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The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

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Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#161

Post by BTCOG »

throw1234651234 wrote: post #25
sho_hn wrote: post #14

I was in a bookshop in Germany the other day, and saw a "Neuromancer" cover with a cool stylized photograph of Seoul, South Korea, in the background. The most perfect metaphor for the West's present switch-over from Japanmania to the Korean Wave. Similarly now have the modern Korean alphabet bleed into the neon signs of Cyberpunky streets of more recent movie productions where in the past you had Japanese or Chinese…

"The most perfect metaphor for the West's present switch-over from Japanmania to the Korean Wave." if this is a thing, it has been largely unnoticed. I think educated people think of SK as one of the few countries competing with US tech income (others being Australia, Japan, Singapore, and some (but very few) parts of England (London Finance), Germany (not sure on this one), and Switzerland (banking )). Other than th…

The West (specifically in my experience, the United States) have been buying up everything tech and auto South Korean for pushing over a decade now at this point. Kia and Hyundai automobiles are now running against the Japanese cars here. Samsung and LG electronics are highly popular, as the Japanese versions were a decade or three prior. It's now more Samsung, LG, etc here in the US than it is Sony, for example. Also in agreement with a poster above how the Korean cinema is just now taking off since around 2019. Prior to the movie Parasite, I can't even think of a popular South Korean film taking root here but most have seen Parasite and quite a few were into Squid Game. This is a relatively new thing.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#162

Post by pmoriarty »

kemayo wrote: post #133
jrochkind1 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious if someone can find a URL for Gibson saying such things. I've never seen Gibson describing Neuromancer as a critique of Reagonomics or having any particular political agenda. Interested to see it if so! I don't think of Gibson having nearly as much "political" agenda or grounding as some other early "cyberpunk" writer's like Bruce Sterling or Rudy Rucker. (I don't think Gibson himself referred to his work "cy…

I did a cursory search, and there's certainly "What I tried to do was give people a future that is the world of the Reagan ’80s carried five steps forward and the volume turned up 20 clicks" in an article[1] from 1994. [1]: https://ew.com/article/1994/08/26/william-gibson-first-man-c...

This sounds very hand-wavy, and I wish Gibson was more explicit in drawing the connections.

Slums and the dominance of megacorps and the ultra-rich I understand, but what do cyberspace and AI's (two of Neuromancer's more original and iconic themes) have to do with Reagan? Nothing, from what I can tell.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#163

Post by Psyladine »

sho_hn wrote: post #39
throw1234651234 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting perspective. The only thing I can relate to here is Squid Game, but it went mostly unnoticed as a "trend shift" by me, because it seems to just fit the trend of Korea having pretty good movies (Chingoo, Old Boy) for the niche audience that liked things like Japan's original Battle Royale. Also, the trends of Korea seem to very much run in parallel with the trends of Japan - overworked business p…

Thanks! I do think there's a shift there from niche audience to much more significant mainstream attention (which can of course be fleeting, which was also kind of built into the original argument: attention moves on from time to time ...). I do recall the time when movies like "Old-boy" were favorites among the arthouse track/festival circuit-going audience as well, but those were never the headlining poster in a mu…

>The headlining novel of the biopunk subgenre, Bacigalupi's "The Windup Girl", is set in a future Bangkok.

Bacigalupi falls for japanophilia with the Japanese fetishization of geisha (the windup-girl of the title). His emphasis on mechanical power (i.e. springs and animal labor) was interesting though.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#164

Post by clem »

teknopaul wrote: post #50
the_af wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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;

Gibson has only himself and Sterling to blame for steampunk, given their joint work on The Difference Engine.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#165

Post by kasey_junk »

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…

Gibsons later work is worth picking up. None of it is as mind bending as the Neuromancer books but they are good and interesting in other ways.

I’ve really enjoyed his last two.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#166

Post by deadbunny »

tomc1985 wrote: post #88
throw1234651234 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cyberpunk 2077 is very much a disappointment in every sense other than the scope of the project. Every single aspect of it is a cheap, shallow rip-off. It adds nothing of value to anything, though enjoyable in the way Mortal Combat is. Still, Mortal Combat was far more ground-breaking and original - that about sums up how much of a "derivative work" Cyberpunk 2077 is.

What? It was a fantastic game that spent a lot of time ruminating on topics like transhumanism, sex, and corporate power. It let players explore heterosexual and homosexual romantic relationships in first person and uncensored. Character writing is for the most part top-notch. The universe is unfailingly coherent and incredibly fleshed out. Few games have moved me to the point of tears in the credits, but this one di…

I'm with you 100% the game is a mess from a gameplay point of view but the story (and load of side stories) is fantastic if a little cognitive dissonance inducing when being constantly told "You're dying! Hurry do the thing!" Then spending 10 hours dicking about.

I definitely think CDRP had a lot of help world building from the source material (perhaps leaning on it too much) but I'd definitely buy a sequel, maybe not on launch though!

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#167

Post by kemayo »

scrapheap wrote: post #15

If you liked Neuromancer then you should read True Names by Vernor Vinge.

It's impressive because it's ~3 years before Neuromancer, and in many ways it's a better predictor of "the internet" as a cultural thing. It nails a lot of the social aspects of online forums, for instance. It lacks the raw style of Neuromancer, alas.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#169

Post by kemayo »

EugeneOZ wrote: post #129

I’ll write my comment to outweigh the negativity towards the game. I’m still enjoying the game, still riding through Night City, finding new details every day: in the roads, tunnels, on the walls. A random pedestrian might have some link to a book or a movie - you just need to check their clothes and phrases. So exciting. REDEngine is great - of course, performance is awful, but the idea of ray-traced lights is great…

I think you're being too specific. This article, I'm pretty sure, is about the aesthetic of the entire genre of cyberpunk, rather than the video game Cyberpunk 2077.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#170

Post by pydry »

the_af wrote: post #136
pydry wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Agreed, and it's important to note that the message "evil corporations are greedy and use tech in soulless and alienating ways" used to be a radical message but it's not anymore. "The Nazis are evil" is also an overused trope and is hardly radical but by reusing it it helps protect us on a civilizational level from actual nazis. Tropes can be sort of like cultural T cells. I'd rather see more "nazis are bad" and cyb…

Well, but evil evolves and the pitfalls of society do too. You cannot stick to representations of the past. Also, cyberpunk was supposed to be a vision of the future (used as an excuse to look at the then-present time)! More books and games about how evil the Nazis were, unless presented in an innovative way , feel derivative and boring to me. I don't think Gibson would object to a cyberpunk game that went beyond the…

Most books and games feel derivative and boring to me. That isnt about the use of well worn tropes thats just sturgeons law in action.
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