Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

sabukaru.online

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 404 posts

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#41

Post by omarhaneef »

jmyeet wrote: post #29

I was honestly underwhelmed by Neuromancer. Maybe because so many people raved about it or that I read it many years after it was written. I honestly don't know. It was... OK. But amazing? I don't see it. I love science fiction. One thing you have to realize about science ficiton is that it is a product of the time it was written. It may share many of the aesthetics, themes, philosophies and politics of that time. Li…

Also true of Lord of the Rings, or watching Star Wars etc if you didn't read/watch it early on (either when it first came out to the world, or early on in your life when you were new to the genre).

I won't speculate on why this is the case, but some people claim its because the innovations are copied so quickly the original becomes just another copy of itself.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#43

Post by pmoriarty »

jmyeet wrote: post #29

I was honestly underwhelmed by Neuromancer. Maybe because so many people raved about it or that I read it many years after it was written. I honestly don't know. It was... OK. But amazing? I don't see it. I love science fiction. One thing you have to realize about science ficiton is that it is a product of the time it was written. It may share many of the aesthetics, themes, philosophies and politics of that time. Li…

Neuromancer was groundbreaking in its time. I read it when it came out in 1984 and it blew me away.

These days so much other media has been influenced by it that it doesn't look nearly as original.

But just imagine reading it when there were no books or movies about:

- cyberspace inhabited by AIs

- neural interfaces

- corporate armies

- insanely rich people living in Earth orbit

- genetically engineered assassins with body augmentations

- slum-dwelling hackers who break in to corporate data stores

Neuromancer brought all this and more in to popular consciousness in a blinding flash.

After Neuromancer, Gibson came out with Count Zero (which I liked even more than Neuromancer itself) and Mona Lisa Overdrive (which wasn't nearly as good as either of the books that preceded it). I stopped reading Gibson after that.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#44

Post by after_care »

jmyeet wrote: post #29

I was honestly underwhelmed by Neuromancer. Maybe because so many people raved about it or that I read it many years after it was written. I honestly don't know. It was... OK. But amazing? I don't see it. I love science fiction. One thing you have to realize about science ficiton is that it is a product of the time it was written. It may share many of the aesthetics, themes, philosophies and politics of that time. Li…

* I don’t think you are appreciating the gain in power corporations have acquired in the last 40 years. Those fears of corporations becoming more powerful turned out to be very justified.

* Cyberpunk is a very humanist point of view. So often the tragedy in cyberpunk is that humanity is oppressed by a bureaucratic or technical system.

* All art is a product of its time.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#45

Post by KaiserPro »

I read Neuromancer a few years back, I liked it. I do don't normally read scifi as it tends to annoy me. However this didnt.

One thing that really stuck out for me was that _everyone_ had memory foam mattresses. The slums, the really slick holiday homes, everyone.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#47

Post by CodeMage »

pmoriarty wrote: post #43
jmyeet wrote: post #29

I was honestly underwhelmed by Neuromancer. Maybe because so many people raved about it or that I read it many years after it was written. I honestly don't know. It was... OK. But amazing? I don't see it. I love science fiction. One thing you have to realize about science ficiton is that it is a product of the time it was written. It may share many of the aesthetics, themes, philosophies and politics of that time. Li…

Neuromancer was groundbreaking in its time. I read it when it came out in 1984 and it blew me away. These days so much other media has been influenced by it that it doesn't look nearly as original. But just imagine reading it when there were no books or movies about: - cyberspace inhabited by AIs - neural interfaces - corporate armies - insanely rich people living in Earth orbit - genetically engineered assassins wit…

> I stopped reading Gibson after that.

I found "The Peripheral" to be refreshingly good. I would recommend giving it a read.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#48

Post by pmoriarty »

the_af wrote: post #40
notreallyserio wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, focusing criticism on the aesthetics is itself "staying shallow". Much cyberpunk media does serve as a critique of the status quo or an imagined future dystopia, as I assume he would prefer, but with some neon on the surface.

I don't think Gibson minds the aesthetic in particular; what he is saying, if I understand him correctly, is that nobody cares about cyberpunk except for the aesthetic. There's nothing beyond it. If there is something, it's the same old tropes about big bad evil 80s-style corporations, usually with a vague Japanese or Asian theme. Everything that was novel about cyberpunk has now been absorbed into the mainstream and…

"It's as lazy as it gets, and definitely not punk."

Reading is not very punk, though arguing what punk is is definitely punk.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#50

Post by teknopaul »

the_af wrote: post #40
notreallyserio wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, focusing criticism on the aesthetics is itself "staying shallow". Much cyberpunk media does serve as a critique of the status quo or an imagined future dystopia, as I assume he would prefer, but with some neon on the surface.

I don't think Gibson minds the aesthetic in particular; what he is saying, if I understand him correctly, is that nobody cares about cyberpunk except for the aesthetic. There's nothing beyond it. If there is something, it's the same old tropes about big bad evil 80s-style corporations, usually with a vague Japanese or Asian theme. Everything that was novel about cyberpunk has now been absorbed into the mainstream and…

After cyberpunk came steampunk (and all the other x-punks) devoid of anything but visual aesthetic;

He has a point IMHO;

Big fan of Invurt:: groks cyberpunk; made no attempt to copy the aesthetic;

Post reply on HN