days and... people really gotta learn their history.

The first time a genre took the "punk" name was Cyberpunk. And for context we gotta talk a bit about the history of the Cyberpunk genre.

While some books that we in hindsight call "Cyberpunk" were released as early as the 1960s, the start of Cyberpunk as a genre got its start in the late 70s and early 80s.

The term was invented by Bruce Bethke, who published a short story in 1983 with the name "Cyberpunk". His idea was to juxtapose the term "punk" for both the mentality and the punk protagonists in his short story with the term cyber, short for the cybernetics they were wearing. And while the cybernetics have become a main stay in the genre, the punk attitudes are not always carried through...

Well, the title Bethke invented stuck, though. When 1984 Neuromancer was published, one of the most influencial works in the early days of the genre, he called it "a Cyberpunk novel" in the marketing. And from there... Well, the genre was suddenly named like that.

The 80s were definitely the decade that had the most influence on the genre, given that a lot of the big novels and graphic novels of the genre were released here.

A big influence was, no doubt, that 1982 the Blade Runner movie had released and had inspired quite a few writers and artists. (And yes, this makes Blade Runner a movie that released not only before the term Cyberpunk was coined, but also before the genre had a chance to define itself.)

Given that the genre was defined in the 80s, there are a lot of 80s anxiety kept within it about the rise of the Japanese economy, that are these days rarely questioned within the western Cyberpunk movement.

When the genre was coined and developed, Japan was the fastest growing economy in the world, being so influencial that they got to buy out several things in America. Something that kinda jerked white people in the US a lot. This is, why Cyberpunk originally depicted not only a capitalist hellscape - but specifically a capitalist hellscape were everything was bought out by Japanese companies, with many of those early antagonists being Japanese companies. And yeah... there was a lot of both anti-japanese racism, but also cultural appropriation of Japanese things in early Cyberpunk, at time surviving to this day. (But that is a story for another day.)

The general sense that Western Cyberpunk had, was always the idea of: We have a capitalist hellscape where the world is slowly dying and people are exploited with no end, while we have those kinda punky protagonists, who stand outside of the society and try to work against it. This being where the punk comes from.

Now, I could talk for length about how a lot of that punky attitude has been lost in more modern Cyberpunk media, but that, too, is a story for another day.

So, let me just talk about what happened then.

The term Cyberpunk really is darn catchy, right? So just when that name took hold, writer K.W. Jeter retroactively called his 1979 novel Morlock Night "steampunk". And guess what: This stuck, too. Though while the 80s Cyberpunk still stuck to the punk attitude, a lot of Steampunk did not. While for certain there is quite a bit of Steampunk that has kinda punky characters go against the quasi Victorian society of steampunk books (something most common in the air pirate novels I have read), a lot of other stories are more focused on a general sense of adventure.

But never the less... The genre names stuck and gave a nice baseline for naming other genre. We got Dieselpunk, Atompunk, Nanopunk, Arcanepunk, Dustpunk, Silkpunk and of course also Solarpunk and Lunarpunk.

And for the most part... The "punk" names mostly communicate: "It is SciFi with this kinda aesthetic/twist going on". Which is just how it turned out.

Funnily enough Solarpunk is for once a genre that brings back the punk, as it tends to include a lot of the ideals aspired to by the Punk counter culture of the 1970s: Anarchism, anti-capitalism, anti-consumerism, anti-classism, anti-racism, anti-colonialism and so on. Though other than with Cyberpunk and the real world punk movement, Solarpunk for the most part imagines a place, where those things are culture instead of counter culture.

I personally find it kinda sad, how for the most part Cyberpunk kinda lost a lot of the counter-cultural, revolutionary mindset. And how fucking defeatist the genre often is.

But again, it is a story for another day. Just as the story of Japanese Cyberpunk is.

