Cyberpunk 101 - The Truly Novel In Cyberpunk Literature

"What is new in cyberpunk is, first of all, the conspicuousness of certain motifs in the same texts, the solidarity among these motifs, the way they mutually corroborate and reinforce each other to create a motif complex which is distinctive of the cyberpunk wave of SF, even if every one of the individual items making up the complex can be traced back to earlier SF phases." – Brian McHale

A critique leveled at cyberpunk is that there is no real novelty within the sub-genre. While marketed as being new and subversive, from a literary perspective critics have traced the major tropes and devices in cyberpunk back to earlier science fiction, or else other genres entirely. Cyberpunk in some eyes is merely an arrangement of these things to be provocative and play into a self-ascribed label, to be punk and contrary within the science fiction literary genre itself at the time and nothing more.

"cyberpunk tends to "literalize" or "actualize" what in the postmodernist fiction occurs as metaphor" – Brian McHale

However, in Towards the Poetics of Cyberpunk, which I will be quoting extensively in this piece, Brian McHale argues that cyberpunk has added to science fiction and been novel in so doing.

Motifs like outer-space fiction as building-blocks, as seen on shows like Star Trek, for example, were adapted to show stratification of class. Rather than the clean, sterile environments prevalent in science fiction at the time, "cyberpunk substitutes off-world havens of privilege, orbiting penthouses to which the wealthy and powerful withdraw to escape the poverty and danger of the planet surface…". Thus the sterile, clean realms so prevalent were defined for only the upper class and few who benefited from the marginalized; incidentally leaving behind a wake of their own refuse for those same people.

Additionally, this variant to microworlds depicting class by way of attainable knowledge also did so by way of literal geography within the fiction. Protected areas in cyberpunk often gate more than the privileged individuals; literal islands within the fiction that curtail the ability of peoples to obtain something coveted and protected: data. This can be more than just geographical in normal physical space negotiated traditionally by protagonists as well, porting this motif to different realities (microworlds), and reinforcing the motif. Conversely, these same or similar islands may hold marginalized people in physical space; radical "renegades" that guard their own autonomy fiercely and resist integration into society proper. 

Digitally their ability to move up in class may be "close by" via navigating cyberspace; physically they have no means to actually go to the "fortress", so to speak. In cyberspace VIP access, private spaces for which there is some code, procedure, or structure that is an island onto itself when compared to other parts of the free-roaming space reassert the trope further. In some instances you can be so "good" in cyberspace that you can move through seemingly impenetrable places, leaving your body behind. In this way there are many islands, in every space, including cyberspace; and they are used to explore many different ideas of selfhood.

This juxtaposition can be traced back to medieval romance roots (and later, westerns), in so far as the protagonists having a journey. The Knight's Errant Itinerary navigating from microworld to microworld. Instead of venturing into a mythic microworld used as a metaphor, the protagonist is navigating microworlds that are literalized or actualized. Often this notion will have visual likeness or outright uncanny resemblence to actual mythology to make this distinction even more clear to the reader.

"While Joyce's Leopold Bloom "is" Odysseus only figuratively, in a kind of extended metaphor, Shiner's Kane really is the Hero with a Thousand Faces on a different but parallel plane of reality…The paraspace motif, including cyberspace and its functional equivalent, the myth-world…makes possible, in other words, metafictional reflection by the text on its own ontological procedures." – Brian McHale

In postmodern texts there are usually only metaphors for one of the primary ideas cyberpunk fiction wishes to explore: selfhood. Androids, Artificial Intelligence, cybernetics, autonomy, a simulacrum. These are all, again, actualized and literalized in the sub-genre.

Traditional cyberpunk made use of the traditional robot motif in order to ask the same questions about human identity but twisted it, no longer the automaton used so often. Androids invoked the uncanny in their resemblance to humanity, asking the reader ‘at what point is a machine a human?' The automata and A.I are in the exploration of selfhood but are a distinct ingrained, reoccuring motif in cyberpunk.

