Cyberpunk

Posted on January 8, 2009 | Comments Off on Cyberpunk

More than twenty years after author William Gibson coined the word cyberspace, I finally got around to reading one of his so-called cyberpunk novels. Count Zero, the scifi sequel to his famous Neuromancer, is a hipster’s view of a post-apocolypse America where giant corporations with biotech consumer products rule everything and almost everyone. This was in the days before the GUI made the Internet accessible to ordinary people. So this is a scifi notion of the computer net, via brain electrodes, as a means of augmenting normal thought–and a pathway to the gods. Altogether a far cry from Facebook or displaying baby pictures on the Web. Strange stuff, with an underlying secret-agent-man plot. I enjoyed it. But that might be because I enjoy the Web. I’m not sure I would have cared for this when it came out back in 1986.

This entry was posted in Library and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

0 responses to “Cyberpunk”

  1. Scott's avatar Scott | January 9, 2009 at 1:48 am |

    You had to be there 20 years ago, dude — strong stuff to us Morlocks in the middle of building it. I love that “pathway to the gods” characterization, though. I don’t think he felt that way, and I never did, either. Funny what people think.

  2. Scott's avatar Scott | January 9, 2009 at 1:48 am |

    You had to be there 20 years ago, dude — strong stuff to us Morlocks in the middle of building it. I love that “pathway to the gods” characterization, though. I don’t think he felt that way, and I never did, either. Funny what people think.

  3. Scott's avatar Scott | January 9, 2009 at 1:48 am |

    You had to be there 20 years ago, dude — strong stuff to us Morlocks in the middle of building it. I love that “pathway to the gods” characterization, though. I don’t think he felt that way, and I never did, either. Funny what people think.

  4. Dick Stanley's avatar Dick Stanley | January 9, 2009 at 7:29 am |

    In the book the hipsters who “jack into” the computer, called “a cyberspace deck,” wind up in contact with several voodoo gods. Can’t get more explicit than that. I’m sure the real tech building was more metaphorical. I was an observer of the 1980s Internet, and a few years later, a bulletin board user. Also I played the early software games, the text-only Adventure, and the shifting line-drawings of a 3D maze whose name I forget.

  5. Dick Stanley's avatar Dick Stanley | January 9, 2009 at 7:29 am |

    In the book the hipsters who “jack into” the computer, called “a cyberspace deck,” wind up in contact with several voodoo gods. Can’t get more explicit than that. I’m sure the real tech building was more metaphorical. I was an observer of the 1980s Internet, and a few years later, a bulletin board user. Also I played the early software games, the text-only Adventure, and the shifting line-drawings of a 3D maze whose name I forget.

  6. Dick Stanley's avatar Dick Stanley | January 9, 2009 at 7:29 am |

    In the book the hipsters who “jack into” the computer, called “a cyberspace deck,” wind up in contact with several voodoo gods. Can’t get more explicit than that. I’m sure the real tech building was more metaphorical. I was an observer of the 1980s Internet, and a few years later, a bulletin board user. Also I played the early software games, the text-only Adventure, and the shifting line-drawings of a 3D maze whose name I forget.