The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk • Hacker News Board

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#191

Post by the_af » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 6:03 PM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #186

BTCOG wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is contrary to numerous interviews where Gibson praises aesthetic and for example, says that Blade Runner spot-on nailed what he was going for with Neuromancer. Gibson all throughout Neuromancer equally himself focuses, almost hyper-focuses on surface textures and visual aesthetic to juxtapose antique forms and purpose with high tech modern materials. It would seemingly be at odds for him to not like aesthetic a…

This. For example here[1] is an interview in which Gibson waxes lyrical about pop culture, imagery, prose style and selective use of detail, and also says he didn't "have the patience" to flesh out details like the backstory of what was supposed to actually have happened to the US because they'd only detract from the reading enjoyment. He's saying that he was influenced by how cheesy Cold War era blockbusters could i…

Well, like I answered in another comment, Blade Runner is not a good example because Neuromancer wasn't published by then, and also because it was a groundbreaking visual work of art, not a derivative one (yes, I'm aware of Metropolis. The point still stands.)

> "[...] a determination to avoid what Gibson sees as right wing tendencies in Golden Age SF"

That was no small feat. It seems pretty major to me. It took me some work to mature from my young SF fan self to notice the rightwing undertones in much of it. Call it naivete, if you want.

What are modern cyberpunk derivatives fighting against? Cyberpunk today is codified as a consumer-friendly, eye-popping style, complete with a collection of tropes so ingrained fans will fight you to the death if you try to deviate so much as an inch from them.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#192

Post by syngrog66 » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 6:04 PM UTC

I reread Neuromancer recently and it was surreal reading all the refs in it to The Matrix. literally

I'm rereading Snow Crash now and you cant go 10 pages without reading about The Metaverse. and so much of its VR world reminds me of Ready Player One

everything old thats good seems to get endlessly reinvented, riffed on, or just blatantly ripped off? lol

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#193

Post by batman-farts » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 6:05 PM UTC

Psyladine wrote: post #158

throw1234651234 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

Japanophiles in the 80s were excessive. Scifi from the era has these undertones (Running Man, in 1986, has a bunch of execs being served sushi in post-apocalyptic california, by a geisha). Rising Sun in 1990 personified this fear that Japan would eclipse the US in tech, economy and culture, before they imploded with what we "now" consider an inevitable result of overheated economy. Try flying through Minnesota, Wisco…

Another interesting contemporary work by a writer who’s still relevant is James Fallows’ “Looking at the Sun.” A solid attempt at sense-making the late 80s economic situation vis-a-vis Japan for the American middle management class, contrasting their institutions with ours… but China is just kind of a shadow in the background of the whole thing.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#194

Post by at_a_remove » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 6:05 PM UTC

res0nat0r wrote: post #182

pmoriarty wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. Wild Palms .... I don't hear that one mentioned often (or ever). Glad to hear I'm not the only one who's seen this weird, obscure, flawed gem of a series.

This finally came out on Bluray not long ago. I remember seeing part of this in the early 90s and was trying to try and find it again forever but it was never available. https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Wild-Palms-Blu-ray/245856/

And to go with it, The Wild Palms Reader, which has all kinds of little columns, clips, and so forth. I have the Blu-Ray and the Reader sitting in my "COVID Isolation Hotel Media Crate," waiting for the day I test positive.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#195

Post by batman-farts » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 6:08 PM UTC

ethbr0 wrote: post #7

Gravityloss wrote: post #2

I was sick at home and finally picked up the Neuromancer which had been sitting in the bookshelf for years. It was an experience indeed. At many points, very high concept (which of course has been copied to death). At other points, naive. Surprisingly few things felt old fashioned. The biggest let down was the unrealistic behavior and motivation of people. It felt very much like an adventure game where everything rev…

Early cyberpunk tends to be power fantasy wrapped in dystopia. So, Hellblazer with more blinking lights and megacorps instead of demons. And it bears remembering that Gibson was 34 when he wrote Neuromancer . You can see a shift in his characterization by the time he gets to Mona Lisa Overdrive (a book and 4 years later). And certainly with the subsequent Bridge trilogy. IMHO, the Sprawl trilogy that starts with Neur…

