[internisus]

I want cyberpunk

anything

best if it's theoretical or systematic or interactive

like an RPG system or a roguelike or something

but anything

ESPECIALLY if there are neural computer interfaces

that's basically the part that I'm really into

[Mr. Mechanical]

[internisus]

Wasn't there an Axe topic about that book? It suddenly sounds more interesting!

If we're going to talk glasses-type interfaces, well, I finished Snow Crash a little while ago, and the end of the book was pretty awesome, where Protagonist had 3D map data in alternate spectra superimposed over his normal vision as he navigated the labyrinth of The Raft while prepped on the diagnostics for REASON, his depleted-uranium-spitting minigun. Actually, my favorite bit about REASON was when the book printed its menu options.

I like that kind of thing. Like, depicted screen text and such.

I read part of Gibson's Neuromancer once and found it boring. Maybe I should try again.

[Mr. Mechanical]

Yeah, there was an axe topic. It got axed, I guess.

Neuromancer had a great first chapter. It sort of gets less interesting as it goes on though.
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[psiga]

I don't know where I got this from, but "Cyber" is mentally vocalized as "Thyber" for me, in the same intonation that Sagat uses when he says "Tiger."

Thyber! Thyber! Thyber!

Imagine stereotypical 90s sci-fi movie hacking, with all 3D animated blocks and shit, and the text HACKING NETWORK NOW on the screen, and maybe the sound of fingers clicking randomly against the keyboard.

Thyber! Thyber! Thyber!
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[scratchmonkey]

Hmm, I think that it dipped around the 10th chapter and then all the ones before and after were pretty damn good.

Then again, I think that Snow Crash is hilariously over-rated, so grain of salt, etc.

[internisus]

[psiga]

Somebody told me to mention Ghost in the Shell in internisus' Thyberpunk thread. So here we are.

Also go see Avalon if you haven't yet, though I think you probably already have.
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[internisus]

lol like someone needs to say ghost in the shell to me

I have noticed Avalon but not seen it. I take it it's good?

[Mr. Mechanical]

[scratchmonkey]

[psiga]

[internisus]

Well, that certainly sounds appealing! I shall seek it out with diligence.

[boojiboy7]

I like Neuromancer a lot, but the tow other books in that little series are both pretty interesting as well for working in some other stuff.

[slipstream]

I collect cyberpunk audiobooks on audio cassette.
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[internisus]

[slipstream]

Virtual Light by William Gibson is a great cyberpunk book set in California.
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[hipkondo]

One of my friends lives down the street from William Gibson. His property sadly, is not very dystopian. Burning Chrome, the Sprawl Trilogy and Idoru are all pretty cool though.

..Snatcher?

[gooktime]

yeah just play Snatcher

[PianoMap]

TETSUO: THE IRON MAN

though I guess if you just mean the slick, gadget-y techno stuff then Ringworld is pretty cool.

also I consider BLAME! to be pretty effing cyberpunk
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o-/< --- o-\< --- o-|-| --- o^-<

[Dracko]

Torture yourself by attempting to read Blood Electric.

The Neuromancer game is better than the book.
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[Lurky]

[boojiboy7]

[km]

I am a huge Stephenson fan.

Read Cryptonomicon, easily one of my favorite books. I'm not sure if it's EXACTLY cyberpunk, but I get the feeling you'll like it anyway! It has many of the same things, it's just not very dysotopian in the world-is-crumbling-down sense.

The Diamond Age is interesting too!


Burning Chrome was good, but for some reason Idoru and Virtual Light seemed... Off. Idoru more than Virtual Light.

I read some shitty book that was like OMG I AM AWESOME the whole damn time. It was called Omega Point or something. I still read it through and it was OK I guess, but there was this one point where two characters are having sex and they literally say "Sure is great they invented that AIDS vaccine!"
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vi) RPGs (Role-Playing Games)
For adolescents; half-formed personalities roaming (in packs) in search of identity.

[falsedan]

man screw you haters, I am going to re-read Neuromancer this weekend. edit: Sprawl series > Bridge series: Bridge (Virtual Light, Idoru, All Tomorrow's Parties) are very formulaic. I opened All Tomorrow's Parties, stuck a bookmark in, and said, "this is the point in the book where the two character's stories will unexpectedly collide".

I wish Stephenson would stop trying to be clever and start trying to entertain, also that he would take some creative writing classes. I really enjoyed Zodiac!

Don't read any Cory Doctorow, it is a psuedonym for a machine that makes poop in text form.

