Cyberpunk derivatives

Since the advent of the cyberpunk genre, a number of cyberpunk derivatives have become recognized in their own right as distinct subgenres in speculative fiction, especially in science fiction.^[1] Rather than necessarily sharing the digitally and mechanically focused setting of cyberpunk, these derivatives can display other futuristic, or even retrofuturistic, qualities that are drawn from or analogous to cyberpunk: a world built on one particular technology that is extrapolated to a highly sophisticated level (this may even be a fantastical or anachronistic technology, akin to retrofuturism), a gritty transreal urban style, or a particular approach to social themes.

Steampunk, one of the most well-known of these subgenres, has been defined as a "kind of technological fantasy;"^[1] others in this category sometimes also incorporate aspects of science fantasy and historical fantasy.^[2] Scholars have written of the stylistic place of these subgenres in postmodern literature, as well as their ambiguous interaction with the historical perspective of postcolonialism.^[3]

Other subgenres named after cyberpunk include elfpunk and mythpunk.