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I wish to explore the realm of Cyberpunk
Reznik
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Cyberpunk is rad and I would like to read/watch/play more of it.
I have read:
Neuromancer
Count Zero
(i'm going to be getting to Mona Lisa Overdrive soon)
I have watched:
Blade Runner
Escape from New York (if... that counts. I rented it after hearing it associated with cyberpunk but there was a lot less 'cyber' than I was hoping for. still a good flick, though)
The Matrix (1 and 2. 2 sucked, never saw 3, I pretend 1 is where it ended)
I have played:
Syndicate/Syndicate Plus
For gaming, I have a good PC and every Playstation.
I've also picked up some Shadowrun and Cyberpunk 2020 books but haven't dug in yet. From what I can tell 2020 is just "hey, let's slap PnP rules onto Gibson's Sprawl Trilogy".
Note: Heard there is some cyberpunk anime. I don't really like anime at all. But if it's more cyberpunk than it is anime, I'll give it a shot (if that makes any sense). Basically I don't dig the big-eyed androgynous art style or little kiddies saving the world, so if it's just a cyberpunk cartoon that happens to be made in Japan rather than something chock-full of anime cliches with a bit of cyberpunk, then cool.
So far my favourite of all those things has been Neuromancer.
Anyway, recommend away por favor.
I have read:
Neuromancer
Count Zero
(i'm going to be getting to Mona Lisa Overdrive soon)
I have watched:
Blade Runner
Escape from New York (if... that counts. I rented it after hearing it associated with cyberpunk but there was a lot less 'cyber' than I was hoping for. still a good flick, though)
The Matrix (1 and 2. 2 sucked, never saw 3, I pretend 1 is where it ended)
I have played:
Syndicate/Syndicate Plus
For gaming, I have a good PC and every Playstation.
I've also picked up some Shadowrun and Cyberpunk 2020 books but haven't dug in yet. From what I can tell 2020 is just "hey, let's slap PnP rules onto Gibson's Sprawl Trilogy".
Note: Heard there is some cyberpunk anime. I don't really like anime at all. But if it's more cyberpunk than it is anime, I'll give it a shot (if that makes any sense). Basically I don't dig the big-eyed androgynous art style or little kiddies saving the world, so if it's just a cyberpunk cartoon that happens to be made in Japan rather than something chock-full of anime cliches with a bit of cyberpunk, then cool.
So far my favourite of all those things has been Neuromancer.
Anyway, recommend away por favor.
Do... Re.... Mi... Ti... La...
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Forget it...
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
Reznik on
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Appleseed
Comics and Anime are both great.
Also play Deus Ex (1 & 2)
Does it play nice with newer computers?
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
Skip Johnny Mnemonic. Terrible, terrible adaptation. Read the book though.
yesss so many exploding brains.
it has many things i love: robots, cyborgs, martial arts, dark humor, exploding brains, all placed in a dystopia.
Next up check out Bruce Sterling's Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology. This is a collection of stories by various cyberpunk writers from around 1979-1986, assembled by Bruce Sterling, who is Gibson's friend, co-writer, and sort of the official chronicler and theorist of cyberpunk (and may have coined the word).
It's a wonderful sampler platter of various authors, all of whom have written some really good stuff, and will help give you an idea of where you might want to go next.
Sterling himself has written several books worth reading. I especially recommend his short story collection Crystal Express and his novels Schismatrix Plus and Holy Fire. He writes more down to earth, "realistic" cyberpunk than Gibson - where Gibson writes exciting prose-poetry about dangerous people, Sterling shows you a lot more of everyday life in a cyberpunk world. It's not as exciting, not as page-turning, but if you're really into the themes and ideas behind the genre, you'll find your brain will be afire with ideas afterwards.
As for the suggestions I've seen so far:
Snow Crash is a good book, but it's more of a parody of cyberpunk than anything; and in fact, its publication sort of marked the end of the serious, non-ironic use of cyberpunk tropes in prose fiction.
Deus Ex is one of the most brilliant games ever made. It should play nice with a modern machine if you make sure it's fully patched and up to date.
Then watch the television series, Ghost in the Shell: Stand-Alone Complex. I am recommending watching the film or reading the manga first because the series operates on the assumption that you are already somewhat familiar with the world, and doesn't really explain the concepts as well.
However, Stand-Alone Complex (and it's second season, 2nd Gig) have great overarching plots that can only come about in a digitally-driven society, and there are a lot of self-contained episodes with excellent mysteries/crimes with cyberpunk threads.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
For me, Ghost in The Shell took as big a step forward for the genre as Blade Runner did before it. It's an anime/manga, but isn't cliche' and explores the themes behind technology becoming increasingly integrated into society and what benefits and consequences that brings. I think the series (Stand Alone Complex and 2nd Gig) is overall superior, but as DP said, the viewer benefits from knowing the basics of the movies it's based on.
