Navigating the Deserts of Science Fiction: How to Write Desert Punk
By J.D. Harlock
Desert Punk is a subgenre of science fiction (SF) with a hard edge, featuring individuals or societies utilizing advanced science and tech to survive in a desert climate. Works in the genre tend to be set on desert planets or the Earth following a cataclysmic event. Mars in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ seminal Barsoom series or the Outback from the Mad Max franchise come to mind as prominent examples, but the genre is prevalent enough that it’s found a home in all mediums from comics (DC Comics’ Hex) to video games (Gearbox Software’s Borderlands) to tabletop roleplaying games (Games Workshop’s Gorkamorka), animation (Studio Gainax’s Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann), television (FOX’s Firefly), and even music (Sleep’s Dopesmoker). The following guide is an introduction to writing in this underappreciated genre that’s more influential than most SFF fans ever realize.
1- Familiarize Yourself With the Genre, But Don’t Lean Into Its Cliches
Desert Punk writers’ tendency to reuse the same set of tropes gives off the impression that every plotline has to revolve around a band of misfits scraping by in a hot desert climate in search of water while avoiding rogue bandits and fending off members of whichever kratocratic regime has taken hold.
But it doesn’t have to be this way:
- thatgamecompany’s Journey is one of the most prominent examples of the genre in video games, even if it doesn’t initially seem like one. Although the game has you guide a nameless robed figure across the desert to reach a mountain, uncovering more of the world’s post-apocalyptic lore as it goes along, the feel is more reminiscent of an avant-garde heroic fantasy due to the experimental presentation.
- Unlike most examples of the genre, The Book of Boba Fett opts to do away with the tired road trip narrative the subgenre is plagued with and focuses on the political intrigue a Desert Punk setting like Tatooine might offer.
This approach should be your starting point when tackling Desert Punk, as it’s been around for quite some time. Even though most genre fans don’t know it by name, they’re more familiar with its tropes than you’d have otherwise assumed.
2- Envision the “Desert” in Your Desert Punk
Deserts in Desert Punk fiction don’t necessarily need to adhere to the conditions we typically associate with them. After all, desert climates don’t only exist in the MENA, American West, and Outback. Few seem to be aware that there are two primary variations of a desert climate: a hot desert climate (BWh) and a cold desert climate (BWk), according to the Köppen climate classification, which is currently the most widely used climate classification scheme. Researching others around the (and out of this) world could inspire new elements to introduce into the setting, especially if the desert in question is set on a remote planet or a universe that does not adhere to our laws of physics.
3- Figure Out Who Inhabits It
Due to the difficulty inherent in creating believable fictional cultures, writers in the genre usually draw from the Wild West era of the American West (e.g., the marginally terraformed border worlds and moons in Firefly) or the pre-modern era of Middle Eastern bedouin tribes (e.g., Arakkis in Dune), two distinct periods strongly associated with the hot desert climate. Aside from the logical absurdities posed by having societies with advanced science and tech living in ways nearly identical to those that preceded us, Desert Punk writers’ tendency to draw on these distinct real-world inspirations has made it an incubator of unfortunate ethnic stereotypes. For example, we are introduced to the Tusken Raiders in Star Wars: A New Hope as a dehumanized race of xenophobic desert bandits modeled after the Western stereotypes associated with bedouins of the Middle East. Later writers in the franchise have attempted to ameliorate the problem, but the Tusken Raiders remain one of the least fleshed-out fantasy races in the mainstream canon.
In contrast to these Wild West-inspired and Arabesque settings, the Fallout video game franchise is lauded for its unique Desert Punk setting that drew from the 1950s America’s popular conceptions of the future in an alternate history where a nuclear apocalypse took place during the Cold War. The fact that the Desert Punk settings can be artificially created deserts or on desert planets that any race or species could colonize means that what a Desert Punk setting could be is malleable to just about anything you can come up with.
4- Explain How & Why They Do
Just because Desert Punk settings are open to the imagination doesn’t mean that anything could fly if you don’t put in the work. Even though a suspension of disbelief is often needed to enjoy Desert Punk fiction, the genre’s tendency to highlight the harshness of the desert setting inadvertently makes it hard to believe that a society could’ve survived under these conditions. If the drama is to be taken seriously, investing in strong worldbuilding is integral and must demonstrate how societies in these settings have managed to navigate this world. Dune has its fair share of silliness when it comes to its world-building. However, generations of readers have been so enthralled by the narrative because sections dedicated to fleshing out the setting sell Arrakis to the reader.
5- Don’t Lose Sight of the Characters
Although Desert Punk writers often deliver when it comes to the worldbuilding and lore, their tendency to imbue the storytelling with so much cynicism (especially early on) makes it feel like any investment in the narrative is pointless. Even if the piece you’re writing is an extended tract on why humanity sucks, you shouldn’t shortchange the characterization needed to make your characters interesting enough that we’d want to follow them on this grim journey through a bleak world. You can’t break your readers’ hearts if their hearts aren’t invested in the story in the first place.
AUTHOR BIO
J.D. Harlock is an Eisner-nominated American writer, research, editor, and academic pursuing a doctoral degree at the University of St. Andrews, whose writing has been featured in Business Insider, Newsweek, The Cincinnati Review, Strange Horizons, Nightmare Magazine, The Griffith Review, Queen’s Quarterly, and New York University’s Library of Arabic Literature. You can find him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Threads, & Instagram.
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