Scared, astonished, and amazed at all the talent on display in Best of 2020, mothertroopers?

Don't know what to do with yourself?

Want to know what's coming up next?

December 20th - A Very Merry Dystopian Christmas

The "Merry" is back, and so is the Ooorah Crew's take on Dystopian SF (with that Christmassy twist we know and love!) We haven't touched this sub-genre by itself—because loads of -Punk and non-Punk sci-fi stories happen to be dystopian—since Tevun-Krus #8. Man, that's a long time ago!

Dystopian SF is the opposite of Utopian SF. Where those are paradise, these are hellish and mean. Dystopians typically feature some form of oppressive government, but not always. The oppression can also come from the environment, as in post-apocalyptic dystopians, from the self, or from any other imaginable source.

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2021 is Officially the Year of Punk!

February 7th, 2021 - International V: LovePunk

Love...Punk...? That's right, mothertroopers, we've invented another sub-genre out of our asses! Love makes the world go round, love brings people from all walks of life together, love knows no colour, no creed. Love can conquer anything.

In times like these, it's only fitting LovePunk is the theme for TK International V.

Imagine a world where love has been outlawed, and soulmates are forced to meet in secret lest they be punished. Or maybe somehow someone's created love-based technology, and the world literally runs on the power of our hearts and souls. Or maybe— This is a brand-new sub-genre. The possibilities are endless!

Like recent International Editions of Tevun-Krus, TKIEV: LovePunk accepts sub-genre-relevant stories and articles from any and all languages!

March 7th, 2021 - SnowPunk

2020 saw the sandy dunes of DesertPunk, now it's time for the icy tundra of SnowPunk. It's fairly self-explanatory. In a world of perpetual blizzards, ice, frigid temperatures and generally pretty snowy atmosphere—whether that's because of apocalyptic reasons or not—and still, somehow, civilization has survived. Technology maybe makes use of water's ability to freeze? I dunno. This is a pretty new sub-genre, too, 'troopers. Amaze and astound us.

But hey, woah, hold on. Snow doesn't have to be snow, does it? It can look like snow in a world that is below freezing, but not be H2O. Why the hell not? Write those stories, too. They sound clever.

Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness is set on a frigid world called Winter, with indigenous intelligent humanoids who are ambisexual in nature.

April 4th, 2021 - Post-CyberPunk

First you have CyberPunk, then CyberPunk goes through some spectacular changes in itself and becomes Post-CyberPunk! Wow!

Seriously.

Post-CyberPunk is a sort of utopian's vision of CyberPunk. Like seeing CyberPunk through the eyes of an optimist with big ideas about how to change the gritty, blood-spattered, computer-mainframe streets, and turn it into a sleek, streamlined society. There's less of an anti-corporate bent, or at least the hackers aren't always the good guys.

May 2nd, 2021 - SamuraiPunk

Who doesn't think samurai and ninjas are cool?

What would it have been like if Samurai warriors had used something akin to lightsabers? Yeah, writing in this sub-genre could well be like writing Star Wars in Feudal Japan.

The time period doesn't have to be way back, of course, nor does the technology utilised have to be anything at all to do with the weaponry the legendary warriors used... But hey, who's to say there aren't Samurai warriors wandering the streets of Tokyo, doling out whatever justice they see fit from the shadows?

It can be near-future, far-future, the past, the present. SamuraiPunk, baby.

The recent reboot trilogy of the iconic Shadow Warrior series of video games is definitely SamuraiPunk!

June 6th, 2021 - AncientPunk

From the neanderthals to the Sumerians, Babylonians, Romans, Greeks, First Nations, Aboriginals, Africans, Germanics, Inca, Toltecs, whatever—AncientPunk reimagines a culture or group and their actual technology with the scope only science fiction can provide.

Roman legionaries conquering space.

Mayan time-travel cults.

Hell, Nazis are old, too—Hitler's hologram heiling himself to Hell, which exists on Mars (because why not?).

July 4th, 2021 - LunarPunk

The opposite of SolarPunk. Where SolarPunk was a utopian's GreenPunk, a life of light and sunshine and a happy globalized world, LunarPunk delves into the darkness of night, where the only light comes from the fires we dance and sing around and the big yellow moon beaming down.

LunarPunk takes influences from pagan mysticism and witchcraft, druidism, tribalism, chaos, anarchism, satanism, the occult, etc.

If SolarPunk is the worship of "us" and what "we" can achieve, LunarPunk is the worship of "me" and what "I" can achieve.

August 1st, 2021 - MusePunk

MusePunk is another brand-new one. WattPunk could retroactively be considered a form of MusePunk married with CyberPunk.

MusePunk is art—in any of its forms: music, painting, writing, whatever else that's art, that's driven by a muse—projected into a world that uses art to fuel its entire progress.

Brutal Legend, the classic Tim Schafer video game about a roadie who dies during a show and is taken as a sacrifice to a world of heavy metal, is a perfect example.

September 5th, 2021 - QuantumPunk

QuantumPunk could be seen as the next generation after CyberPunk, BioPunk and NanoPunk. Quantum computing is the new normal, quantum theory is applied in everyday life. Maybe we have the technology to modify ourselves down to the atom—perhaps it isn't cheap! Or maybe it's not uncommon to see your quantum ghost still hanging around a place you like to go.

Multiverses are definitely a thing in QuantumPunk!

October 3rd, 2021 - BiblePunk

A sort of merger between Alt-History and Theological SF but specifically centred around Biblical and other religious stories, retooled in a science-fictional kind of way.

Noah's Ark, but our boy Noah is getting DNA samples of all the animals to convert and store digitally on his solid-state drive for later reanimation.

Moses stopping the water with a staff that utilizes powerful, advanced sound waves.

God is an alien, or a time-travelling human, or...

That kind of stuff.

November 14th, 2021 - Best of '21

Like its older brothers, we keep this bad bubba of an issue locked up in chains, only allowed visits from writers we specifically ask to come aboard. Each of the previous sub-genres covered throughout the year gets a brand-spankin'-new story from some of the readers' and Tevun-Krus' favourite writers.

December 12th, 2021 - A Very Merry CyberPunk Christmas

We covered Post-CyberPunk earlier, so why not delve back into CyberPunk—theme of Tevun-Krus #7, way back in 2014—and give it a Christmassy twist?

Who doesn't know what CyberPunk is? Without going into the history of it, CyberPunk is gritty, and often crude. Hackers are the heroes, whereas corporations and politicians—the establishment, the elite—are the bad guys. The Matrix has that CyberPunk edge to it, taking it to unfamiliar territory; the Deus Ex series of video games is a pretty good example; but it all started with William Gibson's Neuromancer, as well as the Blade Runner film (not so much the book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, that was more Proto-CyberPunk).

Sound kickass? Excited for The Year of Punk!?

Ooorah!

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Stay safe!