CYBERPUNK NOVELS:
CHARACTERISTICS:
- The setting is the near-future
- Focuses on high tech
- Information technology and cybernetics
- Low life or marginalized heroes
- Rebellion against the social order
- Conflict between hackers, robots and mega-corporations
- Dystopian
- the heroes are rebels
- there is some kind of injustice that needs to be turned around
- setting is in the future with a corrupt government or a society that exploits people
- society is controlled by wealthy and powerful people
QUOTES:
"Classic cyberpunk characters were marginalized, alienated loners who lived on the edge of society in generally dystopic futures where daily life was impacted by rapid technological change, an ubiquitous datasphere of computerized information, and invasive modification of the human body."
-- (Lawrence Person)
“... a closer look [at cyberpunk authors] reveals that they nearly always portray future societies in which governments have become wimpy and pathetic ...Popular science fiction tales by Gibson, Williams, Cadigan and others do depict Orwellian accumulations of power in the next century, but nearly always clutched in the secretive hands of a wealthy or corporate elite.”
-- (David Brin The Transparent Society, Basic Books, 1998.)
EXAMPLES:
FICTION:
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Altered Carbon by Richard K Morgan
Chasm City by Alistair Reynolds
Cyberpunk Elven Trilogy by Jess C. Scott (YA)
Feed by M. T. Anderson (YA)
The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson (YA)
MOVIES:
"Equilibrium"
"Minority Report"
"Tron"
RESOURCES:
SFAM. "Cyberpunk Movies by Decade." Updated February 6, 2007
<http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/cyberpunk-movies-by-decade/>
CHARACTERISTICS:
- The setting is the near-future
- Focuses on high tech
- Information technology and cybernetics
- Low life or marginalized heroes
- Rebellion against the social order
- Conflict between hackers, robots and mega-corporations
- Dystopian
- the heroes are rebels
- there is some kind of injustice that needs to be turned around
- setting is in the future with a corrupt government or a society that exploits people
- society is controlled by wealthy and powerful people
QUOTES:
"Classic cyberpunk characters were marginalized, alienated loners who lived on the edge of society in generally dystopic futures where daily life was impacted by rapid technological change, an ubiquitous datasphere of computerized information, and invasive modification of the human body."
-- (Lawrence Person)
“... a closer look [at cyberpunk authors] reveals that they nearly always portray future societies in which governments have become wimpy and pathetic ...Popular science fiction tales by Gibson, Williams, Cadigan and others do depict Orwellian accumulations of power in the next century, but nearly always clutched in the secretive hands of a wealthy or corporate elite.”
-- (David Brin The Transparent Society, Basic Books, 1998.)
EXAMPLES:
FICTION:
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Altered Carbon by Richard K Morgan
Chasm City by Alistair Reynolds
Cyberpunk Elven Trilogy by Jess C. Scott (YA)
Feed by M. T. Anderson (YA)
The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson (YA)
MOVIES:
"Equilibrium"
"Minority Report"
"Tron"
RESOURCES:
SFAM. "Cyberpunk Movies by Decade." Updated February 6, 2007
<http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/cyberpunk-movies-by-decade/>