I was talking to my dad earlier today about my writing and this site and he asked me to explain what 'cyberpunk' was. I realised that it is no easy thing to do: there are many opinions on the topic and one fan of the genre will reference completely different works to the next.
At the time I just talked about movies like Blade Runner and The Matrix, both of which helped as examples of the sort of atmosphere I associate with 'cyberpunk' and, rather neatly, they represent 'proto-cyberpunk' and 'post-cyberpunk' respectively.
I personally view cyberpunk as being a sub-genre of science fiction, something with a fairly edgy, maybe dangerous atmosphere. In terms of content, it can be almost anything but the label is perhaps most closely associated with extrapolated technologies, distopian futures, fringe subcultures, perpetual night cities and other wierd and wonderful stuff. All of this should be made 'cool' or almost 'film noir-ish' in some way, though.
I know this is a really nebulous definition but I suppose I'm reluctant to tie it down to any one thing or group of things. Maybe it's a genre that changes with the times; early 'founding father' works such as novels from William Gibson and Bruce Sterling are very different to more recent stories from say, Jon Courtenay Grimwood.
As I'm writing this, I'm slightly aware that I'm waffling and I can almost hear my dad's response: "Eh, too complicated!"
So, I'll try to sum things up: for me, cyberpunk is a both a reflection and an exaggeration of our current society, it's an atmosphere drenched in rain and bathed in neon, it wears cool clothes, carries a nifty weapon and it most definitely has a great playlist on its iPod.
No... that didn't work either, did it?
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