[jvanderbot]

There's a name I haven't heard in a while. I'm so glad for the revival of that IP/content. From what I can tell, all the early-80s cyberpunk literature basically had the same theme, so the classic authors are all good reads as well. It must have been something about late 70s / early 80s USA that made everyone feel like we were on the verge of corporate takeover of government. Understandably, I suppose.

[AnonymousPlanet]

> It must have been something about late 70s / early 80s USA that made everyone feel like we were on the verge of corporate takeover of government.

Yes and no. At the time, Cyberpunk was a fringe movement by some rebel authors. Hence the "punk". Until then, mainstream science fiction was very much obsessed with nice utopias that used technology and communication for the benefit of society in far distant futures. Cyberpunk tore it all down and pointed at the possible nightmare of a not so distant future where all pervading technology leaves you cluelessly behind, crushed under the foot of megacorporate feudalism.

[edgyquant]

Yes and now basically all mainstream scifi is cyberpunk and depressing. It’d be nice to go back to the mainstream being optimistic or at least neutral

[6LLvveMx2koXfwn]

You'd have to be a pretty damn good author to make that believable!

[voidfunc]

> It must have been something about late 70s / early 80s USA that made everyone feel like we were on the verge of corporate takeover of government. Understandably, I suppose.

Rise of mass media and opaque conglomerates along with the poor economics of late 70's through 80's that saw many (mostly) manufacturing jobs get nuked by boardrooms.

[staticman2]

I listened to a college professor talking about Neuromancer and he connected republican president Ronald Reagon's "Reaganomics" to the theme corporations were taking over the world.