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Boundaries in Cyberpunk Fiction: William Gibson's Neuromancer Trilogy, Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix, and Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash
BOUNDARIES IN CYBERPUNK FICTION: WILLIAM GIBSON'S NEUROMANCER TRILOGY, BRUCE STERLING'S SCHISMATRIX, AND NEAL STEPHENSON'S SNOW CRASH by Michelle Toerien Thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts at the University of Stellenbosch Supervisor: Mr. R. Goodman March 2000 Stellenbosch University http://scholar.sun.ac.za Declaration: I, the undersigned, hereby declare that the work contained in this thesis is my own original work and that I have not previously in its entirety, or in any part, submitted it at any university for a degree. Signature: Date: Stellenbosch University http://scholar.sun.ac.za ABSTRACT Cyberpunk literature explores the effects that developments in technology will have on the lives of individuals in the future. Technology is seen as having the potential to be of benefit to society, but it is also seen as a dangerous tool that can be used to severely limit humanity's freedom. Most of the characters in the texts I examine wish to perpetuate the boundaries that contain them in a desperate search for stability. Only a few individuals manage to move beyond the boundaries created by multinational corporations that use technology, drugs or religion for their own benefit. This thesis will provide a definition of cyberpunk and explore its development from science fiction and postmodern writing. The influence of postmodern thinking on cyberpunk literature can be seen in its move from stability to fluidity, and in its insistence on the impossibility of creating fixed boundaries. Cyberpunk does not see the future of humanity as stable, and argues that it will be necessary for humanity to move beyond the boundaries that contain it. -
Several Authors Blank
“William Gibson”1 Christophe Den Tandt Université Libre de Bruxelles (U L B) 1997 Biography William Ford Gibson was born on March 17, 1948 in Conway, South Carolina; he was raised in a southwest Virginia small town. His father, a contractor, had worked on the Manhattan project—the development of the American atom bomb during WWII—and died when William was six. In the sixties, Gibson dropped out of high school and moved to Canada, where he joined the local hippie scene; he became a devoted rock fan—a cultural interest that would later influence his fiction. An opponent to the Viêt Nam War, he stayed in Canada in order to avoid being drafted. In 1972, he married Deborah Thomson, a teacher, with whom he had two children. The couple settled in Vancouver. Gibson took his B.A. at the University of British Columbia in 1977. He discov- ered his potential as a writer when taking a science fiction class in college. His first stories, "Fragments of a Hologram Rose," "The Gernsback Continuum" and "Johnny Mnemonic" were published in science-fiction magazines in the late seventies and early eighties. Gibson was at the time a member of the "cyberpunk" group—a set of authors gathering around writer and critic Bruce Sterling, the editor of the SF fanzine Cheap Truths. In the mid-eighties, two events contribut- ed to making cyberpunk the new vital edge of science-fiction: on the one hand, Gibson published his first novel Neuromancer (1984), which was granted the Nebula, Hugo and Philip K. Dick Awards the same year; on the other hand, Bruce Sterling published Mirrorshades (1986), an anthology of cyberpunk short stories, several of which by Gibson; Sterling's preface to the collection defined the characteristics of cyber- punk as a genre. -
The Gernsback Continuum”1
FRANCISCO COLLADO-RODRÍGUEZ THE IMPERFECTIONS OF A FUTURE PAST: TRAUMA, POSTHUMANITY, AND SCI-FI IN WILLIAM GIBSON’S “THE GERNSBACK CONTINUUM”1 Introduction: A matter of time In recent years, technologically overdeveloped societies have suffered from what seems to be the ideological and cultu- ral effects of a new paradigm that combines the master narra- tives of trauma and posthumanity. Perhaps as result of their continuous exposure to the mass media,2 contemporary mani- festations of popular culture are leading us into an understan- ding of humanity as being quintessentially exposed to multip- le traumas and continuous dangers while paradoxically living in a hypertechnological renovation of being