Week Eleven Cyberpunk & Steampunk

Week Eleven Cyberpunk & Steampunk

This week I read Cyberpunk in the 90’s essay and Johnny Mnemonic by William Gibson. I loved the mood and character and environment Gibson gives us. In my mind I picture a sort of darker and more technologically advanced Blade Runner landscape. The characters all seem to have modified themselves in bizzare ways, and I like the descriptions that go with the modifications, and the strange assortment of characters in general. Almost every character in the story seems to have made some major body modifications.

This story has everything from a cybernetically enhanced navy dolphin with old school plate armor to a Yakuza hit man with retractable whip thumb that can kill in an instant. This is a simple straightforward enough plot set in a world that feels complex and extremely fleshed out for a short story. Johnny Mnemonic is a precursor to Gibson’s novel Neuromancer (I really look forward to reading this work).

I found the Cyberpunk in the 90’s essay to be really insightful. It was cool to learn more about the roots of cyberpunk and understand how from Sterling’s perspective the genre never existed to “outrage the bourgeoisie” but rather to reflect the realities of mega corporations, advancing technology and shifts in social institutions. I agree with Sterling’s demands for us western reader’s to face the truths of our “manic waste” and the definite ecological issues the world will face. He also speaks of the wars and millions who we will watch die on television “while eating hamburgers.” For an essay written year ago this is pretty much right on point. One of Sterling’s best lines in the essay is when he writes, “if writers close their eyes to this, they may be entertainers, but they are not fit to call themselves science fiction writers.”

It was interesting to talk about the death of cyberpunk in class and how a large part of it’s demise may be down to the fiction becoming our commonplace reality. I am really excited by the idea of this genre making a return in film and games! One of my favorite video game cinematics of recent times is the teaser for the still unreleased game Cyberpunk 2077.