Post-cyberpunk? Why not Cyberpunk 2.0!

I was thinking about it yesterday, and I agree with stepping aside from cyberpunk terms. It’s like we used to consider the whole cyberpunk environment as a thing of the future, and now it turned out that we caught up with it, but our techno-reality is completely different…

Hi Whisperer, Welcome!

Just for clarification, are you saying to do away with both cyberpunk and post cyberpunk or to remove the distinction between the two? I do agree though that our understanding of “techno-reality” has evolved significantly since the 80s. Yet I think its almost folly to say that we have clear insight to how this dramatic increase in the co-evolution, and now merging of man and his tools will affect humanity over the next hundred to two hundred years. The amount of diversity in the population is staggering - so much so that its nigh impossible for any governing body to come close to dealing with the Law of Requisite Variety (this is the foundation of cybernetics - variety is the measure of complexity, the law governs the management of complexity). Society as a whole seems to be spiraling out of control in some ways, yet its coalescing in others. What seems to be emerging is something altogether different.

For those reasons, I do truly feel that cyberpunk as a term still has validity. If nothing else, movies like Paranoia 1.0 (review coming) should scare the pants off of anyone seriously considering brain augmentation.

Nice proclimation concerning the BS around the premature pronouncement of cyberpunks death. Cyberpunk today, as you point out, is part of our daily lives. It’s not post-cyberpunk, but transcyberpunk (IMO). Anyhow, keep up the fight, and tune into our little program of transcyberpunk at cyberpunkradio SF and Hack vTV (two of our efforts to foster the cyberpunk lifestyle).

Hi Defwheezer, welcome to the site!

Transcyberpunk. Hmmm…I’ll have to mull that over. I do agree that we are current experiencing something altogether different than was out in the 80s (Larsen made this point as well). Our understanding of the digital world has definitely matured. but I still think there’s value in looking at potential near-future impacts of this. Transhumanists also do this.

And Hack TV - is this the same HackTV as this site?
http://feeds.feedburner.com/HackVtv-CyberpunkTv

I listened to the first one of those the other day and really enjoyed it. I’ll definitely give your website a go - looks like it has lots of cool stuff there!

If I could identify one differentiating factor between cyberpunk and so-called post-cyberpunk, I would say that it is a kind of feeling of connectedness. In the classics of cyberpunk, eg Neuromancer and Blade Runner, there is this feeling of complete isolation. And that isolation is created both by the parameters of the society, and the influence of technology on that society. To me, that sense of utter aloneness is a major theme of cyberpunk, or at least part of the ambience.
While, on the other hand, “post-cyberpunk” eg Stephenson and Cory Doctorow, has this sense of connectedness. The networks that connect everyone are not a “concensual hallucination” (even when you’re concensually hallucinating, you’re still hallucinating, which is a lonely activity), instead the networks feel much more integrated into daily life, as we have come to view OUR networks. Technology in the new “post-cyberpunk” connects people instead of isolating them.

That being said, I agree that the term “post-cyberpunk” is basically bullshit. It’s just trying to link different waves of sci fi because they both deal so enormously with technology, the network, the machine. But, that is not very surprising, considering these issues are still just as much a part of our lives as they were in the eighties. Plus, the so called post-cyberpunk authors like Stephenson and Doctorow are doing new interesting things, I don’t think they deserve to just be tacked on to the post-side of someone else’s movement.

Hi Desirina, welcome to Cyberpunk Review!

Great comments - for the most part I agree with everything you’ve said, especially the tacked on comment. A better way of looking at it (I think) is that the movement has far surpassed its original roots. As you mention, since we as a society have moved into this new technological word, the interconnectedness that a networked society has brought us clearly wasn’t evident in the earlier works. That said, there are still many cyberpunk works which have this “utter aloneness” sense you describe. In movies, Natural City, Save the Green Planet, and One Point O are just a few movies off the top of my head done in the last few years which have a pervading aloneness quality. Perhaps we should have “aloneness” and “networked” as the “ub-distinctions inside of cyberpunk - that some works focus on the individual whereas others clearly focus on the interactions of the whole.

Just another random thought, maybe our sense of being alone is different in a networked society too. In the real world, we seem to be developing a generation of recluses who are more comfortable chatting with friends online than they are meeting them in person (not everyone, obviously, but a far larger proportion than previously). Serial Experiments Lain really captures this sentiment well in anime. One Point O does this wonderfully with real actors, and even hits home the point that people feel more “human” in the digital world than they do in the real world.