in which our bodi- es become gradually improved when not forgotten or even physically dissolved for the benefit of a new articulation of the late human being as a new posthuman creature, an ideological and scientific entity essentially constructed of and by informa- tion and its processing. The main aim of this paper is to retri- eve and analyze some literary “memories as projections of the future” belonging to the core ideological point, a few decades 1 The writing of this article has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (FFI2015-63506-P) and the Aragonese Regional Government – DGA. 2 Holt N. Parker, “Toward a Definition of Popular Culture,” History and Theory, vol. 50 (May 2011): 156. 177 ago, in which Sci-Fi started to offer, thanks to the development of cyberpunk, glimpses of this new and problematic articulati- on of being as a conflicting processor of painful information and forerunner of a languishing traumatized humanity. -
Cyberpunk in a Transnational Context
arts Cyberpunk in a Transnational Context Edited by Takayuki Tatsumi Printed Edition of the Special Issue Published in Arts www.mdpi.com/journal/arts Cyberpunk in a Transnational Context Cyberpunk in a Transnational Context Special Issue Editor Takayuki Tatsumi MDPI • Basel • Beijing • Wuhan • Barcelona • Belgrade Special Issue Editor Takayuki Tatsumi Keio University Japan Editorial Office MDPI St. Alban-Anlage 66 4052 Basel, Switzerland This is a reprint of articles from the Special Issue published online in the open access journal Arts (ISSN 2076-0752) from 2018 to 2019 (available at: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/arts/special issues/cyberpunk) For citation purposes, cite each article independently as indicated on the article page online and as indicated below: LastName, A.A.; LastName, B.B.; LastName, C.C. Article Title. Journal Name Year, Article Number, Page Range. ISBN 978-3-03921-421-1 (Pbk) ISBN 978-3-03921–422-8 (PDF) Cover image courtesy of ni ka: ”Hikari” (Light). c 2019 by the authors. Articles in this book are Open Access and distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows users to download, copy and build upon published articles, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications. The book as a whole is distributed by MDPI under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. Contents About the Special Issue Editor ...................................... vii Preface to ”Cyberpunk in a Transnational Context” .......................... ix Takayuki Tatsumi The Future of Cyberpunk Criticism: Introduction to Transpacific Cyberpunk Reprinted from: Arts 2019, 8, 40, doi:10.3390/arts8010040 ...................... -
Butschek, Blake
Beyond Neuromantics and Mirrorshades: Cyberpunk and Its Global Implications Blake Butschek HMN 679HB Special Honors for the Humanities Program The College of Liberal Arts The University of Texas at Austin May 2020 ________________________________________ Dr. Thomas J. Garza Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies Supervising Professor ________________________________________ Dr. Elizabeth M. Richmond-Garza Department of English Second Reader Butschek 1 Beyond Neuromantics and Mirrorshades: Cyberpunk and Its Global Implications Blake Anthony Butschek, B.A. The University of Texas at Austin, 2020 Supervisor: Thomas J. Garza Abstract This independent research seeks to analyze the socio-political elements surrounding the formation and aspects of cyberpunk, drawing parallels between the twentieth-century fiction and the twenty-first-century reality. Cyberpunk refers to the science fiction subgenre encompassing a high tech, low life world which fuses advanced technologies with a dark, broken near-future dystopia. The genre initially sought to move beyond the utopian, idealistic science fiction of the early to the mid-twentieth century into a more realistic depiction of what technological developments and socio-political realities of the time would lead to in the near future. The three sections of this research allow for an in-depth analysis of what brought forth the creation of the genre, what defines its works and texts, and how the genre’s commentaries apply to society and culture at large. First, a foundational analysis exploring the influencing factors on the early visionaries of the genre will contextualize the origins of this ideology. Then, the exploration of two seminal texts of cyberpunk, Ridley Scott's 1982 Blade Runner and Butschek 2 Mamoru Oshii's 1995 Ghost in the Shell, through a close textual reading will illuminate commentary from their creators on their perceptions of the world at that time and in a possible future. -
