HyphenPunk Fall 2023: HyphenPunk Magazine

By Jasen Bacon, Desmond Astaire, Gustavo Bondoni and 4 more

This issue of HyphenPunk Magazine contains 6 stories from 4 different -punks!

 

Cyberpunk from Elizabeth Broadbent, Katja Rammer, and Mohamed Shalabi

 

Hopepunk from Desmond Astaire

 

Ecopunk from Gustavo Bondoni

 

Mythpunk from Hareendran Kallinkeel

• Language: English
• Publisher: HyphenPunk
• Release date: Sep 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223135746

Book preview

To all the -punks out there

HyphenPunk is Copyright © 2021-2023 Jasen Bacon

All stories are copyright 2023 by their respective authors

Cover art is copyright of Joel Bisaillon, Umbra Ludus Productions

Internal art is all copyright free images from freesvg.org

All rights reserved.

ISSN: 2769-7452

Editor’s Note

This issue of HyphenPunk brings a lot of amazing changes to the way we operate. Not the least of which is this is the first time that the magazine is available in print as well as online. It is going to feel so good to have the hard work that all of our contributors have put in actually in our hands. I am very looking forward to it.

We are opening this month with the second installment of Knox’s journey through the upper crust of Philly’s cyberpunk elite with SpaceBoi by Elizabeth Broadbent. While the focus this time isn’t on Knox, this entry definitely gives you an understanding of the world that they live in so that the final entry in December’s issue makes more sense.

We then focus our attention to the cyberpunk dystopian hell of a future Washington D.C. and the surveillance state that has been created by Hereafter, Inc. by Mohamed Shalabi.

Finally, our cyberpunk journey moves into outer space with the debut piece by new writer Katja Rammer. What happens when cybernetically enslaved people bound by a Do No Harm clause find out that they have been emancipated? Find out in this flash piece from a writer that I know we will be seeing more from.

We move into some Hopepunk with Desmond Astaire’s Old Dean. Seeing people realize their mistakes and actually be able to make the world a better place is the kind of piece that gives me hope. But let’s not wait until our death beds.

Gustavo Bondoni brings in an ecopunk piece about a dam being built and the people who wear the White Hats who are in charge of it. Humans are bad at realizing the extent of the damage we cause to ecosystems, and sometimes they need to be forced to listen.

We end this issue with a mythpunk piece out of western India by Hareendran Kallinkeel. When I read this piece I was overwhelmed with the world building, and being a trained folklorist, it didn’t take me much time to track down the stories that it is based on. Seeing this bit of world folklore brought to page with a definite -punk storyline was amazing and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Jasen Bacon

CyberPunk

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Spaceboi

By Elizabeth Broadbent

No one was home. Luna had moved out. Mums was in Asia — she said to see temples. Really, she wanted more work done. Her face seemed like some strange cat-creature’s, all tight eyes and tiny nose. My father might’ve been in Beijing on business, or he might’ve gone to Soweto for football, or he might’ve lit off for Karbala, where he kept a secret wife and a secret dark-haired, warm-skinned son.

I overrode our auto-offs. A single light in a night-dark house seemed more depressing than a house with every light blown bright, as if a party had emptied or no one had come. Usage-screens shamed me with soaring green numbers. My therapist would tell me my mental health was worth it. I said it out loud, My mental health is worth it.

My words echoed.

I could’ve pinged people. There would be a rager somewhere. I could go and get drunked up. I could see the same faces and mouth the same phrases. I lay on my bed and stared at its ceiling. My therapist would say, Zane, it’s not enough to know what you don’t want. That’s passive. Pick something. That’s active.

I wanted to snuggle with Baylor and Knox. I wanted Baylor to fuss over Knox’s hair, and I wanted to nuzzle her neck. Both would smell like something yum. I could kiss her soft skin and trace her curves; his lean, long legs would tangle with mine, and his hip bones would bump under my hands. But lately Knox said we made great slam-buddies, and wasn’t it nice nothing got complicated? Baylor never said anything. Maybe they messed around without me. Maybe the three of us had drifted and it didn’t matter anymore.

I could’ve pinged them. I could’ve said, I miss you.

Both would’ve said, I see you all the time.

I was still thinking about them when my comm went off — Finnick. Luna said he was sketch. I answered anyway.

Wanna hit up a redlight? he asked.

I couldn’t have Baylor or Knox, not like that. Every light was on and Luna had left. Better out than home watching holos. Better Finnick than no one at all.

I picked him up in Paoli, since he’d wrecked his Sighra and hadn’t replaced it yet. I can’t decide between a Keelo Roadster and a Neono Kite, he told me as we drove to Devon.

Buying either was bodoh, cos they were total malfunctions on maintenance and junked-up crappo besides. I said, Uh-huh.

So how’s Luna? he asked.

Fine, I guess.

Must be cool to have a fashmodel for a twin.

Sure, I said.

Next time she asks you to one of those parties, ping, kay?

Sure.

He smacked me. Why’re you all morose tonight? We’re headed to Clarke’s, for fuck’s sake.

Don’t smack me while I have my hands on the controls, teaparty. You want me to wreck this sol-car like you wrecked your slamming Sighra? I jacked up my music — Baylor’s favorite Killian Jones drop, that old-oldie about do you like girls or boys — and we didn’t talk again until we reached the redlight. Darkglasses turned it bright-white and gray against the city night.

I was about to slam a bot. It seemed too easy, and this place screamed situation normal.  Slamming a bot was not normal. Or maybe it was. People did. Men used to watch real women dance naked.

I’ll exterminate your ass if someone finds out I was here, I said to Finnick.

Calm your tits, he told me. No one’ll know. Hells, Zane, everyone goes to redlights, anyway.

I should’ve listened to Luna. I don’t.

The airlock opened to