CYBERPUNK

http://www.euro.net/mark-space/Cyberpunk.html

"Hip, poetic, and posthuman. A form of late 20th century literature,
film and art which reflected the altered perceptions of that time. The
primary example of the field and its main referent is William Gibson's
science fiction novel Neuromancer , published in 1984. (This book was
to 'cyberpunk' what Jack Kerouac's On the Road was to 'beat'.) The
word itself first appeared as the title of a short story by Bruce Bethke.

"Primarily, a special development in the field of science fiction writing,
with a particular focus on the growing intrusiveness of the technological
environment and the structural 'normalcy' of alterable personalities. Its
continuing influence on literary, scholarly, technological, and social
spheres has resulted in the stimulation of quite a few minds." --Henry
W.Targowski (in Mark/Space , 1994).

"Literate SF that's easy to read, has a lot of information, and talks
about the new thoughtforms that are coming out of the computer
revolution." --Rudy Rucker (in "What Is Cyberpunk", October 1985).

"Classic cyberpunk characters were marginalized, alienated loners who
lived on the edge of society in generally dystopic futures where daily
life is impacted by rapid technological change, an ubiquitous datasphere
of computerized information, and invasive technological changes to the
human body." --Lawrence Person (in a personal e-mail, August 1997).

"Like punk music, cyberpunk is in some sense a return to roots. The
cyberpunks are perhaps the first SF generation to grow up not only
within the literary tradition of science fiction but in a truly
science-fictional world. For them, the techniques of classical 'hard SF'
-- extrapolation, technological literacy -- are not just literary tools but
an aid to daily life. They are a means of understanding, and highly
valued." --Bruce Sterling (in the Preface to Mirrorshades: The
Cyberpunk Anthology , 1986).

"The supreme literary expression if not of postmodernism, then of late
capitalism itself." --Fredric Jameson (in Postmodernism, or, the
Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism , 1991).

"This sub-genre of science fiction deals with a junked-up future of
virtual realities, console cowboys and bodies held together with
implants, bio-engineering and hard drugs." --Marianne Brace (in The
Guardian , Wednesday 16 March 1994).

"Cyberpunk has opened a new area of space -- the space behind the
monitor screen. It promises the imagination new game variations, it
gives the feeling of omniscience, of being everywhere at once. It
promises, above all, a new form of existence, loosed from the bonds of
the physical body with all its biological limitation and its vulnerability.
Here we have uncanny new territory and a bundle of fascinating
effects which capture the imagination of all those who, sitting before a
screen, suddenly become aware of the possibility of transcendence in
the software." --Wolfgang Jeschke (in "Three Points of No Return --
Glimpses of the Future?", 25 August 1990).

"The inevitable collision of punk sensibility -- the unrest, the rebellion
-- with desk-top computers." --Pat Cadigan.

"The cyberpunk is a person who takes navigational control of
cybernetic/electronic equipment and uses it not for the army, or the
government, or Lufthansa Airline, but for his or her own purpose."
--Timothy Leary.

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