Beyond Disability: Extraordinary Bodies in the Work of William Gibson
Beyond Disability: Extraordinary Bodies in the Work of William Gibson Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades der Philosophischen Fakultät der Universität zu Köln im Fach Englische Philologie vorgelegt von Olga Tarapata geb. am 10.05.1987 in Ratibor (Polen) Köln, 03.04.2018 Olga Tarapata (Dr. phil.) studied English, Biology, and Educational Sciences at the University of Cologne. She completed her dissertation as a scholarship holder of the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne in 2018. She specializes in North American literature and culture, science fiction, and disability studies. Olga Tarapata Beyond Disability: Extraordinary Bodies in the Work of William Gibson This book is a slightly revised version of the author’s doctoral thesis completed in 2018 at the University of Cologne, Faculty of Arts and Humanities. Table of Contents Acknowledgements | 7 1. Introduction: From Prostheses to Processes | 9 2. The Extraordinary Body in Theory | 34 2.1 The Body and Medicine | 34 2.1.1 The Normal Body | 34 2.1.2 The Medical Model of Disability | 42 2.1.3 Medical Romanticism | 44 2.1.4 Mechanical Romantics and Technoromanticism | 45 2.1.5 The Norm and the Novel | 46 2.2 The Body and Society | 52 2.2.1 The Social Model of Disability | 52 2.2.2 Intersectionality | 56 2.3 The Body and Actor-Networks | 66 2.3.1 Actor-Network Theory and the Articulation of the Body | 67 2.3.2 Towards a New Disability Realism | 71 3. Revisiting the Body in Gibson’s Reception | 77 4. The Extraordinary Body in Fiction | 86 4.1. -
The Evolution of Cyberpunk Into Postcyberpunk
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Doctorat en Filologia Anglesa Los sistemas participativos en las políticasThe evolutionde gestión of cyberpunk de into RSU postcyberpunk The role of cognitive cyberspaces, wetware networks and nanotechnology in Ejemplos de best-practicesscience fiction y el caso español Doctoral Dissertation By Rafael Miranda Huereca Proyecto de Final de Carrera Licenciatura de Ciencias SupervisedAmbientales, by Dra. UAB Sara Martín Alegre Autor: Roger JulyGiménez 2011 Piedra Tutora: Nuria Font The present dissertation was written with the kind support of Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACyT), México. Table of Contents Introduction: the 1980s scene, cyberpunk and its derivatives ................................1 Chapter I: Socialized computer networks: the reaction of The Diamond Age to cyberpunk’s technophobia..............................................................................17 Plot summary of The Diamond Age ......................................................................17 I.1 The male struggle for supremacy: technocracies and post-nation states ........................................................................................................................22 I.1.1 Bud and Harv: lowlife cyborgs and other vestiges from cyberpunk ............22 I.1.2 Victorian education and technologies: the imperialist methods to perpetuate power ..................................................................................................38 I.1.3 The Confucian world: the Eastern contributions -
Some Aspects of California Cyberpunk
arts Article Some Aspects of California Cyberpunk Mike Mosher Art/Communication Multimedia, Saginaw Valley State University, Michigan, MI 48710, USA; [email protected] Received: 23 July 2018; Accepted: 18 September 2018; Published: 27 September 2018 Abstract: This paper explores the rise and fall of Cyberpunk influences in California’s Silicon Valley and San Francisco Bay area circa 1988–93, in prevalent technologies, industry, by artists and in enthusiastic magazines thriving there. Attentive to the Cyberpunk novelists, an animating spirituality of the time also looks to Timothy Leary and Marshall McLuhan. Keywords: cyberpunk; YLEM artists using science and technology; SCAN; virtual reality; HyperCard; MONDO 2000; Timothy Leary; bOING bOING; Marshall McLuhan 1. Introduction Cyberpunk is a literary genre. Yet to some of us in a certain time and