Sup SFAM,

Nice to see your site growing
In regards to your post: Post-Cyberpunk…. OH boy, here we go [I agree hands down with your cp 2.0!]. I have ranted to no end about the fact that Cyberpunk is NOT dead… yada, yada, yada. The problem being, that most think that Cyberpunk is a technological truth when in fact it is not.
Cyberpunk is more of a philosophy than anything else, and to say that we have caught up is true in only some respects… yes today’s tech is much different to that of the 80s movies… but is that what CP is really about? I think not!

Take care mate… and great job!

DoomAng3l
http://www.theblacksun.org

Hi DoomAng3l, I definitely think cyberpunk as a concept and genre has grown past the originator’s ideas. That they think they can proclaim it to be dead simply because it has morphed into something else is almost a bit too presumptive to me. Because cyberpunk has morphed into something larger, this is similar to saying, “My baby is dead - a child has taken it’s place!”

Hiya, my concept of post-cyberpunk would be Stamping Butterflies by Jon Courtenay Grimwood and/or The Diamond Age
by Neal Stephenson.Both novels contain a harkening to ages
past - or should that be future societies embraceing ancient
cultures, a chinese emporer in outerspace, victorian aristocrats
parading about in zeppelin etc - this is as it should be and something that writers of gothic novels Anne Rice et al have been doin for yonks.So, question being….is ‘post’-cyberpunk in
fact merely an amalgamation of two ’sub’-genres…..The Sandman uploaded to a cyber-dreamscape; anyone?

Hey Joe90UK,

If you liked NS Diamond Age, read China Mieville’s Perdido Street station…. You will like it.

With regards to your comment, I would say that your descriptions and examples are bleeding on the edges of Steampunk more so than ‘post punk’. The Victorians are a popular establishment of society in Steampunk….

And my question to you is … is CYBERPUNK, not a culture jam of sorts to begin with anyway?

Hi Joe90UK, welcome to cyberpunk review! I agree with you that given Person’s definition of post-cyberpunk, Diamond Age certainly fits (I haven’t had the pleasure of reading Stamping Butterflies, unfortunately). But my question really is whether there is a need to deconstruct cyberpunk as a term and to create a new sub-genre called “Post-cyberpunk.” Personally, I don’t buy it - the distinctions aren’t universal, nor are they in any way lasting, as my list above points out. It seems to me that a far more reasoned approach would be to expand the definition of cyberpunk to be something that has outgrown what was envisioned by the 80s fiction writers.

Also, I’m interested to hear your answer to DoomAng3l’s question, and look forward to seeing you on here more (and yeah, Sandman rocks!)

Ello again, in response to doomAng3l question - Yeah I guess!
Though in Bruce Sterlings case culture-riff is more apt.And
SFAM I get your point and s’true why bother with the post in
the digital age, right I was browsing thru Nmancer today and
it struck me how concise and fast paced the writing is even com-
pared to Gibsons later works.Perhaps cyberpunk in its purest
sense is not in the plotline but in the streamline if so perhaps abstract titilations about anorak-ish topics need a slightly expanded title for the slightly expanded waistlines of the books.hehe. Perhaps ‘near-future sci-fi’ is a more all encomposing term as it invites in those who may not be familiar with the cyberpunk genre.

Hmm…near-future scifi, ey? I do think that cyberpunk has a pretty clear set of themes it explores. There are lots of near-future scifi shows that I wouldn’t consider cyberpunk. That said, I’d take that over the post-cyberpunk thing, as I really don’t think this term holds enough meaning to be “meaningful.” By going to the “near-future” term, we would basically be saying that neither term has any meaning.

Joe90UK & SFAM,

Good points, both of you.

My view [personal]: The most important aspects of CP [barring the actual story] are 1. The Protagonist and 2. The atmosphere, and in saying that, I believe the timestamp is completely irrelevant provided it is in an age of technology.

Much of the near future shows and movies have the atmosphere, but completely lack the hardcore protagonist.

And remember: CP does not make you lift your eyebrows and go ‘wow’, it kicks you in the nuts and makes you gasp for breath.

Hi DoomAng3l, I like your description of cyberpunk’s effect

And I do agree with the protagonist and the atmosphere part, although I also think the themes need to be there.

Great article. Genre definitions are only settled retrospectively, we may wait a hundred years before critics proclaim that they have post-modernism and it’s successor all worked out. Perhaps one of the problems with living in a so-called post-modern age is the utter resistance of clear genre boundaries and categories.

