This final literature review is concerned with the subgenre of science fiction literature known as 'cyberpunk'. The important inquiries in this review is to reveal rational and irrational concerns through an examination of the aesthetic expressions of Internet-related future mythology and the characteristics of heroic protagonists and other role models in such literature. The choice of the particular subgenre is as it identified by deep cultural members of the community.
The literature is reviewed according to the totalizing typological framework of the setting, inspired by Frederic Jameson, Jacques Derrida's deconstructionalist methodology, especially as a means of examining the legitimacy of express concerns and “chains of expectations” of the narrative, and protagonist and role-model behaviour according to the theory of character performance by Judith Butler.
Ten texts are reviewed in this section, examined according to year of publication, but also grouped by author(s). They are representative of critically acclaimed texts in this subgenre. As per previous sections, author and text introduction is followed by a synopsis followed by the application of methodology and finally a comparison with the review objectives.
The Shockwave Rider, John Brunner
[John Brunner (1975), The Shockwave Rider, Ballatine Del Ray]
Whilst "The Shockwave Rider" was published in 1975, several years before the recognised advent of cyberpunk sf. Nonetheless, the text is critically as essential to the subgenre, with many hackers and cyberpunks subscribing to as the defining novel of the subgenre, indeed researchers at Parc Xerox in the early 1980s dubbed the first self-replicating computer programs “worms” after the hypothesized use in Brunner's book.
The title, as noted from the author's preface, is derived from Alvin Toffler's "FutureShock", a popular examination of technological and social trends for its time. In "The Shockwave Rider", Brunner takes issue with the central claim of "FutureShock" - that human beings will be unable to deal with the complexity of a hypermodernity leading to a society of increasingly commodified and fragmented individuals. Brunner was the author of some seventy sf novels, the most acclaimed being the dystopias of "The Sheep Look Up" (environmental crises), "Stand on Zanzibar" (overpopulation) and "The Shockwave Rider".
“The Shockwave Rider" is set primarily in the western United States. Like most novels of the cyberpunk sub-genre, it is a near future setting, with technological and cultural mores being similar to contemporary life. Brunner, however, displayed exceptional prophetic knowledge by including an all-ubiquitous data-net that dominates personal, government and financial worlds. This is particularly important for the protagonist, Nicholas Haflinger, a government-corporate trained computer hacker who goes AWOL.
In many ways the narrative is quite typical for modern popular literature and particularly literature from the United States; the rugged individual protagonist discovers a partner who competently challenges his lifestyle. In a time of crises they escape together to solace (in this instance a highly educated utopian community outside the normal data-net). As a novel primarily centered as a counter a social psychological claim, the reaction of individuals to the all-encompassing corporate and government control of the data-net almost exclusively determine characterisation.
Nevertheless, the few characters that are treated in depth propose a model of superiority in the moral claims of universal humanism against systematic demands. In the protagonist's case, this is inspired after witnessing the results of attempted genetic engineering. In the case of the protagonist' partner and his interrogator, the decision is made on a rational basis alone. Indeed, contrary to many stereotypes of this nature, this protagonist does not provide an inspiration for these people to turn on their employer, but rather provides an opportunity.
Characterisation and theme are thus closely intertwined in The Shockwave Rider. The few individuals who make the grade for any sort of character development or depth are characters who are individuals against a backdrop of a (mostly) disenfranchised world - the vibrant, but poor, independent communities are excluded here, and the faceless corporate workers.
The style of The Shockwave Rider is worthy of noting. The novel is in fact two stories expressed concurrently which, in the final chapters, combine into a single story. One is an interview process between the protagonist and his captors, the second a present tense recollection of the events leading up to the interview. Due to this style, Shockwave Rider is arranged into a large number of short chapters, ranging from a single paragraph to a few pages.
Shockwave Rider is also special for its use of a computer virus as a major plot device, specifically a worm program (indeed, Shockwave Rider is where the description for this particular type of program is coined). Following the political-literary demand of freedom of information, Brunner's protagonist turns the communication and security of the data-net on to itself with seemingly random missives of public interest and anti-corruption information appearing throughout the data-net. In many ways it can be perceived as a combination of the hackers code of ethics from MIT and the anti-secrecy demands of beat science fiction (e.g., Burroughs). In either case, to many, the protagonist of Shockwave Rider became the hacker personality type, as a rugged individual with a secretive past, with extraordinary computer and administrative skills.