[gameraboy2]

"The Last Thunder Horse West of the Mississippi" Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction, cover by Bob Walters, 1998

[hanbluestuff]

gun axe

[hybbart]

That guy from Trigun (?? I think??) And your Tango should swap outfits I feel like having never watched it and only learning about it from my dash they have a similar vibe please correct me if I'm wrong

I was JUST telling someone the other day that Trigun Stampede's Vash is so Ranchers. He's the same category of cringefail cowboy.

Also yes, Trigun Stampede is a new Trigun series. Highly recommend it, the animation Goes Off. (It's very exhausting to watch back to back though, each episode feels like 3 with how much goes down)

[rcrisdraws]

Something something 90's western sci-fi anime inspired cowboys.

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

One thing that I didn’t appreciate about “Starship Troopers” as a kid was how they portrayed the battles. I thought it was just bad writing at the time. Now, I can see it for the brilliant satire that it is. You have this nation that is always projecting military strength and showing off their weaponry and soldiers. But then you watch the actual battle and the troops are:

1) ill-equipped to the point that it takes multiple soldiers to take down one bug since their rifles do little damage on their own

2) are in a battlefield without armored vehicles or air support

3) given no strategy besides shoot everything that isn’t human

4) gullible and consumed so much propaganda to the point that they legitimately believed the bugs were stupid and easy to destroy

5) developed an irrational, xenophobic hatred of all bugs because of the aforementioned propaganda

And instead of switching up the tactics, the Federation just keeps on sending meat wave after meat wave. The humans only “won” because they finally overwhelmed the bugs. Before then, they were getting slaughtered left and right. It’s like a dumb, Michael Bay sci-fi version of “All Quiet on the Western Front”.

[breathingxspace]

Our fourth and final season begins Friday, February 2, 2024. Visit http://breathingspace.lawofnames.com for more.

[putting-rick-in-places]

Take him OUT of those jars and put that poor man in a warm pot of soup so he can simmer pleasantly

This is EXACTLY what he needed. Burger from Carl’s Jr, brandless beer, and some nice warm soup <3

[edit: I DIDNT KNOW THIS WAS WESTERN BACON NOW WHEN I MADE THIS AIDJFJDJSK]

[midstpodcast]

We're delighted to announce a new series of tales from the MIDST Cosmos with our friends at Dark Horse Comics, coming August 2024! 🧡

Delve into MIDST with this wondrously surreal three-issue miniseries starting with MIDST: Address Unknown!

LEARN MORE ⬇️

[thatanimescreencapguy]

Scavengers Reign Episode 11

[souldagger]

I've been writing my own sci-fi universe on and off after new Trek disappointed me, and has continued to disappoint me. If I had to sum it up it would be Star Trek but more overtly communist and also military sci-fi. I've mainly been inspired by things I've read/played/watched, which has mainly been made by white or western creators, so I wanted to ask if you had any recommendations for sci-fi made by POC creators to broaden my horizons.

omg of course!!! (with the caveat that unfortunately non-Western scifi specifically is a bit of a blindspot for me, so most of these will be Western authors of colour)

Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany

Dawn by Octavia E. Butler

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor (& i recommend reading the complete trilogy - imo it works best read together as one whole)

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color ed. by Nisi Shawl

How Long 'til Black Future Month? by N.K. Jemisin

I'm Waiting for You and Other Stories by Kim Bo-Young

And 2 that i personally haven't read yet but i think NEED to be mentioned, especially if we're talking space stories:

Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee (also military scifi!)

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

also, short story anthologies!!! if you're looking for new authors or want to explore works from a specific culture/place, they're a great way to do that. here's a couple from my own reading list for this year:

Palestine + 100: Stories from a Century after the Nakba

Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction

Readymade Bodhisattva: The Kaya Anthology of South Korean Science Fiction

Sinopticon: A Celebration of Chinese Science Fiction

& finally, i don't really watch a lot of tv/movies, but i do wanna wholeheartedly recommend:

Everything Everywhere All At Once

Janelle Monáe's Dirty Computer (free on youtube and an absolutely top tier example of afrofuturism)

Nope

They Cloned Tyrone

[privartidahos]

once in a lifetime