Punktown
by Jeffrey Thomas· 2021
In 1980, Jeffrey Thomas began writing his first stories set in the noirish, far future city called Punktown. Since that time, there have been further collections of short stories, plus a number of novels, two shared world anthologies, and a roleplaying game set in the Punktown universe.
Except in rare cases, the Punktown stories seldom share the same protagonist or continue a single plotline. They are glimpses into the lives of the city's remarkable denizens, so that the reader is like a drone, stealthily trailing after one character to spy on a critical event in their life before moving on to the next. These characters represent the colorful variety of Punktown's citizenry: the descendants of the human colonists who founded this city on a far-flung planet, the indigenous race called the Choom, fantastically imagined beings from a countless array of other worlds and even other dimensions, not to mention sentient machines.
Beyond the setting, there is no simple template, no predictable theme or approach for a Punktown story. Rife with grotesque imagery and nightmarish situations, most often they combine elements of horror with science fiction, but just as readily other genres such as crime fiction will enter into the mix, with the occasional nod to Lovecraft. Many of the stories function as a vehicle for social commentary, even satire of a darkly humorous nature.
First and foremost, these are stories of people — not always human in their physical makeup, but three-dimensional and relatable — living their desperate lives in a monstrous city that seems the personification of a universe intent on snuffing them out. This omnibus of three volumes collects several decades' worth of Punktown short fiction. A generous cross-section of the city's inhabitants is represented here. Gangsters and detectives, baristas and booksellers, cloned laborers and obsessed artists, mutants and lovers, monsters and ghosts. Whatever their guise, readers might well recognize themselves in one of them…or all of them.
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In 1980, Jeffrey Thomas began writing his first stories set in the noirish, far future city called Punktown. Since that time, there have been further collections of short stories, plus a number of novels, two shared world anthologies, and a roleplaying game set in the Punktown universe. Except in rare cases, the Punktown stories seldom share the same protagonist or continue a single plotline. They are glimpses into the lives of the city's remarkable denizens, so that the reader is like a drone, stealthily trailing after one character to spy on a critical event in their life before moving on to the next. These characters represent the colorful variety of Punktown's citizenry: the descendants of the human colonists who founded this city on a far-flung planet, the indigenous race called the Choom, fantastically imagined beings from a countless array of other worlds and even other dimensions, not to mention sentient machines. Beyond the setting, there is no simple template, no predictable theme or approach for a Punktown story. Rife with grotesque imagery and nightmarish situations, most often they combine elements of horror with science fiction, but just as readily other genres such as crime fiction will enter into the mix, with the occasional nod to Lovecraft. Many of the stories function as a vehicle for social commentary, even satire of a darkly humorous nature. First and foremost, these are stories of people — not always human in their physical makeup, but three-dimensional and relatable — living their desperate lives in a monstrous city that seems the personification of a universe intent on snuffing them out. This omnibus of three volumes collects several decades' worth of Punktown short fiction. A generous cross-section of the city's inhabitants is represented here. Gangsters and detectives, baristas and booksellers, cloned laborers and obsessed artists, mutants and lovers, monsters and ghosts. Whatever their guise, readers might well recognize themselves in one of them…or all of them.