![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() But cyberpunk, the sci-fi subgenre that gave us cyberspace, now seems a thing of the past, an old dystopian daydream of Reaganomics gone global. It spawned sub-subgenres, of course-splatterpunk with its ballistic gore and, more recently, steam-punk, a sentimental mixture of info-tech and industrial chic that answers globalization with Victoriana. ![]() Cyberpunk has been bleeding slowly ever since, never quite dying but no longer capable of the dazzling fictional displays that made it seem, for a time anyway, immortal. Neal Stephenson dealt the genre a killer blow with his virtual swift sword in Snow Crash (1992). But in retrospect, like the musical movement it invokes, cyberpunk appears shockingly short-lived: Gibson's Neuromancer (1984), Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix (1985)-only a few novels still wear all that black with panache. It was Goth angst meets digital wizardry. It has been over twenty-five years since Gibson hacked his way onto the science fiction continuum, creating a subgenre that became instantly infamous: cyberpunk. Old punks get day jobs, like Joe Strummer-or William Gibson. Old punks never die, only young ones (think Sid Vicious). The king called up his jet fighters He said you better earn your pay ![]()
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