Hey everyone 🙂 Your favourite Nab here. It's March and I bring you another exciting sub-punk article. But before I start waxing eloquence on our newest sub-genre, there's something I'd like to share with you.

This month marks my three-year anniversary association with the mothership we all know as Ooorah. Or rather, 'Ooooorah' with a lot of "O"s for more punky emphasis.

I'd just like to thank you all for being a part of this journey together in the voids of punk ❤️

Moving on to our sub-genre of this month. I bet you'd be surprised just as I was when I first heard of it. I welcome you to BugPunk.

As the name suggests, Bugpunk is all about using the key principles of science along with bugs at the heart of technology. In this sub-genre, wasps sniff out bombs and track down intruders with bacteria and viruses packed into every bullet and bomb. People eat bugs, fight with bugs and they even wear bugs. Bugs rule the fashion world with stingers in place of belts, antenna as hair bands, bacteria as socks and coverings. The possibilities are endless. Have a look:

Just imagine a world powered by insects, specifically bugs and we might have our next scifi revolution. Add to that bag, a couple of writers and BAM! Bugs, science and writers—the trio make a great combination. Bugpunk can be quite brutal as a sub-punk, in the sense there can be blood and mass annihilations with the help of bugs. God, I can't even imagine writing about bugs and here I am loving the challenge.

I was surprised learn there's a bugpunk anime in Japanese called Terra Formars. It is written by Yū Sasuga and illustrated by Kenichi Tachibana. Since 2011, it has been serialized in Shueisha's magazine Weekly Young Jump with an English translation in 2014.

The anime's about an effort to colonize Mars where 21st century scientists are entrusted with terraforming the planet using a modified algae to absorb sunlight, purify the atmosphere and corpses of cockroaches to spread the algae across the planet as they feed.

The first crewed ship to Mars lands five hundred years later and its six crew members are attacked by giant mutated humanoid cockroaches with incredible physical strength, later labeled "Terraformars"; the crew is wiped out after sending a warning back to Earth.

Browsing through the internet, I came across a couple of books on this amazing sub-genre. I'm sharing them here.

- God's War by Kameron Hurley.

Summary: Nyx had already been to hell. One prayer more or less wouldn t make any difference...

On a ravaged, contaminated world, a centuries-old holy war rages, fought by a bloody mix of mercenaries, magicians, and conscripted soldiers. Though the origins of the war are shady and complex, there's one thing everybody agrees on--

There's not a chance in hell of ending it.

Nyx is a former government assassin who makes a living cutting off heads for cash. But when a dubious deal between her government and an alien gene pirate goes bad, Nyx's ugly past makes her the top pick for a covert recovery. The head they want her to bring home could end the war--but at what price?

The world is about to find out.

- Infidel by Kameron Hurley:

Blurb: The only thing worse than war is revolution. Especially when you're already losing the war...

Nyx used to be a bel dame, a government-funded assassin with a talent for cutting off heads for cash. Now she's babysitting diplomats to make ends meet and longing for the days when killing was a lot more honorable.

When Nyx's former bel dame "sisters" lead a coup against the government that threatens to plunge the country into civil war, Nyx is tasked with bringing them in. The hunt takes Nyx and her inglorious team of mercenaries to one of the richest, most peaceful, and most contaminated places on the planet - a country wholly unprepared to host a battle waged by the world's deadliest assassins.

In a rotten nation of sweet-tongued politicians, giant bugs, and renegade shape shifters, Nyx will forge unlikely allies and rekindle old acquaintances. And the bodies she leaves scattered across the continent this time... may include her own.

Because no matter where you go or how far you run in this world, one thing is certain: the bloody bel dames will find you.

- 7th Sigma by Steven Gould:

Summary: Welcome to the territory. Leave your metal behind, all of it. The bugs will eat it, and they'll go right through you to get it...Don't carry it, don't wear it, and for god's sake don't come here if you've got a pacemaker.

The bugs showed up about fifty years ago--self-replicating, solar-powered, metal-eating machines. No one knows where they came from. They don't like water, though, so they've stayed in the desert Southwest. The territory. People still live here, but they do it without metal. Log cabins, ceramics, what plastic they can get that will survive the sun and heat. Technology has adapted, and so have the people.

Kimble Monroe has chosen to live in the territory. He was born here, and he is extraordinarily well adapted to it. He's one in a million. Maybe one in a billion.

In 7th Sigma, Gould builds an extraordinary SF novel of survival and personal triumph against all the odds.

Feel free to tell them how you found them.

I searched a lot and couldn't find any bugpunk stories on Wattpad. If you do find some stories here, just link the comments below. And we have come to the end of a fantastic journey and wind up another article.

This is me, signing off. Take care, stay safe, happy and protected ❤️

Cheers, Nab =]  /