place, twenty-five or thirty years ago in Silicon Valley, northern California, it is most recalled as a moment as full of characteristic constellations of sights and sounds and tropes and topics and toys and tools and conversations, sometimes consciously looking to Cyberpunk fiction for its validation. Simultaneity of experience and representations is a hallmark of Postmodernism (William Gibson in the Economist, 4 December 2003: “The future is already here—it’s just not evenly distributed”.) (Mortensen 2018). To pull in a metaphor from media design, a popular late-1980s style of magazine illustration and videos called Blendo made use of video, still photography, animation and hand drawing, for digital compositing tools allowed their coordination; this might also serve to represent the eclectic style and content of the lifestyle Cyberpunk moment, its contradictory polished clarity and evocative ambiguities. -
Preface to Mirrorshades
Preface to Mirrorshades Bruce Sterling 1986 This book showcases writers who have come to prominence within this decade. Their allegiance to Eighties culture has marked them as a group as a new movement in science fiction. This movement was quickly recognized and given many labels : Radical Hard SF, the Outlaw Technologists, the Eighties Wave, the Neuromantics, the Mirrorshades Group. But of all the labels pasted on and peeled throughout the early Eighties, one has stuck : cyberpunk. Scarcely any writer is happy about labels - especially one with the peculiar ring of "cyberpunk". Literary tags carry an odd kind of double obnoxiousness : those with a label feel pigeonholed; those without feel neglected. And, somehow, group labels never quite fit the individual, giving rise to an abiding itchiness. It follows, then, that the "typical cyberpunk writer" does not exist; this person is only a Platonic fiction. For the rest of us, our label is an uneasy bed of Procrustes, where fiendish critics wait to lop and stretch us to fit. Yet it's possible to make broad statements about cyberpunk and to establish its identifying traits. I'll be doing this too in a moment, for the temptation is far too strong to resist. Critics, myself included, persist in label- mongering, despite all warnings; we must, because it's a valid source of insight - as well as great fun. Within this book, I hope to present a full overview of the cyberpunk movement, including its early rumblings and the current state of the art. Mirrorshades should give readers new to Movement writing a broad introduction to cyberpunk's tenets themes, and topics. -
< Appendix: a Cyberpunk Time Line
½¾ Appendix: A Cyberpunk Time Line Year Milestone in the History of Cyberpunk 1979 — Louis Shiner moves to Austin (Texas) and joins “Turkey City Neo-Pro Rodeo and Writer’s Workshop,” where he meets Bruce Sterling. 1981 — Sterling introduces William Gibson’s manuscript for “Burning Chrome” at the writer’s workshop in Austin. — Gardner Dozois writes about “punk SF” in the introduction to the Best of the Year collection, which he also edits. — Gibson’s “Johnny Mnemonic” is published in Omni (May). — Gibson sends Terry Carr at Ace Books an outline of a novel to be called Jacked In (October). 1982 — Gibson sends Carr an expanded outline for his novel, now to be called Neuromancer (January). — Gibson appears at Armadillo Con (October) together with Sterling and Shiner. He reads the opening chapters of his work-in-progress, Neuromancer. A discussion panel is held with the title “Behind the Mirrorshades: A Look at Punk SF.” — Blade Runner (dir. Ridley Scott), based on Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), is released. Gibson reports leaving the movie theater while watching it, because the atmosphere and setting closely resembled the book he was writing. 232 VIRTUAL GEOGRAPHIES ½¾ 1983 — Rudy Rucker issues “A Transrealist Manifesto” in The Bulletin of the Science Fiction Writers of America, which proposes “Transrealism” as an alternative movement to cyberpunk. It never caught on and remained confined to Rucker. — John Kessel presents a lecture to the English Club at North Carolina State University. He talks about “punk science fiction,” referring explicitly to Gibson and Sterling. — John Shirley, in his talk to the Eastern Science Fiction Association, mentions Gibson, Shiner and Sterling as part of “The New Movement.” — Cheap Truth, an uncopyrighted xeroxed fanzine, begins publication.