In biopunk, clones are grown and imprinted with someone else's identity, "pluralizing the self." The use of body horror elements and invasion of agency is invoked... but in a distinctive, cyberpunk way. The actualization of the lack of human agency is to have your mind consumed by a technological network or embedded into another body, grown under the control of someone with more power than you; ultimately using that power to manipulate you to their own ends. Designer drugs and physical chips created by an omnipresence here to curate your destiny. A new kind of Zombie.

"The theme of the centrifugal self, and the representational motifs throughout which it is manifested in cyberpunk SF are essentially incompatible with the perspectivist narrative strategies of modern fiction." – Brian McHale

Simulated spaces in cyberpunk also bring with them more information than normal. You don't merely "see" data in cyberspace, you interpret something physical in a digital space that informs you what it is when you're "jacked" into the virtually constructed space. Beyond this, cyberpunk fiction lets the user customize their identity when hooked up as well. This itself sometimes allows for subversion while also solving a literary problem, in which the fiction is centralized to a specific perspective.

 "implicitly undermining the model of the centered, centripetal self upon which modernist perspectivism rests. For with the flip of a switch, Case is able to experience another's body…another's physical pain". – Brian McHale

When Case does this in Neuromancer, it also allows for the radical ability to embody a different gender identity than his own. "the characteristic cyberpunk motif of simstim (simulated stimulation) gives fresh, concrete, and radical meaning to Dick Higgins's question, "Which of my selves is to do it?"

Another motif changed by cyberpunk is the one of nuclear war. By creating microworlds anew, cyberpunk fiction shifts the idea of a collective disaster to personal extinction. Death is everywhere, including cyberspace. This extinction extends to the notion of selfhood, in which the self-extinction would eradicate our mind and sense of being. Perhaps not even realizing it either, occupying a different microworld when this devastation comes.

The sub-genre also features liminal stages of death. In some fiction, like Pat Cadigan's Synners, Visual Mark can view his meat body even as it's dead and dying, thinking faster than the death that is coming for him. A microworld, an island, working to transfer consciousness and interrogate the state of being between life and death. Sometimes being able to be revived, other times used as a device to make a statement about embodiment.

Ghosts in the machines, ghosts from the machine in the case of Gibson's Ghosts in Mona Lisa Overdrive. Either way, our spiritual selves and the exploration of death is pervasive in cyberpunk—and it took a new form from the old in doing so. 

These motifs are invariably found in most all cyberpunk fiction, certainly all first wave. Because they structurally support the same fundamental concepts, overlapping and reinforcing, and do so in a novel way at the onset of cyberpunk fiction, the sub-genre has invariably contributed to science fiction. 

This is part of a series of blog posts called cyberpunk 101, starting with my first piece Defining Cyberpunk, in which I attempt to communicate an internalize my thoughts on cyberpunk with the help of academic literature on the subject I'm consuming.

You can find the original piece that goes into more detail than this one contained in Beyond Cyberpunk: New Critical Perspectives. 

Cyberpunk 101 - The Death And Rebirth Of Cyberpunk

"The big question for 1980s art is whether any authentic countercultural art can exist for long without being transformed into self-annihilating simulations of themselves for mass consumption, furthering cultural aims." -- Cyberpunk and Neuromanticism

Cyberpunk is best described as a movement, at least in so far as it's inception. A "natural" end or conclusion to a movement in capitalism is for it to either be quashed... or for it to become a popular commodity that is co-opted into different aspects of our society. A fairly insular group of authors generated the initial first wave of cyberpunk, that is, those books published from approximately 1982 to around 1991. These works generally had reoccurring tropes and themes, which is how we come to our shorthand definition for cyberpunk now: high-tech, low-life.

William Gibson, the author of Neuromancer, has said before that the movement of cyberpunk is due to this particular group of writers all networking and discussing ideas to subvert and forge a new path within science fiction. It was somewhat of a clique. Naturally, all of these manuscripts were submitted for publication around the same time resulting in an influx of these commonalities. 

