VelvetCyberpunk
Velvet Queen of Cyberpunk
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2003
- Messages
- 2
I adore it. It is my very favorite form od science fiction, and I would like to get a feel for what other people think of it as well. Blade Runner is my favorite movie, and William Gibson is one of my favorite authors. So, what do you all think? I have put a definition here under my post for those who may not know what it is. Any feed back is appreciated...
Definition
Cyberpunk is a form of science fiction that is set in the very near future. It portrays a world that may very well come about. Cyberpunk looks at the way the world could turn out if everything that is going on now continues in the same stupid way. Environmental catastrophe, rogue megacorporations, social chaos, and technology out of control, all feature in large scale. Everything is bleak, gritty, garish, noir-ish, but in a world of fast high tech . Cyberpunk is fast, fast, fast.
Inner Space
Cyberpunk is based on inner space, not outer space. Inner space is what is happening here and now. You are accessing this document through a sort of inner space - the Internet. Cyberpunk just looks at this development and takes it further. It asusmes technological development in bionics, cybernetics, and/or will enable the enhanced hacker to "jack" directly into the Net, an actual brain-computer interface that creates a "consensual hallucuination" - cyberspace.
the Cyberpunk Landscape
The setting of cyberpunk is essentually urban, (or at the very least suburban), the endless artificial landscape of the city run rampant, the "Sprawl" as William Gibson terms it. It is a world where man's greed and stupidity has destroyed the ecological balance, where the battle for the Earth has already been fought and lost. There is no need to explore hostile alien planets and landscapes; this Earth itself has become an alien and inhuman place.
the anti-hero
The bleakness of the Cyberpunk universe is matched only by the kewlness of the protagonists that inhabit that universe. And they have to be kewl to survive in such an environment. The Cyberpunk hero is an anti-hero, a rebel, a person who lives on the edge, outside the safe enclaves of the protected and coccooned middle and upper classes. There are few legal work or job options available outside the enclaves and no welfare net for the unfortunate or disenfranchised. The protagnists have to live by their wits, making do as best they can. He or she more often than not lives a black-market existence outside the law, not through choice but through necessity, as part of an insurgent subculture living in the cracks and crevices between the giant megacorp superpowers. Yet what exists and is traded in those cracks may have the potential to overthrow the status quo.
Definition
Cyberpunk is a form of science fiction that is set in the very near future. It portrays a world that may very well come about. Cyberpunk looks at the way the world could turn out if everything that is going on now continues in the same stupid way. Environmental catastrophe, rogue megacorporations, social chaos, and technology out of control, all feature in large scale. Everything is bleak, gritty, garish, noir-ish, but in a world of fast high tech . Cyberpunk is fast, fast, fast.
Inner Space
Cyberpunk is based on inner space, not outer space. Inner space is what is happening here and now. You are accessing this document through a sort of inner space - the Internet. Cyberpunk just looks at this development and takes it further. It asusmes technological development in bionics, cybernetics, and/or will enable the enhanced hacker to "jack" directly into the Net, an actual brain-computer interface that creates a "consensual hallucuination" - cyberspace.
the Cyberpunk Landscape
The setting of cyberpunk is essentually urban, (or at the very least suburban), the endless artificial landscape of the city run rampant, the "Sprawl" as William Gibson terms it. It is a world where man's greed and stupidity has destroyed the ecological balance, where the battle for the Earth has already been fought and lost. There is no need to explore hostile alien planets and landscapes; this Earth itself has become an alien and inhuman place.
the anti-hero
The bleakness of the Cyberpunk universe is matched only by the kewlness of the protagonists that inhabit that universe. And they have to be kewl to survive in such an environment. The Cyberpunk hero is an anti-hero, a rebel, a person who lives on the edge, outside the safe enclaves of the protected and coccooned middle and upper classes. There are few legal work or job options available outside the enclaves and no welfare net for the unfortunate or disenfranchised. The protagnists have to live by their wits, making do as best they can. He or she more often than not lives a black-market existence outside the law, not through choice but through necessity, as part of an insurgent subculture living in the cracks and crevices between the giant megacorp superpowers. Yet what exists and is traded in those cracks may have the potential to overthrow the status quo.