I think the term post-cyberpunk may be meaningless but it has been important in drawing attention to the evolution of the genre. Almost the entirety of 50’s Sci-Fi failed to predict the internet and the CP of the late 70’s & 80’s was revolutionary in re-imagining a vision of the future based on present trends.

But of course, as the present trends change so do the imaginings. The problem with being so close to the decade of emergent CP is that we are desperate to move beyond it’s highly stylized 80’s imagery, even the term ‘cyberpunk’ somehow sounds outdated. But in doing so we risk destroying the very distinction this genre affords.

The future didn’t turn out as bleak as we thought? Maybe. Alienation and isolation are gone, heroes are those who uphold the status-quo? No bloody way. I think the world is just a little more complex than the perhaps simplistic imagery of CP. It is cleaner and more efficient at hiding the horror.

I think those critics who want to dismiss the dystopian themes of CP as hackneyed and clichéd are the one’s unwilling or incapable of seeing the darker trends of current society, they believe the hype about living in some 50’s style golden age of technological endeavor.

I think the challenge for the genre is to tackle it’s themes in a way that engages a new generation that is dismissive of the cold-war dystopia / post-apocalyptic scenarios. It needs to accumulate credibility in its vision of the future as being one extrapolated from ‘present’ society not yester-year.

It is a dangerous task, by the mere fact that we are not all drug-addicts existing in a meaningless consensual hallucination, present existence seems like paradise by comparison. But a victory over the worst-case scenario is hardly a victory at all.

Great post! Welcome to cyberpunkreview Illusive Mind

Illusive Mind said, “Perhaps one of the problems with living in a so-called post-modern age is the utter resistance of clear genre boundaries and categories.”
Great point! Absolutely. We seem to either want to throw off all categories, or worse, we do the reverse and create new categories ad-nauseum.

Illusive Mind said, “I think the challenge for the genre is to tackle it’s themes in a way that engages a new generation that is dismissive of the cold-war dystopia / post-apocalyptic scenarios. It needs to accumulate credibility in its vision of the future as being one extrapolated from ‘present’ society not yester-year.

Yes, absolutely. This is why movies like One Point O work so well for me. This is a great new take on existing problems in society. While there is clearly an evil corporation, it expounds on this in a very different way than most. If I see one more evil CEO sitting in a bleak room, passing out orders…

I agree that postcyberpunk as it’s own subgenre is barely existing. However, anyone can see that the clearly defined cyberpunk of earlier decades doesn’t exist anymore.

I may point in the direction of Charles Stross, who imho singlehandedly defined a new genre with Accelerando, emerging from the ashes that was cyberpunk and science fiction together with inane ramblings of desparate AI researchers.

Hi Florian, I would fully agree that cyberpunk as a genre has transformed considerably since the 80s writings. I haven’t read any of Charles Stross’ works though. Perhaps you’d care to review one of his books here.

[…] Over at cyberpunkreview.com there is a great article on the perhaps fallacious distinction of ‘post-cyberpunk’ : Post-Cyberpunk? Why not Cyberpunk 2.0! […]

cyberpunk; typically deals with alienated loners. i wonder why? it’s cyberPUNK. what the hell is punk about maintaining the status quo or getting all moralistic and active about the planet? self depreciating drug addict techno junkies are COOL.
POST CYBERPUNK WHAT A JOKE!

It seems to me that one of the reasons for the existence of a post-cyberpunk descriptor is that cyberpunk was always conceived of as a genre explicitly bound up in social commentary. The broader genres of fantasy or sci-fi certainly feature some notable works of social commentary, but that commentary is incidental to the definition of the genre as a whole.

The “post” label is generally not applied to a genre as an indication of the genre’s death, but rather as a way of describing work which deals with similar subject matter from a very different theoretical or social perspective. Take postmodernism, for example: it’s certainly not the case that modernism has ceased to be an active and vibrant perspective. Rather, it’s just useful to know that there are some people whose approach to philosophy, architecture, literature, or visual art reflects their overall rejection of the foundational ideas of modernism.

Postcyberpunk isn’t a label that is being applied with any precision, but as a basic way of describing literature and film which approaches technologically advanced near-future scenarios from a social perspective quite different from that of the original cyberpunk authors, it seems useful to me. If cyberpunk levels specific social criticisms, postcyberpunk seems to level others. And a change in the nature of social critique has traditionally merited the use of a “post” descriptor.