I am not allowed to read Stross, or else a friend will kill me in my sleep for dallying too close to Rudy Rucker's umbra.
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[Dracko]

But Stephenson is clever and entertaining! He just can't write an ending to save his life, though I hear the Baroque Cycle is the exception. Cryptonomicon is highly recommended, in spite of it not resolving to satisfaction and ending like every single techno-thriller ever.
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[Touran]

Hey, try Dystopia internisus.
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Man, I'm sorry.

[taidan]

Gibsons Bridge trilogy is fun because the charactes are all kind of goofy. Sprawl is better, but I found Count Zero to be kind of drabi n sections. It obviously exists to set up the finale, so it gets pardoned.

Snow Crash impressed initially but I can't get myself to read it again for some reason.

[dhex]

snow crash sucked but the diamond age is very good. cryptonomicon and the baroque cycle are very entertaining.

however, i think william gibson is a serious case of clownshoes so take that for what it's worth.
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[sync-swim]

Stephenson is more post-cyberpunk than anything. Snow Crash is pretty much the epitome of post-cyberpunk writing.

Cory Doctrow, Charles Stross and Rudy Rucker are current post-cyberpunk writers, while Stephenson has moved on from divergent writing that's inevitably defined by what it's rebelling against to real awful stuff.

Doctrow is awful, I'm sorry, I tried. Even his journalism is no-good Chuck Klostermann dreck.

Charles Stross is like a contemporary Bruce Sterling-- more about the ideas than the writing, though unlike Sterling he can actually write. Like Sterling's early work, Stross' stuff shares a somewhat amusing basement dweller's approach to female characterization and indulgent segues away from 3rd person character pursuit into omniscient data dumps about the universe.

Rudy Rucker lives two cities down from me, he teaches at my school and I don't like his writing for the life of me.

If you like the concepts and technological speculation behind the essence of cyberpunk, but were frustrated/bored by the "rambling, self-indulgent prose," then read Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix-- you'll jizz. If you, like me, think that, like punk, cyberpunk is more about style than substance (or any attempts to make it hard sci-fi), then read Richard K Morgan's books.

Morgan is the closest to the neo-cyberpunk people are looking for. His books are written as if designed to become movies later (one is in the works). They're good junk food novels, modern pulp. Morgan gets the point that real pulp has to be imminently readable pulp, not self consciously awful and turgid pulp that the author smugly expects the reader to slog through and love, a la Jeff Vandermeer.

You could also try M John Harrison's book Light. It's space opera-meets-cyberpunk written by one of the more cynical and realist authors of the New Wave. Be warned, I found it fantastic, but each and every person I lent it to absolutely loathes it (and every other Harrison piece). I guess it's because none of the characters are particularly perfect, too much like reality.

I heard John Clute wrote a Morgan-y neo-cyberpunk pulp called Appleseed. I've never seen it in shops, so I don't know whether the pun is intended.

You could also also try George Alec Effinger's Marid Audran series. It was actually part of the first wave of cyberpunk. The writing is pretty good, but this has got to be one of the most short-sighted cyberpunk series' ever written. Most the "shocker" technologies and sociological zingers, startling in 1986, are pretty tame and mostly exist now. But still, it's Neuromancer in the Middle East! You can't deny the appeal of that.

HOTU has a cyberpunk entry in its "game theme" pulldown bar.

[Dracko]

Of Gibson, I confess I've only ever liked Pattern Recognition, and really want to get my hands on Spook Country once a paperback is available.
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[Levi]

Have you rocked the Serial Experiments Lain yet? Cause that can be very beneficial.

For books, you might taste Tokyo Doesn't Love Us Anymore (Tokio qui n'Amore la) by Ray Loriga. It's like cyberpunk written by Albert Camus.

[internisus]

[internisus]

[internisus]

[Daphaknee]

goddamnit they already said tetsuo and william gibson AND LAIN jesus. now im out of ideas

ummm isnt the shadowrun tabletop rpg cyberpunk? i still dont fucking know exactly what cyberpunk is

or steampunk

goddamnit
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the internet's

[Dracko]

need more mannerpunk itt
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[taidan]

Intern you know System Shock 1 lets you hack into cyberspace sometimes.

[Touran]

[psiga]

Woah. Lawnmower Man meets Tron, or some shit.

Thybercrunk.
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[Dracko]

What about the Tron 2.0 game, with all the Marathon references?

The Marathon series is essential gaming, by the by, and you'll find that its themes of self-conscious, rampant A.I.s takes on huge scope and is perfectly in tune with certain cyberpunk ideas, despite its space opera veneer.
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