# Cyberpunk?



## Ralyks (Jun 9, 2011)

So, I'm pretty new to the Cyberpunk genre. And by that, I mean I've read Snowcrash (AWESOME book), Final Fantasy VII is my favorite game of all time, I really like Bladerunner, and I watched all of Cowboy Bebop. If any of those don't fall into the genre and I sound like an idiot, speak now.

I'm looking for more books and possibly films (live action or anime. I'm not against anime but I never actually delved too deep into it other) to delve into the genre more. Anybody have any suggestions?


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## MFB (Jun 9, 2011)

"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" is the creative spark for Blade-Runner so take a look into that.


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## Pauly (Jun 9, 2011)

You can't call yourself a cyberpunk fan unless you've read the Sprawl Trilogy by William Gibson. The first, and most famous book, is Neuromancer, but Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive are also epic. Anything else he's done set in that universe is good too, but nothing beats those three.


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## Overtone (Jun 9, 2011)

I am gonna take "cyberpunk" loosely and include lots of futuristic scifi stuff with some of the classic themes, even if they are not strictly cyberpunk. Here is a rundown of a bunch of movies worth checking out

THX 1138 - George Lucas, classic film, and it's pretty good. Stars Robert Duvall.
Aeon Flux (cartoons, not the movie) - amazing look, and it's chock full of crazy gadgets and creatures
Gattaca - pretty tame as far as the guns and robots go but it's got such a great feel to the world that it's set in. 
Ghost in the Shell - cartoon, but it really has the classic stuff all bundled in a great movie... androids, questions of self awareness, detectives, etc. 
Hardware - low budget horror, but it's a great post nuclear war movie...
Minority Report - probably the best big budget, high quality special FX type movie
The Island, Surrogates - two more hollywood A list type movies, I like The Island better. 
Renaissance - another animation... save this one for later, it's black and white and slow paced, but it is quite interesting.


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## ry_z (Jun 9, 2011)

Pauly said:


> You can't call yourself a cyberpunk fan unless you've read the Sprawl Trilogy by William Gibson.



This.


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## Bloody_Inferno (Jun 9, 2011)

Surprised Akira hasn't been mentioned yet. Manga, anime... check those out.


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## Ralyks (Jun 9, 2011)

Bloody_Inferno said:


> Surprised Akira hasn't been mentioned yet. Manga, anime... check those out.



I've seen Akira, actually. Killer film


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## vampiregenocide (Jun 9, 2011)

Biomega.


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## technomancer (Jun 9, 2011)

Some books (in addition to the Gibson titles already mentioned):

Hardwired - Walter Jon Williams
Islands In The Net - Bruce Sterling
The Shockwave Rider - John Brunner
Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology edited by Bruce Sterling (short story collection)
Burning Chrome - William Gibson (short story collection)


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## Bloody_Inferno (Jun 9, 2011)

Ralyks said:


> I've seen Akira, actually. Killer film


 
Sweet. Check out the manga if you could as well. That actually goes full on in depth with the entire mythology.


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## signalgrey (Jun 9, 2011)

lots of Phillip K Dick


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## Explorer (Jun 9, 2011)

As William Gibson is one of the acknowledged creators of the genre, how can I disagree with "Neuromancer" and the rest of the Sprawl writings?

Hmm... what else hasn't been mentioned?

Schismatrix.

Since you mention Final Fantasy, you might like some of the mixed cyberpunk/S&S action in the Dragonrun books by Robert Charette (sp?). There were other books in this series, but his were the least formulaic.


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## DavyH (Jun 10, 2011)

technomancer said:


> Some books (in addition to the Gibson titles already mentioned):
> 
> Hardwired - Walter Jon Williams


 
 This.

I'm not sure about WJW's originality - the writing style almost directly rips off William Gibson - but a fine example of the genre. There were a couple of other books in the series which weren't bad but not up to the first.

Bruce Sterling, William Gibson, Pat Cadigan and John Shirley are possibly the best-known authors, but any SF in noire style almost inevitably gets labeled cyberpunk. Harlan Ellison comes to mind here, as does Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat.

Steampunk's worth a look as well - the collaboration between Bruce Sterling and William Gibson 'The Difference Engine' is genre-defining, but I have the feeling Harry Harrison (again) did 'A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!' before this (I could be wrong). KW Jeter had a bash at it and, going back to the original, HG Wells was doing steampunk before there were punks.

Have fun.


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## Chiba666 (Jun 10, 2011)

Suprissed no one has mentioned Richard Morgan.

Altered Carbon
Broekn Angels
Woken Furies.

All follow the same character and are pretty darn good.

Market Forces is less cyber punk but has some good themes it in.

Black Man (I tihnk its called Thirteen in the states) is good.

