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I'm not an expert in the genre, but I am a big fan of Neuromancer. I skimmed the article, and while I agree that the "cyberpunk" aesthetic has practically evolved into self parody, I'm not sure I agree about the analysis/critique of the genre.

IMO the core of cyberpunk is about envisioning a world where advanced technology is useful and ubiquitous, yet humanity is worse off than ever ("high tech, low life"). It's a subversion of the simple tech dystopias where the technology itself is evil or is misused by evil people, and more of a realistic counterpoint to the idea that technological progress leads to inevitable utopia.

I'm not sure about more contemporary works that build on those themes. Maybe it's lost its edge as "futuristic" technology has pushed its way more and more into our lives?

I devoured scifi books from a very young age. Books in the library were sorted on the shelves alphabetically by writer's last name, and marked by coloured dots on the spine. Scifi was "yellow".

I read every yellow dot from A to Z.

When cyberpunk came on the scene, it was very much more aligned with the times. Rather than the utopean space operas, LSD fueled fantasies, or space westerns, this alligned with the culture of kids brought up with the 'no future' of rapid industrial workforce decline and imminent nuclear armagedon.

Dark, gritty places were people made do despite being under totalitarian mob/goverment rule. It felt so much more real than the clean spaceships exploring the universe in sweet harmony.

I still love all (nearly) scifi. What is true though is most near future works tend to age poorly. Cyberpunk might have had an alignment dip at yhe end of the century's irrational exuberance, but I guess it's back.

Part I is sort of OK, although it has the tone of those who argue over sub-genres of techno music. Part II is mostly a standard anti-Facebook screed. Nothing new here.

Cyberpunk is a fiction probe into computer people, adopted as a pet.

As long as computers exist, there will be fiction about them and people that work with them. Call it whatever you want, it doesn't matter.

The most succinct description of Cyberpunk I've heard: "the future if the 1980s never ended." This description applies more generally to other -punk genres:

Steampunk: the future if the 1890s never ended

Dieselpunk … if the 1940s never ended

Atompunk: … if the 1950s never ended

Curiously, we have not yet seen the emergence of a -punk genre set in the 90s/2000s.

> If cyberpunk can be defined as an imagining of late capitalism, you don’t have to be a leftist to imagine it, but it sure does fucking help your analysis.

Article is long, but thorough, but it misses one key preceding influence -- the feminist and new wave sci-fi authors of the 60s and 70s. In particular, it's not difficult to see the roots of Cyberpunk in the works of Le Guin, Joanna Russ, James Tiptree Jr, J. G. Ballard, etc. all contributing to create fertile soil for Cyberpunk as a genre.

The works of those authors imagined sexual liberation, drug use, environmentalism, new sexualities, and the influence of technology on daily life. While none of them wrote things that were themselves cyberpunk, they had an essential role in driving genre to where it could begin. (And indeed, one of the most prominent figures in the genre, Bruce Sterling, once credited J.G. Ballard.)

I see so many people loving Gibson and crediting him for inventing the genre whole cloth, but of course he didn't! None of us write anything without standing on the shoulders of those who came before, building on the works and ideas of those that came before. It doesn't diminish Gibson's accomplishments to talk about what he might be drawing from, at least for me, it adds a richness and a thing to go and explore and try to understand what the natures of the world was during the time those books were being written.

Relevant, via a cute story :)

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44550312

When I think of who's carrying the genre today, in books, I think of Cameron Hurley (God's War) and K.C. Alexander (Necrotech). Hurley's books capture its spirit especially well.

Long, but a good read, though I started skimming around the (broken?) [IMG] tags. Great history and clarification of the source of what "we" imagine as cyberpunk and what that means.

Reading this in the context of recent discussions about 'Reading Neuromancer for the First Time in 2025'[0] and The Paris Review interview with William Gibson[1]. I recommend the discussion of [0] and reading all of [1] if you're into this.

The article defines cyberpunk as 'science fiction that imagines “late capitalism”'. In Gibson's Paris Review, he says (to paraphrase) that the past as it was cannot be imagined; we can only imagine the future. There's no "speculative" that's purely the future, because it all must build on the present.

I found the post illuminating and a great disambiguation of the term "cyberpunk" and the (messy) history of the term. There's no mention of the term "solarpunk", which some regard as a sort of modern-successor-thing to cyberpunk. I haven't read any yet. I sometimes imagine Doctorow's work as post-cyberpunk, somehow more painful because it's often realistic but also more positive. Like the article says, it's hard to classify things.

I'm a huge Neuromancer and Gibson fan, and love the cyberpunk aesthetic as well as the "Neuromantic" genre. I haven't read much Bruce Sterling, so glad to get to read 'Mozart in Mirrorshades'.

The article does touch on Japanese cyberpunk, to say that it's outside the context of the post --- which I appreciate! The discussion from 3 days ago [0] has some great comments making those distinctions, though I'm only familiar with a small part of the media.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44548353 [1]: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6089/the-art-of-fi...

Gibson branched off into post-capitalistic visions with the Jackpot trilogy.

It (the socio-economic theme, at least) is not on the uptake by new generations of readers or sci-fi authors

A pity. Glad to have any enthusiast disagree!

If cyberpunk is an imagining of late capitalism, then wouldn’t octavia butler’s parable of the sower be prime cyberpunk?

I don’t think it is. I’m not a scholar of this, but to me it lacks a focus on tech indicative of cyberpunk. Either because it’s told from the perspective of people who don’t have access to what tech remains, or because it’s too far into the collapse that tech is mostly gone?

Either way, it’s a must-read.