Beyond the high-tech and low-life, though, cyberpunk fiction is usually fast paced (especially when measured against science fiction published at that time and previously), heavy on information, and condensed. It also tends to borrow heavily from romanticism and horror, particularly when examining the purpose of cybernetics in cyberpunk fiction, these I would say are not ubiquitous and so less useful for my purposes here. However, what is relevant is this idea that cyberpunk needed to constantly be iterative in order to stay relevant and for it to be ahead of mainstream culture appropriating aspects of it as it was consumed by a growing readership. The cyberpunk aesthetic, so to speak, worked against it because for it to stay "punk", it needed to be transgressive and remain "cool" and outside of the mainstream consciousness. Once an aesthetic is popularized it also draws the risk of being more-or-less completely assimilated.

As more authors latched onto the tropes and subject matter found in cyberpunk, we can see that aspects of the sub-genre have been internalized by many facets of our current culture. Music, fashion, movies. Cyberpunk was assimilated in relatively short order and quite comprehensively.

When this began to happen the initial cadre of cyberpunks themselves declared it all but dead. 

cyberpunk--like the punk ethic with which it is identified--was a response to postmodern reality that could only go so far before self-destructing under the weight of its own deconstructive activities (not to mention its appropriation by more conventional and more commercial writers). --Veronica Hollinger in Cybernetic Deconstructions

The death of the cyberpunk movement within science fiction served its purpose, however. Shaking up the genre while simultaneously thrusting it into popularity. Intelligent and more interesting science fiction that was more relevant than ever was birthed from it.

But people conflate the death of the movement with the death of the sub-genre. While both were co-opted, a sub-genre is far more complex a creature and harder to kill. 

With hindsight we see that the sub-genre is still relevant, even growing more diverse than when it was declared dead and most popular. In fact, feminist cyberpunk began to be released around the time it was dead. The specific time of death of the movement is usually ascribed to either when Johnny Mnemonic the movie was released in 1995, or when Snow Crash was published in 1992, satirizing and deconstructing the genre and its tropes. 

The later is when the literary sub-genre splintered. Cyberpunk fiction continues to be released, contributing to the genre, while this second form marked by Snow Crash's release aims to struggle against the established conventions of cyberpunk. This is post-cyberpunk. Cyberpunk released from that point on is considered the second wave of cyberpunk fiction. A third wave also emerged in the early 2000's; generally marked by the release of Accelerando by Charles Stross in 2006. These authors aim to "distill … cyberpunk into something that works again, from the point of view of someone who has actually gone through a dotcom start-up, worked on the 'Net, worked as a programmer". 

When classifying cyberpunk fiction then, you can label something as cyberpunk or post-cyberpunk, assigning different waves to the literature as a shorthand to communicate what the author is trying to accomplish and what tropes you might expect to find.

Plenty of fiction this year and the last is still categorized as cyberpunk and post-cyberpunk by myself and others. Does it lean into the trope? The high-tech, low-life; or does it deconstruct it and try to critically examine it?  

Either way, cyberpunk as a sub-genre is actually quite healthy and continues to be iterative and be more relevant than ever, as I will explore in future cyberpunk 101 posts.

Cyberpunk 101 - Defining Cyberpunk

In these series of posts I'm calling cyberpunk 101, I'll be exploring cyberpunk as a sub-genre. From the first wave to post-cyberpunk, to the facets within the sub-genre itself, such as biopunk. I am going to attempt to articulate the things I find interesting here about the academic pieces I'm reading and want to internalize. In this way, I hope to solidify my own thoughts on the subject matter.

"As a label, "cyberpunk" is perfection. it suggests the apotheosis of postmodernism. On the one hand, pure negation: of manners, history, philosophy, politics, body, will, affect, anything mediated by cultural memory; on the other, pure attitude: all is power, and "subculture," and the grace of Hip negotiating the splatter of consciousness as it slams against the hard-tech future, the techno-future of artificial immanence, where all that was once nature is simulated and elaborated by technical means, a future world-construct that is as remote from the "lessons of history" as the present mix-up is from the pitiful science fiction fantasies of the past that tried to imagine us. The oxymoronic conceit in "cyberpunk" is so slick and global it fuses the high and the low, the complex and the simple, the governor and the savage, the techno-sublime and rock and roll slime. The only thing left out is a place to stand. So one must move, always move."  

