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Side note: I don't think 'cyberpunk' really described the work of William Gibson. A better term would have been cybernoir. Take a look at the work of French d
by photochemsyn 5y ago
Side note: I don't think 'cyberpunk' really described the work of William Gibson. A better term would have been cybernoir. Take a look at the work of French director Jean-Pierre Melville, or late 1940s American film noir. For example, many "Le Samourai" characters would fit right into a Gibson novel.
Maybe it fits a little in that the characters in Gibson novels were generally not the 'leaders of society' that featured so heavily in what is commonly called 'space opera' science fiction, and so his writing style was perhaps as revolutionary in the sci-fi genre at the time as punk was in the pop-music genre.
- na85 5y agoThe "punk" in cyberpunk comes from the misanthropic nature of so many characters in the seminal works, just like in Neuromancer, and embodied in the trite phrase "high tech; low life"
- uxp100 5y agoIIRC the punk in the term cyberpunk was not inspired by the musical genre, which Gibson was not particularly familiar with, but of course they both share common origins in referring to a person as a punk. (and also IIRC at the time the line between punk and new wave was not as clear, patti smith, the ramones, and the Sex Pistols shared little other than an attitude, everything seems clearer in retrospect, it’s a long time since I read londons dreaming or American hardcore or pattis memoir, and anyway, I wasn’t there.)
- mecha_ghidorah 5y agoThe "punk" in "cyberpunk" basically just refers to the protagonists being punks (i.e. a scumbag) and doesn't really refer to the ideals of "punk" as a subculture. That is to say it's tied to "punk" as a pejorative to mean sleazy lowlifes who are probably drug addicts or criminals or both. Case is a hacker who got busted and Molly is muscle for hire in a very illegal way.