All are worth checking out.


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## brutalwizard (Jun 10, 2011)

what in the world is this cyber punk......

sounds like internet teenage angst


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## Daemoniac (Jun 10, 2011)

I don't really understand how anyone can not have mentioned Brave New World, Slaughterhouse Five or (more obviously) The Matrix...


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## ry_z (Jun 10, 2011)

Daemoniac said:


> I don't really understand how anyone can not have mentioned Brave New World, Slaughterhouse Five



Because neither of those novels have anything to do with cyberpunk?


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## Pauly (Jun 10, 2011)

brutalwizard said:


> what in the world is this cyber punk......
> 
> sounds like internet teenage angst



Cyberpunk - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Think near-future sci-fi that's the total opposite of the clean, perfect, everyone's happy urban utopia of Star Trek.


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## technomancer (Jun 10, 2011)

Chiba666 said:


> Suprissed no one has mentioned Richard Morgan.
> 
> Altered Carbon
> Broekn Angels
> ...



I never really considered Morgan's stuff cyberpunk... I've always thought that if you're using interstellar travel it's not near future enough to be considered cyberpunk 

Same with the Schismatrix stuff (like I said just an opinion)

They are definitely great books and worth a read though


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## MFB (Jun 10, 2011)

Daemoniac said:


> I don't really understand how anyone can not have mentioned Brave New World, Slaughterhouse Five or (more obviously) The Matrix...





ry_z said:


> Because neither of those novels have anything to do with cyberpunk?



Hate to say it, but Ryan's right  Brave New World is about dystopian futures and becoming slaves to the things we love (technology) IIRC, and Slaughterhouse Five - while an awesome read - is about a man who lives his life out of order and is taken by a group of aliens known as Tralfmadorians. Matrix, is a philosophical incorporation from a French philosopher about "interrogating the relationship among reality, symbols, and society."


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## Randy (Jun 10, 2011)




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## Daemoniac (Jun 10, 2011)

MFB said:


> Hate to say it, but Ryan's right  Brave New World is about dystopian futures and becoming slaves to the things we love (technology) IIRC, and Slaughterhouse Five - while an awesome read - is about a man who lives his life out of order and is taken by a group of aliens known as Tralfmadorians. Matrix, is a philosophical incorporation from a French philosopher about "interrogating the relationship among reality, symbols, and society."





ry_z said:


> Because neither of those novels have anything to do with cyberpunk?



 I would argue differently - especially The Matrix and Brave new World - but eh 

EDIT: Bugger it. Both the mentioned films are about a dystopian future where the technology we have created on earth has effectively (or literally in the Matrix) advanced beyond our control and humans are thus in a state of total/near total control because of it. Both of them are set in the future on earth, and in the case of The Matrix it has a world that mimics the broken down industrial look of Blade Runner, Mad Max and others...

Hell, I'd even go so far as to say _1984_ deserves a mention here, though admittedly the look of the world (as I imagined it anyway) wasn't particularly in line with the "feel", and maybe even V For Vendetta 

I will concede Slaughterhouse Five, but I will say that it certainly had a similar feel to a lot of Cyberpunk when I read it, admittedly a while ago now


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## Ralyks (Jun 10, 2011)

Thanks for all the suggestions guys, definitely have a lot to dig into. Probably start with the Sprawl trilogy.

Also, I'm glad we've made it this far into the thread with no mention of the Billy Idol album.


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## MFB (Jun 10, 2011)

Daemoniac said:


> I would argue differently - especially The Matrix and Brave new World - but eh
> 
> EDIT: Bugger it. Both the mentioned films are about a dystopian future where the technology we have created on earth has effectively (or literally in the Matrix) advanced beyond our control and humans are thus in a state of total/near total control because of it. Both of them are set in the future on earth, and in the case of The Matrix it has a world that mimics the broken down industrial look of Blade Runner, Mad Max and others...
> 
> ...



I can understand the Matrix argument yes, but I don't remember BNW being about us also losing total control of our world because we're slaves to the things we love. But I haven't gone back and read it since years ago, couple that with drugs, and yeah 

I feel like Cyberpunk is more stuff like Ghost in the Shell, and there's a lot of android type stuff, and futuristic weapons and all that jazz. Kind of like if the future of technology were on steroids, and while it never went really "wrong" there's now a co-existence and the idea of "human" is a gray area due to the possibilities of body-modification (cybernetic implants etc...)


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## Daemoniac (Jun 11, 2011)

I think of cyberpunk as being the opposite; a future that somehow doesn't seem that far away or impossible despite being in the future, but where _everything_ has gone wrong compared to modern times (though not necessarily being viewed as "wrong" in the universe) and heavily relating to either technology invading ones person (implants, cyborgs etc..) or a heavily technology oriented story in which the tech that was created by man now effectively controls man.

