The ‘punk’ part is not a worn suffix devoid of content. Most are based on historical antecedents, and I performed enough calculations and experiments to be comfortable that they should function, give or take an order of magnitude in the forces involved - close enough for fantasy engineering!īut silkpunk is not ‘Asian steampunk’. It is, in the simplest terms, an alternative technology evolutionary tree based on East Asian historical antecedents and philosophies.Īs a technologist, I had a lot of fun coming with up the silkpunk technology in these books: the submarines, airships, battle-kites, wax logograms, city-ships, electrostatic automata, etc. Silkpunk involves a technology vocabulary that uses bamboo, silk, paper, animal sinew, ceramics, feathers, materials of great historical importance to China and other East Asian cultures, as well as a technology grammar that emphasizes biomimicry, wind/water power, wooden architecture, balance with the local environment, an integrated view of the artificial and the natural – concepts central to East Asian traditions of engineering. My only concern here is my definition, for my aesthetic.) (Other authors have used my term to describe their own books, and I won’t be talking about their uses.

I can’t wait to take you and other readers from the opening lines of this book all the way to the final period after the last sentence in Speaking Bones.Ī quick preliminary note: I invented the term ‘silkpunk’ specifically to describe the aesthetic in the Dandelion Dynasty series. I learned a lot about myself as a writer, as a father, as a husband, as a grandchild, as a technologist, as a lawyer, and as a person. This series took up the bulk of my time and creative energy over a ten-year period.

Dandelion dynasty book 4