DieselpunkDieselpunk is a retrofuturistic subgenre of science fiction similar to steampunk or cyberpunk that combines the aesthetics of the diesel-based technology of the interwar period through to the 1950s with retro-futuristic technology and postmodern sensibilities. Coined in 2001 by game designer Lewis Pollak to describe his tabletop role-playing game Children of the Sun, the term has since been applied to a variety of visual art, music, motion pictures, fiction, and engineering.
Googie architectureGoogie architecture (ˈgu:gi ) is a type of futurist architecture influenced by car culture, jets, the Atomic Age and the Space Age. It originated in Southern California from the Streamline Moderne architecture of the 1930s, and was popular in the United States from roughly 1945 to the early 1970s. Googie-themed architecture was popular among roadside businesses, including motels, coffee houses and gas stations. The style later became widely known as part of the mid-century modern style, elements of which represent the populuxe aesthetic, as in Eero Saarinen's TWA Terminal.
Cyberpunk derivativesSince the advent of the cyberpunk genre, a number of derivatives of cyberpunk have become recognized in their own right as distinct subgenres in speculative fiction, especially in science fiction. 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.
RetrofuturismRetrofuturism (adjective retrofuturistic or retrofuture) is a movement in the creative arts showing the influence of depictions of the future produced in an earlier era. If futurism is sometimes called a "science" bent on anticipating what will come, retrofuturism is the remembering of that anticipation. Characterized by a blend of old-fashioned "retro styles" with futuristic technology, retrofuturism explores the themes of tension between past and future, and between the alienating and empowering effects of technology.