Music isn't something you probably considered, but Nine Inch Nail's album, Year Zero, is not only really good by itself, but takes place in a dystopian near-future and has strong cyberpunk elements to it. I highly recommend it.
It's anime, yes, but it doesn't have any of the anime cliches. It's for a more mature audience unlike all the other anime series that it seems you've been exposed to. Almost everything by Masamune Shirow (the author/illustrator of the Ghost in the Shell manga) is cyberpunk.
Battle Angel Alita is also a great manga that lacks the cliches that make anime unappealing to most and is an excellent cyberpunk story.
There are several decent cyberpunk anime series for our age group.
If you watch it as a comedy, its great.
Street Preacher: Who's Jones?
Spider: He's that guy... who fucks your mother!
Some really great lines that aren't supposed to be funny but come out that way.
The cheese factor is high but what do you expect? its keanu reeves.
This is an absolutely fantastic manga, and I highly suggest it. You can check out the Amazon listing here (oh damn, and buy the first volume for $0.26, sans shipping!). It's very well done.
Edit:This is a rather interesting series set in a fictional late 21st century. I don't want to spoil the story, but it has a very adventuristic storyline, it's easy to get into, and has lots of interesting characters.
It's available via Steam.
So, yes. I imagine so.
Oh, also, powerss is fucking with you. Don't play Deus Ex 2.
Uplink is a fun Cyberpunk-ish game, where you play as a hacker who starts from the bottom of the pile, breaking into, discovering new systems, and building up your machines.
Pi is another interesting, if understated movie. I enjoyed it...
Renaissance is a decent flick, with sort of a Blade Runner feel to it. You said you watched BR, so if you liked that, give this a go.
Uh.. yeah, there are tons of others, but most range from Campy to So Campy its Awesome.
Dig into that immediately.
Philip K. Dick - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, A Scanner Darkly, Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
Sam Delaney - Nova, Babel-17
JG Ballard - The Atrocity Exhibition
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive, Burning Chrome (short stories)
Walter Jon Williams:
Hardwired
PSN: Broichan
I'm actually kinda disappointed there are so few cyberpunk games. But I guess everyone loves boring old Tolkien fantasy or bald space marines shooting each other...
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
System Shock 1 and 2 are nice "cyberpunky" games. Probably best off just sticking with 2 in this day and age though...
Cyberpunk was a product of its time period. It's kind of like how you don't see 60's style protest songs being written anymore. For what still is produced, a lot of "cyberpunk" would be labeled by some as "postcyberpunk" since many of the themes have been changed or dropped to adapt with the times. For example, Ghost in the Shell has protagonists working for the government to keep the peace whereas more traditional cyberpunk involved horribly oppressive governments or government made up of megacorporations. We no longer fear the world turning into an urban dystopia controlled by Japanese electronics companies like we did in decades past.
Anyway, I'll also second reading "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep." A number of differences between it and Blade Runner with an interesting look at what kind of stuff society might treasure if it did become a decaying dystopia.
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Feral knows whereof he speaks. To the list I would add John Brunner's The Shockwave Rider, which basically predicted much of the "cyber" parts of cyberpunk (hacking and so forth) by five to ten years.
Either way, you should read Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis, the trades are pretty cheap on Amazon.
More transhuman themes than cyberpunk. Hence the name. Still, great read, and I'm recommending it too.
The exploration of society where complete human digitization is commonplace mixed with a healthy serving of detective noir makes for a very compelling read. The next two books in the series isn't very good, though.
Isn't cyberpunk just a specific type of transhumanism?
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Well. I think transhumanism (though older than cyberpunk) belongs firmly in the postcyberpunk camp, fiction-wise. But this is delving into the kind of genre wankery that I firmly loathe. :P
Okay, fair enough. That makes sense.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I think transhumanism is an element that can be used in cyberpunk, but it's not necessarily the defining element, unless you go for a really broad definition that encompasses new technology's impact on culture and everyday life. People talk about stuff like AI, and Japanese corporations, but those are just tropes and trappings, not definitions.
I like Bruce Sterling's definition of the genre in his introduction to Burning Chrome, where it's about a view of the future from the bottom up instead of the top down, and where the heroes aren't the scientists and engineers who make wonderful new things, or the cops and spaceship captains who use the technology, but the crooks and druggies and artists who take technology and repurpose it for their own ends. Punk used to be more than a hip suffix; it stood for a certain attitude and worldview.
So for this reason I like to draw a distinction between stuff that genuinely uses those themes, stuff like Gibson and Sterling's own work, and stuff that uses the cyberpunk ideas and imagery but doesn't capture the "punk." Like Ghost in the Shell - it's a wonderful book that I love, but I don't think it's cyberpunk, it's just "cyber," with authority figures using technology, all these lovingly-detailed guns and vehicles, to go after other people who are misusing technology.
Yes, I totally agree with this and I couldn't have said it any better. GiTS isn't really cyberpunk, but shares a lot of thematic and aesthetic elements with the genre. I think, by classic definitions, cyberpunk is pretty dead.