atompunk

English

WOTD – 28 March 2019

Etymology

atom +‎ -punk

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈætəmpʌŋk/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈætəmpʌŋk/, /-ɾəm-/
• Hyphenation: atom‧punk

Noun

atompunk (uncountable)

1. (science fiction) A subgenre of speculative fiction, based on the society and technology of the Atomic Age (c. 1945–1969).
   • 2001 October 31, Simon Bradshaw, “Re: Steampunk Recommendations?”, in rec.arts.sf.written‎^[1] (Usenet), message-ID <memo.20011031191447.43761C@sjbradshaw.compulink.co.uk>:

     In fact, there was a fair amount of stuff around in the 60s and 70s that can only be explained as cross-dimensional leakage from an Atompunk universe.

   • 2002 June 10, Mike Simone, “Re: Land Battleships”, in rec.arts.sf.science, rec.games.design‎^[2] (Usenet), message-ID <152bbdf6.0206101038.72e312be@posting.google.com>:

     Perfect "atompunk" feel – reactors with nervous engineers and analog controls.

   • 2004 March 6, Michael S. Schiffer, “Re: Earth-2 Legion Synopsis”, in rec.arts.comics.dc.lsh‎^[3] (Usenet), message-ID <Xns94A49BD7E514mss2mediaonenet@130.133.1.4>:

     For the Legion, we're looking at 20th century futures rather than 19th. Analogies with steampunk might be "dieselpunk", "atompunk", or "rocketpunk" – but any Legion of Super-Heroes worthy of the name seems to be as far from the "punk" aspect as it's possible to get.

   • 2012 April 8, Elaine Chow, “Space Age Fetishism Getting Silly New Moniker: Atompunk”, in Gizmodo‎^[4], archived from the original on 28 August 2016:

     According to a mailing list from the Netherlands, Atompunk is devoted to the cultural period (mostly of the United States) of between 1945 to 1965. While the moniker hasn't become a part of our country's vernacular yet (though I'm sure some of you already started using it ages ago), it sounds just annoyingly catchy enough to warrant a New York Times trend piece in about eight years.

   • 2012, William J. Thompson, “Time Travel”, in Dress Like a Grownup!: A Complete Tutorial for the Average Guy, 2nd edition, volume 1, [Morrisville, N.C.]: Lulu.com, →ISBN, part 2 (Advanced Theory), page 55:

     Atompunk covers the pre-digital period of 1945–1965, including mid-century Modernism, the Atomic Age and Space Age. Throw Roger Thornhill's suits in this basket, and everything ever worn on Mad Men. This takes us right up to the mid '60s, when the fictional worlds of yesterday abut the real worlds you grew up in.

   • 2014 October 27, Adi Robertson, “William Gibson’s ‘The Peripheral’: Looking Back at the Future: A Smart, Nuanced Twist on Time Travel”, in The Verge‎^[5], archived from the original on 5 May 2017:

     You keep imagining someone 20 years from now reading The Peripheral the way that we read Neuromancer today, perplexed at the now-unfathomable ubiquity of cassettes and modems. We laugh at the past or mine it for influence – think of steampunk, atompunk, dieselpunk, and the million other microgenres based on the incongruity of old societies and future tech – but someday, the future is going to do the same to us.

   • 2015, Nader Elhefnawy, The Forgotten James Bond‎^[6], [s.l.]: [s.n.]:

     Additionally, while [Sebastian] Faulks aspires to write as [Ian] Fleming, he takes care to increase the serving of action, in fact including some interesting bits of atompunk—a nuclear-powered ekranoplan, Vulcan bombers.

Translations

subgenre of speculative fiction based on the society and technology of the Atomic Age

Further reading

• cyberpunk derivatives on Wikipedia.Wikipedia