Add a noir sort of feel to the stories and that's more or less what I've always sort of defined cyberpunk as, personally, and from what I've read today, it mostly seems to back that up  

EDIT: And yes, the idea of questioning humanity is a fairly central theme to a lot of the work, but not necessarily a make-or-break idea AFAIK.


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## Bloody_Inferno (Jun 11, 2011)

Randy said:


>



 right there.


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## Daemoniac (Jun 11, 2011)




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## Explorer (Jun 11, 2011)

Although I did a whole thread about this, I have to take a moment to acknowledge yet again the brilliance of the film which created this whole genre:

Bladerunner.


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## Pauly (Jun 11, 2011)

Can't forget this one either:





Gibson was writing Cyberpunk before Blade Runner btw, it just wasn't given that name yet. He's commented on BR's style as being somewhat how he saw the future when writing his novels.


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## technomancer (Jun 11, 2011)

Pauly said:


> Gibson was writing Cyberpunk before Blade Runner btw, it just wasn't given that name yet. He's commented on BR's style as being somewhat how he saw the future when writing his novels.



Most of the stories in the Burning Chrome anthology were published by the time Blade Runner came out  Johnny Mnemonic, which introduced Molly, was published in 1981.


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## Explorer (Jun 11, 2011)

Interesting! 

I do remember when I finally got over my aversion to the cover, and sat down to read "Neuromancer." It deserved all the hype it had gotten... but then I ran across all kinds of "cyberpunk" which fell far short of the mark, being mostly bad writing with "cyber" tropes and cliches.


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## liquidcow (Jun 26, 2011)

A friend of mine commented that it seems that cyberpunk is essentially dead now, perhaps because most of what it predicted has arrived.

I wouldn't really class Final Fantasy VII as cyberpunk to be honest, it's more or less fantasy with steampunk elements (I'd say that steampunk has somewhat taken the place of cyberpunk in fact).

Neuromancer is the absolute must-read in the genre, then check out the rest of Gibson's early-ish work.

Ghost in the Shell is the second-most-essential I think. The film and the manga are very different in tone, both worth checking out. The TV series is closer to the feel of the manga than the film is, I found it patchy but generally good.

Akira is an example I guess, but do read the manga as it's way better and clearer than the film.

Jeff Noon is an interesting author that I don't think anyone's mentioned, Vurt is his most popular novel. Slightly less technical and more fantastical than other cyberpunk but similar themes.


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## LanguageOfStrings (Jun 28, 2011)

There are no new cyberpunk movies, such a pity. I heard some rumours about Matrix 4  and filmed Akira (2013?).

I have been alway wondering if GITS stand alone complex is worh watching?


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## liquidcow (Jun 28, 2011)

LanguageOfStrings said:


> I have been alway wondering if GITS stand alone complex is worh watching?



Yeh it's pretty good, especially if you preferred the manga to the film(s). I did find it slightly patchy, and the storyline episodes are often more interesting than the standalone episodes. If you didn't want to watch the whole thing you can tell which ones are storyline based and watch only those. If I were to watch it again I'd probably do that to be honest.


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## Explorer (Jun 28, 2011)

Stand Alone Complex is brilliant, as well as the Second Gig. 

I've been considering trying to find Max Headroom: 20 Seconds into the Future on DVD. A *huge* amount of its extrapolations came true within less than 15 years.


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## technomancer (Jun 29, 2011)

Explorer said:


> Stand Alone Complex is brilliant, as well as the Second Gig.
> 
> I've been considering trying to find Max Headroom: 20 Seconds into the Future on DVD. A *huge* amount of its extrapolations came true within less than 15 years.



Hmm you just reminded me I still need to check out Stand Alone Complex... 

Max Headroom is easy to find on DVD, the full series set was released last year and is still available (FINALLY)


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## technomancer (Jul 7, 2011)

Watching season 1 of Stand Alone Complex now... great stuff


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## Bloody_Inferno (Jul 7, 2011)

technomancer said:


> Watching season 1 of Stand Alone Complex now... great stuff


 
I really shoud have paid more attention to the series... Time to watch them again. 

Also the movies are also fantastic. 

On a side note, anybody here fans of the Appleseed series?


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## Kr1zalid (Jul 8, 2011)

Bloody_Inferno said:


> On a side note, anybody here fans of the Appleseed series?


 
Not exactly but I do like their stories...

I want to mention Eve No Jikan and Futurama.


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## isispelican (Aug 17, 2011)

Check out the movie Brazil (1985) it has a nice cyberpunk-noir atmosphere. Also check out Avalon


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