…and this is a 
It's too bad this is a joke
Category: Cephalopods • Weirdness
Posted on: October 23, 2007 1:00 PM, by PZ Myers
It's not a real proposal, but someone has come up with a provocative new genre, Squidpunk.
Fiction that unlike New Weird, Steampunk, or Slipstream, is at its core not only about squid, but about the symbolism of squid as color-changing, highly-mobile, alien-looking, intelligent ocean-goers. As a powerful ecosystem indicator, the squid is a potent symbol for environmental rejuvenation. Squidpunk is almost exclusively set at sea and must contain some reference to either cephalopods or to anything that thematically relates to squid, in terms of world iconography and tropes. Squidpunk is never escapist or whimsical. It is always serious and edgy. This combination of a hard punk aesthetic with the fluid propulsion system common to the squid has produced a unique literary hybrid beloved by Mundanes and Surrealists alike.
I'd read it. I would hope, though, that authors would realize that this definition is hopelessly restrictive and far too narrow to encompass the imaginings of the savants of the squidpunk movement. For instance, there's no reason it must be set at sea; the landlocked prairies of cold northern states — Minnesota, for instance — can be a fertile backdrop for the more exotic variations on the theme, as can even temperate rainforests. The statement that it is always serious and edgy is also false: squidpunk erotica, with its softer focus on tactile pleasures and mind-expanding interactions with otherness is one of the most popular motifs.
And how could this critic overlook the common threads of biodiversity, evolution, and the alien within us? It's like he never even read any squidpunk, and the whole essay reads like the guesswork of a poseur.
Comments
Vandermeer's own squidpunk offering is rather non-edgy, I thought:
http://www.fantasticmetropolis.com/i/squid/
Posted by: Owlmirror | October 23, 2007 1:20 PM
i genuinely like the Ambergris novels, especially Shriek, but it's fungi, not squid, that takes center stage.
Posted by: badger | October 23, 2007 1:37 PM
Surely you could write a squidpunk short story, and find an excuse to include it as a chapter in your book? Start the fad rolling!
;-)
Posted by: Eamon Knight | October 23, 2007 1:40 PM
So, who else watches "Squidbillies" on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim? Plot Line? A family of Appalachian Cephalopods do redneck stuff. They look a lot more like octopi to me, but that's just me.
Posted by: Bert Chadick | October 23, 2007 1:51 PM
". . .the landlocked prairies of cold northern states -- Minnesota, for instance. . ."
Well, not entirely landlocked. If squid crawling out of Lake Superior and oozing across the forest and prairie to invade Morris isn't a classic squidpunk trope, it certainly should be.
Posted by: HennepinCountyLawyer | October 23, 2007 1:52 PM
Stephen Baxter's Manifold: Time features, in part, engineered squid taking over 3753 Cruithne.
Posted by: Phy | October 23, 2007 1:55 PM
The statement that it is always serious and edgy is also false: squidpunk erotica, with its softer focus on tactile pleasures and mind-expanding interactions with otherness is one of the most popular motifs.
Aren't you confusing squidpunk with cephalerotica, a completely different genre that has so far been better represented in art than in literature (though some of the readers here could fix that).
Posted by: John McKay | October 23, 2007 2:17 PM
Well, Rudy Rucker already has the JellyPunk genre down, why not squid?
Posted by: coathangrrr | October 23, 2007 2:23 PM
P.S. Ken MacLeod's Engines of Light trilogy features super-intelligent, space traveling squid. But they never visit Minnesota.
Posted by: John McKay | October 23, 2007 2:24 PM
Have you checked out Vonda MacIntyre's Talking Squid in Outer Space site? (Inspired by a certain Nobel Prize for Literature winner's attempt to distance herself from genre-writing after writing a trilogy about, ahem, talking squid in space.)
Posted by: NelC | October 23, 2007 4:10 PM
"...squidpunk erotica, with its softer focus on tactile pleasures and mind-expanding interactions with otherness..."
I think you've segued from SquidPunk to SquidPorn.
Posted by: Jack | October 23, 2007 4:38 PM
Nobody seems to understand why, but there are no freshwater cephalopods, and apparently there have never been any.
Which is probably healthier for us.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | October 23, 2007 5:06 PM
PZ will just have to genetically engineer some kidneys for the poor things.
Posted by: mjfgates | October 23, 2007 5:49 PM
I do! And it's priceless.
Now take your squidpunk and go away...I'm tryin'a drink my Sip.
Posted by: eruvande | October 24, 2007 11:01 AM
Just finished Vandermeer's "City Of Saints And Madmen" a couple weeks ago - if that's squidpunk then I completely recommend it. But badger #2 is right: it's more about fungus. I get nervous around mushrooms now.
Posted by: cdq | October 25, 2007 8:21 AM