Graham J. Murphy

Sherryl Vint

In this collection of essays, contributors consider the continuing cultural relevance of the cyberpunk genre into the new millennium. Cyberpunk is no longer an emergent phenomenon, but in our digital age of CGI-driven entertainment, the information economy, and globalized capital, we have never more been in need of a fiction capable of engaging with a world shaped by information technology. Contributors seek to move beyond the narrow strictures of cyberpunk as defined in the Eighties and contribute to an ongoing discussion of how to negotiate exchanges among information technologies, global capitalism, and human social existence. Essays offer a variety of perspectives on cyberpunkâ€™s diversity and how this sub-genre remains relevant amidst its transformation from a print fiction genre into a more generalized set of cultural practices, tackling the question of what it is that cyberpunk narratives continue to offer us in those intersections of literary, cultural, theoretical, academic, and technocultural environments.

New Critical Perspectives

Beyond Cyberpunk

Susan M. Bernardo

Though science fiction has existed as a literary genre for well over a century, a working definition of the term has yet to be determined. Ursula K. Le Guin, who emerged as a popular science fiction and fantasy writer in the 1960s, has not only witnessed, but also experienced first-hand the shifts and transformations of this increasingly popular genre. Delve into her fantastical worlds and investigate several of her famous works in this study ideal for high school and undergraduate students. Learn about the author's life and decade-spanning career, as well as her numerous literary achievements. This comprehensive analysis of Le Guin's work will leave readers anxious for her future endeavors.

A Critical Companion

Ursula K. Le Guin

​William Gibson’s Neuromancer: A Critical Companion presents Gibson’s rise as an influential figure within and beyond the science fiction field. Gibson’s success with Neuromancer, the first novel to win the Hugo Award, Nebula Award, and Philip K. Dick Award, is in part a direct result of the rising popularity of cyberpunk in the early- to mid-1980s, although it could just as easily be said cyberpunk’s success was in no small part a direct result of Neuromancer’s explosion onto the science fiction scene. Neuromancer’s ongoing relevance remains undiminished because we are effectively living in a technocultural age that is increasingly difficult to distinguish from Gibson’s novel. As Graham J. Murphy demonstrates in this companion, the novel remains instrumental in thinking through the ongoing explorations of the posthuman:transhumanism, the Utopia/Anti-Utopia dynamic, and capitalist realism, to name a few of themore significant critical vehicles with which to better understand and contextualize our technocultural age and Neuromancer’s role in both shaping it and responding to it. This book provides a critical introduction to Neuromancer and cyberpunk culture.

William Gibson's "Neuromancer"

Lars Schmeink

Anna McFarlane

A collection of engaging essays on some of the most significant figures in cyberpunk culture, this outstanding guide charts the rich and varied landscape of cyberpunk from the 1970s to present day. The collection features key figures from a variety of disciplines, from novelists, critical and cultural theorists, philosophers, and scholars, to filmmakers, comic book artists, game creators, and television writers. Important and influential names discussed include: J. G. Ballard, Jean Baudrillard, Rosi Braidotti, Charlie Brooker, Pat Cadigan, William Gibson, Donna J. Haraway, Nalo Hopkinson, Janelle Monáe, Annalee Newitz, Katsuhiro Ōtomo, Sadie Plant, Mike Pondsmith, Ridley Scott, Bruce Sterling, and the Wachowskis. The editors also include an afterword of ‘Honorable Mentions’ to highlight additional figures and groups of note that have played a role in shaping cyberpunk. This accessible guide will be of interest to students and scholars of cultural studies, film studies, literature, media studies, as well as anyone with an interest in cyberpunk culture and science fiction.

Fifty Key Figures in Cyberpunk Culture

"Cover" -- "Title" -- "Copyright" -- "Dedication" -- "Contents" -- "Acknowledgments" -- "Contributor Biographies" -- "Foreword: Cyberpunk and its Visual Vicissitudes" -- "Introduction: The Visuality and Virtuality of Cyberpunk" -- "PART I "Image/Text Concatenations" -- or, From Literary to Visual Cyberpunk (and Back Again)" -- "Part I Introduction" -- "1 Beyond the Heroics of Gonzo-Journalism in Transmetropolitan " -- "2 Embodying Failures of the Imagination: Defending the Posthuman in The Surrogates " -- "3 Cyberpunk Urbanism and Subnatural Bugs in BOOM! Studios' Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? " -- "4 "Today's Cyborg is Stylish": The Humanity Cost of Posthuman Fashion in Cyberpunk 2020" -- "5 "Silhouettes of Strange Illuminated Mannequins": Cyberpunk's Incarnations of Light " -- "PART II "Tactics of Visualization" -- or, From Visual to Virtual Cyberpunk (and Back Again) " -- "Part II Introduction" -- "6 "My Targeting System is a Little Messed Up": The Cyborg Gaze in the RoboCop Media Franchise " -- "7 Kusanagi's Body: Dualism and the Performance of Identity in Ghost in the Shell and Stand Alone Complex" -- "8 The History of Cyberspace Aesthetics in Video Games" -- "9 Playing for Virtually Real: Cyberpunk Aesthetics and Ethics in Deus Ex: Human Revolution" -- "10 "We Are Data": The Cyberpunk Imaginary of Data Worlds in Watch Dogs" -- "PART III "Emerging World Orders" -- or, Cyberpunk as Science Fiction Realism" -- "Part III Introduction" -- "11 1980s German Cyberpunk Cinema: Kamikaze 1989 and Nuclearvision" -- "12 Afrocyberpunk Cinema: The Postcolony Finds its Own Use for Things " -- "13 Cyberpunk and "Science Fiction Realism" in Kathryn Bigelow's Strange Days and Zero Dark Thirty " -- "14 Cyberwar: The Convergence of Virtual and Material Battlefields in Cyberpunk Cinema" -- "15 Afterthoughts: Cyberpunk Engagements in Countervisuality

Cyberpunk and Visual Culture

Examines the major works of the science fiction author, describing her characters, narrative strategies, plot development, literary devices, settings, and significant themes.

This book is a collection of essays that considers the continuing cultural relevance of the cyberpunk genre into the new millennium. Cyberpunk is no longer an emergent phenomenon, but in our digital age of CGI-driven entertainment, the information economy, and globalized capital, we have never more been in need of a fiction capable of engaging with a world shaped by information technology. The essays in explore our cyberpunk realities to soberly reconsider Eighties-era cyberpunk while also mapping contemporary cyberpunk. The contributors seek to move beyond the narrow strictures of cyberpunk as defined in the Eighties and contribute to an ongoing discussion of how to negotiate exchanges among information technologies, global capitalism, and human social existence. The essays offer a variety of perspectives on cyberpunk’s diversity and how this sub-genre remains relevant amidst its transformation from a print fiction genre into a more generalized set of cultural practices, tackling the question of what it is that cyberpunk narratives continue to offer us in those intersections of literary, cultural, theoretical, academic, and technocultural environments.

Graham J. Murphy

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