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Post by bravewolf on Aug 14, 2018 23:33:33 GMT -5
Hola! El Borak and Hexenritter Verlag suggested a thread for geopunk fiction, stemming from a discussion on steampunk fantasy gaming. Geopunk is a label that I find convenient to describe the technology and attitude of cultures described in a short story called, "The Gauntlet" (available in this anthology: link) The Gauntlet relates the exploits of a smuggler named Hilda Benzinfeuer & her fellow runners in a post-conflagration California. In this post-apocalyptic setting, government is decentralized and technology geographically distinct. In the portion of the Central Valley that Hilda haunts, there is a natural gas field that provides most vehicular fuel & heating; the Clear Lake-area cultures have electricity & heating from geothermal sources. Geo-logical! The fictional people of The Gauntlet are, by necessity, very self-reliant & suspicious of authorities that are distant from & potentially uncaring with respect to its constituents. Hence, punk. Mashed up, I call it geopunk, but post-apocalyptic scifi hits the mark, too. Later, I'll post a sample from The Gauntlet & talk a bit about the background to the story. I hope you all enjoy. |
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Post by El Borak on Aug 15, 2018 14:30:00 GMT -5
This looks really good and I am looking forward to your posts. Self-reliant and suspicious are my kind of characters.
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Post by El Borak on Aug 15, 2018 14:31:06 GMT -5
You'll need to fix your link.  |
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Post by bravewolf on Aug 15, 2018 15:40:42 GMT -5
You'll need to fix your linkak. Oops! Thanks! |
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Post by Admin Pete on Aug 15, 2018 16:20:07 GMT -5
You'll need to fix your linkak. Oops! Thanks! Still not working for me, just post the bare link and I will fix it, sometimes that feature is temperamental. It seems to work best if you use the BBCode mode instead of the Preview mode. |
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Post by bravewolf on Aug 16, 2018 0:30:50 GMT -5
Here are the opening few paragraphs to The Gauntlet (apologies for the language: these characters lack savoir faire in a big way):
The Hulk-Class truck slid onto pavement at ninety degrees. Hilda Benzinfeuer downshifted, allowing the Hulk to find solid purchase. Gravel and bits of bone spat from the tires, bouncing and skittering between Hilda’s rig and Butte City. Hilda glanced in the rearview mirror. A handful of vehicles sped from the west end of the town. A solitary machine gun rattled off bursts at the fleeing Hulk. Out of effective range, the shells ricocheted harmlessly off the truck’s armor. A red flare blossomed in the sky over the burg.
“Hahahahaha! Try again, Sh*t-suckers!” Wordsworth cackled and gave Butte City the bird from the rear gun turret.
Lazlo, Hilda’s close-quarters defender and second gunner, spoke into his talkie, “Oye, watch you don’ suck down the Sh*t-suckers’ lead, Word.”
“No way, brother L—Benz got us out of range hella fast. But hey, we might have company if she don’t pick it up a bit.”
“I see ‘em, Jumpy,” Hilda called into the cab talkie, “You be ready to fabricate some distance if need be.”
Hilda steered the rig dead-center on the road and floored it with a wild yelp. The gunners pounded the sides of the vehicle with their fists as Hilda propelled the trio and their cargo toward the western hills. Stony Road, as locals called it, ran out among fallowed rice fields that seemed now only to yield the wrecks of assault bikes, interceptors, and Tall Boyz. A couple miles out of Butte City, Stony Road dipped down then up sharply through a ripped-out culvert before leveling off again. The Hulk’s suspension was nonplussed by the rapid changes in trajectory. This was going well for Hilda’s team. She glanced over her shoulder at their contraband: sacks of rice and wheat seeds, and fresh Cascade barley vines.
The story progresses quickly from there & is basically a fuel-injected, profanity & gunpowder-infused, 9-page romp. I drop plenty more hints as to the world in which Hilda, Wordsworth, & Lazlo operate later in the story, as well as a sort of mystical interlude to play counterpoint to a tense negotiation.
The genesis of Sweat, Steel and Cruise Control was doubtlessly the movie Mad Max: Fury Road. The film had been out for a couple of months and the editor put out a call for Mad Max-inspired short fiction to be collected in one volume. I stumbled across the advertisement about 30 days before the deadline and thought, "Mad Max? I could do that - might be fun!" It was, & I did my best to leverage my late start for the story's pacing.
I would be remiss to mention that my fellow contributors to the volume exhibit unique post-apocalyptic visions, including viable desert (or wasteland) BICYCLE gangs. The collection includes a few poems as well, which I find an unusual compositional decision in a post-apocalyptic anthology.
Comments & questions are welcome. I have more to share on the subject but am going to cool it to see what, if anything, interests you all about the story or anthology.
Peace.
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Post by Hexenritter Verlag on Aug 16, 2018 1:57:20 GMT -5
I enjoyed it, now I need to read the full tale bravewolf, don't worry about the language. |
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Post by The Archivist on Aug 16, 2018 8:38:07 GMT -5
Geopunk is a label that I find convenient to describe the technology and attitude of cultures described in a short story called, "The Gauntlet" (available in this anthology: link) I see the link is working now, so I'll quote the additional info |
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Post by The Archivist on Aug 16, 2018 8:48:07 GMT -5
The collection includes a few poems as well, which I find an unusual compositional decision in a post-apocalyptic anthology. I don't find it odd, because pre-literate societies (and I believe post-literate societies) where history had to be transmitted orally from one generation to the next a lot of it was poetic simply because that form lends itself to being memorized more easily. Some of the earliest recorded literature is poetic and writers like REH wrote poetry. |
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Post by bravewolf on Aug 16, 2018 9:44:20 GMT -5
The collection includes a few poems as well, which I find an unusual compositional decision in a post-apocalyptic anthology. I don't find it odd, because pre-literate societies (and I believe post-literate societies) where history had to be transmitted orally from one generation to the next a lot of it was poetic simply because that form lends itself to being memorized more easily. Some of the earliest recorded literature is poetic and writers like REH wrote poetry. I can't quibble with any of what you say, Archivist, cos it's correct! I find the use of poetry in SS&CC unusual because I have seldom run across it in modern post-apocalyptic writing. Come to think of it, we do see it in several places outside of fiction: the prophetic writings during Israel's Babylonian exile and contemporary North American Indian poetry come to mind. What I found noteworthy about these poems in the anthology is that they are not imbedded in a larger piece of p-a fiction (except the anthology, of course) - rather, they constitute free-standing, p-a compositions and are basically fiction (poetry as a thing unto itself pretty much transcends genre assignments). What about others here? Any examples of poetry in or constituting post-apocalyptic writing? |
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Post by Hexenritter Verlag on Aug 16, 2018 11:41:07 GMT -5
I haven't read any P-A literature with poetry in it but I am not opposed to it. I think Rogue Planet Press is paying homage to the old Pulp fiction anthology magazines like Weird Tales of the 20s-40s where prose & poetry often published together - such as in Weird Tales Vol. 31 No. 3 which includes two poems one by RE Howard "the Poets" & and ode to HP Lovecraft memorializing him in a short poem "To Howard Phillips Lovecraft" by Francis Flagg.
I really need to read P-A fiction as I love the genre in comics & film, that said I'd love to see more anthologies include poetry as well as the prose stories. I think I'll start with some anthologies from the library like Wastelands and try out stuff like Biopunk and similar literature.
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Post by The Archivist on Aug 16, 2018 13:07:12 GMT -5
Poetry has repeatedly been made a *red-headed step-child of literature over the last 100 years. No one teaches how to write it or appreciate it. But poetry comes from the soul and refuses to be squelched. It always comes back.
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