Personally, I think what differentiates postcyberpunk from cyberpunk is that while cyberpunk typically deals with the question of how individuals might be marginalized by a technologically-driven society, postcyberpunk typically deals with the question of how a technologically-driven society can be improved through individuals’ values and actions. Cyberpunk always raises the critique that individual identity will become less and less important in the future, whereas postcyberpunk typically features individuals actively participating in positive social change.

To put it simply, cyberpunk is an examination of how technology erodes value systems; postcyberpunk is an examination of how value systems affect technological societies.

That’s my take on it, anyway.

i think you are thinking about too much
the word Post does NOT mean “true” cyberpunk is dead
it just implies that the post- works are another generation of the same genre, or a SUBGENRE has evolved and can be differentiated from the original current [which without any problems can still be active]
the way society is, its to much fucking close minded, lots of people make enough non-original material so hey! a new genre is created, and then someone at some point makes something slightly different and other people copies, and thus a new Sub-Genre is created, then someone makes something way different and the close minded media labels it Experimental-, avantgarde-, and stuff
thats how it works, happens all the time in music and other arts.

I agree with the article, post cyberpunk is a nice term but it doesn’t really fit in today’s society, we’re not even caught up to those cyberpunk movies yet. What the heck would post cyberpunk be? Bettering our futures? I thought it meant a progression in the genre, but I was wrong. So I believe now that post cyberpunk sounds interesting but It’s not what I write. I write evolved cyberpunk.

In the origins, post-cyberpunk was more a question of style than substance. It had more humour, the characters had genuinely friends and family (see Hiro protagonist who sold all his stocks to help his mother) and not only contacts and allies, and they were true heroes who helped society in a global way just like in traditional SF (on the other side, in cyberpunk the characters only make jobs for money or threatened- neuromancer, new rose hotel). But the difference is actually cosmetic, and most authors don’t know those subleties, they just write (of film) what they prefer. And as the times changed and new influences appeared, the name (pos-cyberpunk) created by critics sticked simply because the world was different of what was predicted and everything in the near future can be post cyberpunk, since nobody knows exactly what it is
About manga: Japanese culture is very different of ours, I doubt that an entire genre could have been very successful with just anti-heroes.

True I see what you mean kabukiman, cyberpunk is only mostly dark and full of anti-heroes. That is true. But if Post-Cyberpunk is a cyberpunk that’s not necessarily dark then it turns into more sci-fi at times. I can see how it doesn’t have to be only dark though, that makes perfect sense. But it leaves little interpretation for things like what I’m trying to do with “cyberpunk fantasy”. So as radical as my writing is, what would the big authors in the industry classify my writing as?

It’s difficult to say. Everybody likes label to be certain of what they are talking about, when something escapes those labels, people get uncomfortable. So caling it a cross-over of cyberpunk and fantasy is probably the best option. Or you can call it Cyberfantasy.

DEATHZHEAD, Terry Gilliam’s Brazil is a great example of a cyberpunk fantasy. The “time” of that movie isn’t near future - it’s pretty much unspecified, and it really never intends to be part of a real world at all. But just as clearly, this is still a cyberpunk film. That said, I certainly agree with Kabukiman that you could have many cyberfantasy films that aren’t cyberpunk at all.

And just to reiterate from the post above, if you look at what was written or produced as movies prior to the “post cyberpunk” phase, you can find all sorts of instances of the things they attribute post-cyberpunk to be, and you can find even more instances of “regular cyberpunk” after 92.

Yes, you’re right, fantasy is alive in cyberpunk very much when I think about it. I think now that “post-cyberpunk” is a lot like “post-punk” music. Cyberpunk will never die!

Cyberpunk is not dead, ‘post-cyberpunk’ is rather just a term not clearly defined.

At this stage ‘post-cyberpunk’ is nothing more than a term to indicate a movement away/beyond cyberpunk into something new and different.

New and different stuff is always on the cards and though the label ‘post-cyberpunk’ may not last for any amount of time the spirit of post-cyberpunk will; i.e. the spirit of change and difference.

This spirit of change and difference has always been there and always will be, as long as we are, and therefore the term ‘post cyberpunk’ is useful and will always have an elemant of permanence in essence at least.

Post cyberpunk IS cyberpunk. They are just approaching on the characters at the otherside.

Late, I know.

A good example of the post cyberpunk in literature is the sci-fi novel nSpace by Dovin Melhee, which speculates a future of highly automated cybernetic beings that pursue a broad range of
increasingly cyber experiences…. Strange ending.

CYBerpunk automatically always its difference with and outside characters