The opening paragraph and subsequent quotes come from a piece of non-fiction in Storming the Reality Studio titled "Cyberpunk and Neuromanticism" by Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr. Cyberpunk fiction, at the time of this publication in 1991, already had people looking at the horizon and seeing the looming death of the sub-genre there, vaguely coalescing 3 years after Mirrorshades was disseminated to the masses.

"Cybernetics provides the pretext for the mechanized control of social life, of the body itself, and all of it through the delicate nets of nanomachine-derived mathematical formulae. Cybernetics represent the hardening and exteriorization of certain vital forms of knowledge, the crystallization of the Cartesian spirit into material objects as commodities. Cybernetics is already a paradox: simultaneously a sublime vision of human power over chance and a dreary augmentation of multinational capitalism's mechanical process of expansion--so far characterized by almost uninterrupted positive feedback. Cybernetics is, thus, part natural philosophy, part necromancy, part ideology." 

At its heart, cyber (and cybernetics) is most often used as a physical representation of identifying ownership and power in the setting. It is the high-tech cornerstone of cyberpunk fiction and rooted in the larger picture of the parent genre, science fiction, exploring humanity's relationship to technology. How it will change our lives; how it is doing so already, whether we realize it or not. It depicts a moving target of larger societal thinking and specific technologies are showcased to communicate this exploration in cyberpunk fiction. This is also a vector for much of the exploration of the human condition found in the sub-genre.

In the 80's and 90's, for instance, technology is generally seen as a bad thing, technophobia was fairly pervasive. Cyberpunk will often borrow from horror to characterize technology as invasive; removing freedom and autonomy. It is also the means for the person to push back against oppression in the setting, turning the products initially created by "the system" in order to make a profit and extend their influence, into the agency of the marginalized. 

"The punk is a sarcastic mirror-reflection of the social engineers' dream. The punk pretends to be a soft machine, but the machine is savage and intractable."  

The fiction is rooted in some of the values of the punk movement. Anti-establishment, anti-authority, and DIY attitude is most predominate in this kind of fiction. This is the "low-life" counter stone (ha) to the cyber "high-tech" one. This is seen most often in the resistance taking place by marginalized individuals of some kind. How the fiction most often communicates this is through the stratification of class, which has been exacerbated. This, combined with an examination and/or critique of capitalism or capitalistic systems, such as the extrapolated society commodifying things that contribute to counterculture (like art); lead to marginalized identities  resisting a system which is omnipresent, putting to use the aforementioned punk values in order to survive, or else to strike a blow against said system. 

The aesthetic of the punk movement is also borrowed, as fashion generally plays a large part in determining the roles of characters and is the primary means of expression. The high-tech co-opted by the punk aspects in order to be useful and not just another vector of control, serving societies' interests and not the cyberpunk. In this way, the punk aspects are almost always used in such a way as to project autonomy and agency of a character while the cyber is used to explore the removal or invasion of it. 

"cyber" and "punk" have also evolved as our views of technology have changed. As we as a society come to understand it better and it becomes more ubiquitous and entrenched in our daily lives, authors of cyberpunk fiction have used the themes of resistance synonymous with the punk movement and extrapolated our high-tech tomorrow to craft stories that diverge from this particular, broad template.

These two cornerstones that define the genre are still useful when navigating through science fiction and classifying the works as cyberpunk despite these societal changes because modern day cyberpunk still roots itself in these cornerstones that have merely adapted and evolved over time from the initial inception of the sub-genre. 

"Cyber/punk"--the ideal post-modern couple: a machine philosophy that can create the world in its own image and a self-mutilating freedom, that is the image snarling back."