Cyberpunk

Cyberpunk (a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk) is a genre of science fiction that focuses on computers or information technology, usually coupled with some degree of breakdown in social order. The plot of cyberpunk literature often revolves around the conflict between hackers, artificial intelligences, and mega corporations, tending to be set within a near-future dystopian Earth, rather than the "outer space" locales prevalent at the time of cyberpunk's inception. Much of the genre's "atmosphere" echoes film noir, and written works in the genre often use techniques from detective fiction. While this gritty, hard-bitten style was hailed as revolutionary during cyberpunk's early days, later observers concluded that, literarily speaking, most cyberpunk narrative techniques were less innovative than those of the New Wave, twenty years earlier. Primary exponents of the cyberpunk field include William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, John Shirley and Rudy Rucker. The term became widespread in the 1980s and remains current today.

Style

Cyberpunk writers tend to use elements from the hard-boiled detective novel, film noir, and postmodernist prose to describe the often nihilistic underground side of the digital society which started to evolve in the last two decades of the twentieth century. Cyberpunk's dystopian world has been called the antithesis of much of the mid-twentieth century's generally utopian visions of the future. Cyberpunk author Bruce Sterling summarized the cyberpunk ethos in the following way:

Related Topics:
Detective novel - Film noir - Postmodernist - Nihilistic - Twentieth century - Dystopian - Utopia - Bruce Sterling

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:Anything that can be done to a rat can be done to a human being. We can do just about anything you can imagine to rats. And closing your eyes and refusing to think about this won't make it go away.

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:That is cyberpunk.

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In cyberpunk literature, much of the action takes place online, in cyberspace making any clear borderline between the actual virtual reality blurred. A typical feature of the genre is a direct connection between the human brain and computer systems through advanced technology. Cyberpunk's world is a sinister, dark place with networked computers that dominate every aspect of life. Giant multinational corporations have for the most part replaced governments as centers of political, economical and even military power. The alienated outsider's battle against a totalitarian system is a common theme in science fiction and cyberpunk in particular, though in conventional science fiction the totalitarian systems tend to be sterile, ordered, and state controlled.

Related Topics:
Online - Cyberspace - Virtual reality - Network - Alienated - Totalitarian

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Protagonists in cyberpunk literature usually include computer hackers, who are often patterned on the idea of the lone hero fighting injustice: Western gunslingers, samurai (or ronin), ninja, etc. These individuals are often disenfranchised people placed in extraordinary situations, rather than brilliant scientists or starship captains intentionally seeking advance or adventure. One of the genre's prototype underdogs is the charactor Case from Gibson's Neuromancer; a brilliant hacker who has been physically robbed of his talent due to forces beyond his control. Like Case, many cyberpunk protagonists are the manipulated, and although they might see things through, they do not necessarily come out any further ahead than they previously were. These anti-heroes — "criminals, outcasts, visionaries, dissenters and misfits" {{ref|alt.cyberpunk.faq}} — do not experience a Campbellian "hero's journey", like a protagonist of Homer or Alexandre Dumas. Instead, they call to mind the private eye of detective novels, who might solve the trickiest cases but never receive a just reward for their effors. This emphasis on the misfits and the malcontents — what Thomas Pynchon called the "preterite" and Frank Zappa the "left behinds of the Great Society" — is the "punk" component of cyberpunk. Cyberpunk literature is often used as a metaphor for the present day-worries about the downsides of corporate dominance, corruption in governments, alienation and surveillance technology. As such, cyberpunk is often written with the intention of disquieting readers and calling them to action.

Related Topics:
Protagonist - Ronin - Underdogs - Neuromancer - Anti-heroes - Campbellian - Hero's journey - Homer - Alexandre Dumas - Private eye - Detective novel - Thomas Pynchon - Frank Zappa - Great Society - Surveillance technology

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A variety of commentators have taken the "canonical" cyberpunk works to task, pointing out dubious aspects of the genre. For example, many of the genre's heroines take after Neuromancer's Molly, becoming "razorgirls" who may have sex appeal for male science fiction readership but are hardly liberated or even well-developed characters. Feminist literary critics have found this tendency disturbing, particularly when compared to female protagonists in other dystopian SF (e.g., Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale). What's more, some of these critics have pointed out that cyberpunk's heroes often establish their masculinity by dominating a technology described with female metaphors — in essence, through metaphorical rape. These same heroes are often Americanized rogues, "cowboys" poised against the collectivist world of Japanese corporations or against European financial dynasties. Critics have noted that this reliance on the cowboy mythos meshes well with the images associated with Ronald Reagan, which is odd for a genre so strongly filled with punk rock and drug allusions. Nicola Nixon, assistant editor of the journal Postcolonial Studies, suggests this "complicity with '80s conservatism" in both economic and social respects implies "cyberpunk fiction is, in the end, not radical at all". {{ref|NicolaNixon}}

Related Topics:
Canonical - Sex appeal - Science fiction - Liberated - Feminist literary critics - Dystopia - Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale - Masculinity - Metaphor - Rape - Cowboy - Ronald Reagan - Punk rock - Drug - '80s

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Social theorists have sometimes analyzed cyberpunk stories as fictional forecasts of the evolution of the Internet. The virtual world of the Internet often appears under various names, including "cyberspace", the Wired, the Metaverse and the Matrix. In this context it is important to note that the earliest descriptions of a global communications network came long before the World Wide Web entered popular awareness, though not before social commentators like James Burke began predicting that such networks would eventually form.

Related Topics:
Internet - Virtual world - World Wide Web - James Burke

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