[parsoj]

I'm confused - is this complaining about the genre as a whole being less popular? Or just books? I think with one of the most hyped and games of the year being a cyberpunk game (with "Cyberpunk" literally in the name) - its definitely premature to call the genre as a whole "dead" If this article is just lamenting the absence of Cyberpunk books - well surges in popularity in one media can always carry over to others...

[keiferski]

The article isn't about either of those things. It's about the original ideas of cyberpunk (which were rooted in the 80s) being turned into cliches and repeated ad infinitum since and whether a new 2020-era genre is needed.

[whatshisface]

>whether a new 2020-era genre is needed.

The idea that a new genre could be created because critics concluded that one was "needed" is the daftest and most out-of-touch thing I've ever heard...

[NineStarPoint]

Well, generally it’s more like critics pointing out that the niche cyberpunk used to fill is now empty and that something will inevitably come to fill it. Critics definitely don’t have the power to actually create a genre like that, those come from grassroot sources, but a good critic would be able to realize that there’s a literary void that is waiting to be filled.

[_jal]

The idea that a random person on a message board could inspire someone to write software because someone said they needed a tool is the daftest, most out-of-touch thing I've ever read.

Oh wait, that has happened multiple times.

Granted, a genre is bigger than a tool. But this free-floating hatred for commentators of all stripes literally blinds people to reality.

And it isn't some Critic-On-High making pronouncements and waiting for followers to act. It is observational.

[slothtrop]

> The idea that a random person on a message board could inspire someone to write software because someone said they needed a tool is the daftest, most out-of-touch thing I've ever read.

A tool already describes a solution to a problem in mind, it's clear cut. If the analogous problem here is "I want new genre fiction", then a) that doesn't describe what's desired, and b) that already exists (qua all the "punk" suffixed derivatives among other things), it's just not as popular, and therefore we can surmise the wrong question is being asked.

Stephenson once had a talk where he suggested that sci-fi writers should effectively return to optimistic stories, but he hasn't done that himself. He could literally solve the problem he described. We want what we want, and write what we want to write.

[dgritsko]

I've been re-reading "The Hobbit" recently, and this passage struck me as relevant to your comment. From Chapter 3, "A Short Rest":

"Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway."

During the stay in Rivendell, nothing much interesting happens - so Tolkien doesn't bother with telling us about it. The exciting, interesting stuff is when our heroes are in peril or experiencing great trials and tribulations.

[keiferski]

Or, you know, times change, new problems arise, thus needing new solutions...

[dylan604]

It happens in music all of the time.

[pnathan]

Cyberpunk qua the earliest novels has been increasingly a rather nerdy fantasy future since sometime in the early 2000s.

Looking at the "cyberpunk" today, it's a fashion trend in a lot of ways.

Futurist rooted in the way technology is today, projected forward 20-40 years, would look very different than cyberpunk.

[mcv]

The headline asks the question and doesn't provide a clear answer. I guess it depends on how you look at it.

The genre is definitely not as fresh and new as it was in the 1980s, but that's unavoidable when a genre is over 30 years old. One of the people in the article calls it paint-by-the-numbers Gibson. But someone also mentions that fantasy was huge back then, and that it was all trying to copy Tolkien. Paint-by-the-numbers Tolkien, I guess.

I guess every genre starts with a few innovative writers breaking new ground, and then a few decades of copycats, until finally someone gets tired of all that and reinvents the genre again.

The big question is whether that's possible with cyberpunk; it's already a pretty specific genre. It's really a reinvention of SciFi. Maybe transhumanism can be seen as a reinvention? Solarpunk maybe? Neither seem to have anywhere near the same impact, though. Maybe they're just riding on the coattails of cyberpunk. Those are clearly still going strong.

[badsectoracula]

Cyberpunk can easily be reinvented if writers take their heads out of the 80s. At its core it isn't about people with neon hair shooting lasers out of their eyes to paint fluorescent graffity with Japanese letters, but about trying to imagine all the ways that current technology can affect the human society in the near future and answering the question of 'what can even go wrong?' with 'everything'.

If there is anything we have in abundance today is tech that can be horribly abused by those in power.

[toyg]

I think we're getting a bit too liberal with labels.

"Trying to imagine all the ways that current technology can affect the human society in the near future and answering the question of 'what can even go wrong?' " is basically just "doing SciFi the way SciFi should be done". There is nothing eminently cyberpunk in the technique. Obviously "SciFi done right" will forever self-reinvent, that's how cyberpunk came to be in the first place; but it has little to do with the health of cyberpunk as a genre.

We usually talk of cyberpunk specifically to restrict the argument to a subset of scifi topics and literary aesthetics common to the self-declared cyberpunk artists: the influence of networks, body augmentation, and corporate feudalism (or rejection thereof). A scifi text that does not touch on any of those items, is unlikely to be seen or defined as cyberpunk.

So imho a "cyberpunk reinvention" would need to find something fresh to say on those topics. If I were to write a book on reusable rockets, for example, I would be "doing scifi right" (spaceX etc) but not really "doing cyberpunk".

[badsectoracula]

You forgot the most important part: "answering the question of 'what can even go wrong?' with 'everything'."

This isn't about making stories on reusable rockets, it is about how those reusable rockets would affect the common man's life negatively. You know, "high tech, low life". Of course if that wouldn't make sense (cannot think how reusable rockets could affect everyday life, at least in a direct way), then it isn't much of a fit for Cyberpunk.

Framing Cyberpunk as only about networks, body augmentation and corporate feudalism is IMO too narrow and restricting - these can be the symptoms of high tech but they aren't the only thing that high tech can do or affect negatively.

I mean, what is next? Restricting Cyberpunk works to only be set at night while raining? :-P

[toyg]

That’s a pessimistic view of cyberpunk. “Maneki Neko” by Sterling is a short story about positive impacts of tech, should it not be considered cyberpunk? It certainly was included in the genre when it appeared.

I think you’re actually restricting the category more than I did.

[EthanHeilman]

The parts of Cyberpunk that are valuable are the aesthetic and the way in which it provides tropes, and expectations that let you tell different stores. If someone picks up a cyberpunk book they expect the protag to be an antihero or even a villain. They expect noir themes.

In Neuromancer the protag murders a bunch of people in an office building because he and his friends want to steal something in the basement of the building. If you set that story in the modern day readers would likely have far more empathy toward the victims of the attack. If you put that story into the startrek universe and readers likely wouldn't finish the book. The aesthetics of Cyberpunk is a sleight of hand that let's get away with themes that you couldn't tell in other genres.

[badsectoracula]

Yes there are some other tropes that are into play, but those aren't always important - e.g. there are Cyberpunk works where you do not play the antihero or villain. E.g. in movies Alex Murphy in Robocop isn't exactly an antihero and certainly not a villain. Similar in games with JC Denton in Deus Ex (though of course in such games this particular aspect isn't clear since it is up to the player - but you are essentially playing as a glorified cop).

That some popular works in the genre share some of these tropes doesn't mean that the genre is all about those tropes.