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<TITLE>CDNE Chapter 8 - Cyberpunk</TITLE>
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<p align="center"><FONT SIZE=3 FACE="Times New Roman"><FONT FACE="ARIAL" SIZE=5 COLOR="#0000a0"><B><font color="#000000" size="+2" face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Chapter
8<br>
CYBERPUNK</font></B></FONT ></FONT></p>
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<p><font face="Times New Roman"><b>Cyberpunk </b>is originally a literature-
and film-oriented movement. We will begin with literature.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">There are different science fiction genres
(abbreviated: </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><b>sci-fi</b></font>
<font face="Times New Roman">), and the definitions are somewhat arbitrary.
Sci-fi bibliographies often range across such wide areas as </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>fantasy</i></font>
<font face="Times New Roman"> and </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>horror</i></font>
<font face="Times New Roman">, but this book is not about science fiction
literature in general. I will therefore proceed to the part of sci-fi
that is called cyberpunk.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">The definition of cyberpunk is usually that
it is a book that resembles something written by </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><b>William
Gibson</b></font> <font face="Times New Roman">; a type of futuristic
account of society where advanced computer, nano-, and biotechnology as
well as artificial intelligence is part of the ordinary. The world is
rigidly segregated by a small, ruling elite of multinational corporations
and a large, brutal mass of regular people. Governments have yielded to
large conglomerates and mafias, which control the world. The action generally
takes place in enormous metropolitan areas of a ghetto-like character.
Drugs of all kinds are widely available, the pace is fast, and personal
and environmental descriptions are superficial and often (in the case
of Gibson) chock-full of trademarks and digital jargon. A typical cyberpunk
story is set around the year 2020.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Cyberpunk is usually referred to as </font>
<font face="Times New Roman"><i>dystopian</i></font> <font face="Times New Roman">,
as it describes something close to the opposite of a </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>utopia</i></font>
<font face="Times New Roman">. Most early science fiction novels were
utopian, where disease was a thing of times past, a unified political
system had replaced constant conflict, and the action usually centered
around a group of scientists on a mission across the universe, or on space
heroes such as </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>Flash Gordon</i></font>
<font face="Times New Roman">. The TV series </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>Star
Trek</i></font> <font face="Times New Roman"> is a definitive utopia.
It is not the case that a utopia has no problems; it is simply that "the
good guys" are always the winner and never morally questionable. All utopian
chronicles are optimistic visions of the society of the future.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">In a dystopia, many problems remain in the
world, the natural environment is almost completely ruined, and politics
is (as usual) chaotic. The books are therefore much more plausible than
classical sci-fi works, and has acquired a wide readership among people
who normally do not read sci-fi. Earlier, some were of the opinion that
it was unnecessary to descrabe realities that were </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>worse</i></font>
<font face="Times New Roman"> than the one on Earth. Some dystopian authors,
like Stephen King, therefore abandoned science fiction in favor of writing
horror literature. Dystopias are, however, more suitable for social criticism
than utopian works. Since many dystopias are satirical or comedic, cyberpunk
constitutes a sharp contrast through its cold realism. Other notable dystopias
are Karin </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><b>Boyes'</b></font> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>Kallocain</i></font>
<font face="Times New Roman"> and </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><b>George
Orwell's</b></font> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>1984</i></font> <font face="Times New Roman">.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Just like most US science fiction, cyberpunk
has its roots in so-called pulp fiction. Pulp is a rough cellulose material
used to make paper, and pulp fiction derives its name from the rough,
porous quality of the paper it was printed on. Since the film industry
was still at an embryonic stage, people read much more books and magazines,
and pulp was the "crude", cheap literature. Comics and TV series
such as Flash Gordon are also called pulp, since they were inspired by
stories and illustrations from these magazines. Pulp seems silly and incredibly
far-fetched to the normal Swedish reader, but for sci-fi lovers across
the world, pulp is the origin and source of all modern science fiction,
and the cause of its own subculture.</font></p>
<p>B<font face="Times New Roman"><b>ruce Sterling</b></font> <font face="Times New Roman">,
Gibson, and a few other sci-fi authors had their own pulp magazine called
</font> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>Cheap Truth</i></font> <font face="Times New Roman">.
Although it wasn't produced in the 50's, it was run in and with the same
spirit as the best early pulp magazines. They thought that no really good
sci-fi was being written. They encouraged people to get their own word
processors and write </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>good, vivid,
and readable</i></font> <font face="Times New Roman"> science fiction.
Not seldom did they come down on best-selling authors in the genre. An
interesting detail about Cheap Truth was that it wasn't copyrighted, and
that copying and distribution was encouraged.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Cyberpunk is a little more than this, but
the literary genre is basically synonymous with a small group of American
authors, of which William Gibson and Bruce Sterling were the most famous.
A few 2000 AD comics, especially </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>Judge
Dredd</i></font> <font face="Times New Roman">, are also considered cyberpunk,
since their world is somewhat similar to Gibson's dystopias. The term
cyberpunk was supposedly coined by a gentleman named </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><b>Gardner
Dozois</b></font> <font face="Times New Roman"> in a review of Gibson's
first book, </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>Neuromancer</i></font>
<font face="Times New Roman">. Dozois is said to have, in turn, gotten
that label from a short story by </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><b>Bruce
Bethke</b></font> <font face="Times New Roman">, which had been submitted
for his review.</font> <font face="Times New Roman"><sup><a href="#FTNT1">(1)</a></sup></font>
</p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">The message of the cyberpunk novel is one
of warning - the stories are nightmarish visions of a future society that
we risk becoming subjects of, unless we take precautions. The word </font>
<font face="Times New Roman"><i>cyberpunk</i></font> <font face="Times New Roman">
is derived from </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>cybernetics</i></font>
<font face="Times New Roman"> = humans or society in the interaction with
machines (from the greek </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>kybeternetes</i></font>
<font face="Times New Roman"> = first mate or pilot), and </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>punk
= </i></font> <font face="Times New Roman">virtually lawless individual
with a mildly anarchistic social view, cowboy style, living in the underground.</font>
</p>
<hr>
<a name="FTNT1"></a> 1.<font color="#999999"> </font> <font face="Times New Roman" color="#999999">
This resulted in a considerable amount of controversy. Bethke considered
it his right to define the term "cyberpunk", since he had invented
it. Bethke's definition does not coincide with Dozois's.</font><font face="Times New Roman"><br>
</font><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"> </font></td>
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