It’s definitely worth reading the whole Sprawl trilogy. It establishes something of a pattern in Gibson’s work where characters from the first book in one of his trilogies return in the third, changed. The scene where Molly and the Finn reunite in Mona Lisa Overdrive is quite powerful.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#196

Post by Krasnol » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 6:08 PM UTC

sho_hn wrote: post #31

throw1234651234 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

We're talking in a pop culture context here, where even just in 2020-2022 Korea and Korean culture/heritage has had significant soft power success in a number of markets/media: - Export of majorly successful pop music (e.g. BTS, Blackpink - those hits are often penned by Western composers however, so a bit murky on what product is flowing there) - Ditto TV (e.g. Squid Game setting TV records with a lot rooted in Kore…

Germany here.

Besides Squid Game and Parasite, I've not heard of most of them and in the case of PUBG, I wasn't aware it was from SK or in any way special in this seemingly endless pool of "the same game with another skin"-genre.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#197

Post by munk-a » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 6:12 PM UTC

willis936 wrote: post #97

the_af wrote: post #17

One thing I read somewhere -- and it might have been an interview with Gibson or with someone else talking about his work -- is how much William Gibson despises derivatives of cyberpunk in the books, videogames and movies that followed. Specifically, he dislikes the focus on the aesthetic, neon lights, mirror shades, etc. I think Gibson really dislikes Cyberpunk 2077, for example. Gibson argued they are missing the p…

CP2077 appears shallow on the surface. Compared to Deus Ex the gameplay feels shallow. Story wise though... I'm not sure playing as a terrorist who detonated a nuke in a city and rose from the dead to finish the job is well within the "playing it safe" area of current storytelling.

And, honestly, outside of the main story the setting is absolutely dripping with theme and care - buggy the game may be, but poorly written it is not (in most cases - there were definitely some misses).

Hell, cyberpsychosis, a pretty plot-minor series of encounters, delves into one of the more interesting considerations in the game. That a fair number of people are unable to handle the implant tech at all and lose their ability to function in a balanced way - each encounter has a harrowing series of notes about the person degrading into insanity and each is just sort of... ignored by most of the people around it and accepted as a cost of technological advancement.

I know the devs get a lot of hate, but I think that there is a whole lot of heart and soul poured into that game.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#198

Post by the__alchemist » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 6:13 PM UTC

hajile wrote: post #64

the__alchemist wrote: post #10

I finished reading Neuromancer a week ago. I'd played Cyberpunk 2077 recently, and Dystopia further back. So many of the concepts from those games appear to come directly from Neuromancer! I stumbled upon articles implying they were indirectly influenced; Neuromancer evidently created a whole genre! Btw, compared to hard scifi like Stephenson (relevant comparison due to Snow Crash), Neuromacer isn't really there; its…

You should read Snow Crash. While Neuromancer created the style, Snow Crash added in a lot of missing elements and had the benefit of being written 8 years later and by someone with some with a lot more knowledge of computing.

Loved it!

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#199

Post by EugeneOZ » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 6:14 PM UTC

kemayo wrote: post #169

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.

Yes, my first line mentions it.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#200

Post by willis936 » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 6:15 PM UTC

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #183

dleslie wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cyberpunk 2077 receives too much grief for its rejection of the mainstream state of affairs, making it quite punk. IMHO. The crux of the story, the full arc and conclusion of your character, is that you are a nobody who seeks to become an influencer, comes to believe that you have a big role to play in world events, but ultimately even your greatest possible achievements amount to being either inconsequential or the…

Sorry to gatekeep but corporate produced anything cannot be punk. At most, they can serve as a rent seeker for passing along punk to the masses but that's not even what Cyberpunk 2077 is. This is 100% corporate, focus grouped, committee approved, beige trying too hard to be punk. Which is fine if taken for what it really is but what it really is, which isn't punk.

Then there is no punk now. Every inch of life within society has been co-opted by moneymen.

You, by living in society, are not punk. The novels you label as punk are not punk because they are made for profit, advertised to appease and sedate a sense of counterculture, and bought with money made from corporate work.

Chan manifestos are the only thing that might qualify.