Elfpunk

Or, on a more personal level, imagine a world without Heinlein’s literary children, and grandchildren. A world in which fewer writers and artists turned to science fiction and fantasy because Heinlein had not blazed the trail; and therefore a world in which the rich array of fantastic literature — from “hard” sf and “new wave” to “high fantasy” and “dark fantasy,” to “cyberpunk” and “splatterpunk” and “elfpunk” and all the rest — never came to be.

The scenes of high-school intrigue and shoplifting in magical malls seem flip rather than ingenious (“Pete was wearing acid-washed jeans and a denim jacket with the Wild Hunt’s ‘Horns of Elfland Tour’ logo painted on the back”), and the book’s later stretches, as Jane goes to college and then tries to make her way in the dangerous urban underworld, seem to protract Swanwick’s conceit — an amalgam of the “steampunk” and “elfpunk” motifs that various fantasy writers have been playing with in recent years — past its natural length.

Elfpunk is actually a sub-genre of urban fantasy. These are fantasy stories set in the gritty streets of a modern city environment and are peopled with faeries, elves, dragons and other beings from folklore. Authors writing elfpunk include Holly Black, Terry Brooks, and Laurell K. Hamilton with her Meredith Gentry series.

Dr. Alexander has written a number of steampunk short stories, children’s science-learning books, and a full-length elfpunk novel.

JESIKAH SUNDIN is a multi-award winning Dystopian Punk Lit, Fairy Tale, and Historical Fantasy writer, a mom of three nerdlets, a faeriecore and elfpunk geek, tree hugger, nature photographer, and a helpless romantic who married her high school sweetheart.