The Shockwave Rider provides a solution but not an alternative; an ideal version of a worm program, but it doesn't provide an alternative. Despite the endearing and skillful non-conformism of Brunner's protagonist, and despite obviously excellent computer programming and operations skills (indeed, clearly the best in the world), the social and political theory presented is little more than classical humanism with a surprising absence of technological and systematic criteria.
Ultimately, Shockwave Rider is doubly prophetic. Brunner made the very advanced conception of an all-encompassing highly distributed computer network - keeping in mind that most science fiction authors of the time phrased their computer systems according to what was contemporary at the time - mainframes. On the other hand however, Brunner's heroic protagonist is critically flawed. Despite establishing a new benchmark in what constitutes an archetypal computer hacker, the character lacks the theoretical breadth and rigor to implement the humanist agenda. But in many ways that is entirely the point – the character hands over the implementation to others.
Applying Jameson's typological analysis to The Shockwave Rider provides interesting insights. The central component in Jameson is the matter of political economy, and here, Shockwave Rider follows a dystopic tradition in science fiction, first expressed in Eugene Zamyatin's 'We' (1922) and also found in George Orwell's '1984' (1948) and Ray Bradbury's 'Fahrenheit 451' (1953). The basic orientation concerns the use of information technology as an anti-democratic tool, as a means of surveillance and the restriction of information rather than its distribution, with access rights determined by political rank. The resultant social pathology is paralysis and paranoia.
Of course, this advanced state-regulated capitalism does have some functional advantages. The society and economy runs in an accordance to the planners, whose data-access is determined by their loyalty to the system. Within this smooth, functional and psychologically unfree society a highly successful institution is “Hearing Aid” - an organization which allows the members of this paranoid society to express their fears, concerns and desires. But the organization itself is paralyzed – it owes its success due to a guarantee that it will never act on the information received. Notably “Heading Aid” is managed through Precipice, a township “outside” society, in the rugged and lawless regions of the earthquake devastated western United States, which remains outside of the data-net, but is tolerated by the authorities precisely because of its psychological functionality and lack of political action.
In reference to the deconstructive methodology, it is not unfair to suggest that the narrative of The Shockwave Rider is an exercise in overcoming the binary oppositions initially described in terms of the main protagonist and the internal and external social. The main protagonist, a secretative character with multiple identities, stands in stark contrast to others in a society where every inidividual and every act is recorded data. The internal social system, based on restricted yet ubiquitous information, stands in contrast with the external social system – one without unifying laws, outside the information network and the social system. However, this is not a novel where one side proves to be victorious over the other. The tightly controlled system of the datanet does not “take-over” the freedom of Precipice, nor do the “lawless lands” shatter the datanet. Nicholas Haflinger does not defeat his captors, but nor does his interrogator break him. Rather, the resolution of the binary oppositions is achieved through the dialectical transcendence from their internal contradictions and the advantages of the alter-state.
It's appliciable to refer to the character and character development of Nicholas Halflinger at this stage. As already mentioned, he is an escapee from a government-corporate genius training centre and has since then assumed multiple personalities to keep himself one step ahead of the authorities, and with an employment history that includes utopia designer, lifestyle counselor, gambler, computer security consultant, systems rationalizer and priest. These roles of course, do not initially fit neatly with Butler's theory of performativity – not only are they highly gendered they are only taken on because Halflinger's peculiar requirements as a criminal genius on the run. Indeed, they are closer to dramatic expression more than anything else.
In a rather unimaginative plot device, Halfinger overcomes his own psychological limitations through love. By a woman named Kate, Nicholas gradually develops a sense of trust in other people, albeit initially one person in particular. Kate, to the credit of the author, is certainly no trophy female prize for the rugged individual heroic male protagonist. Indeed, she is in many ways more developed than Nicholas, certainly with a higher level of moral wisdom and practical solutions for the problems of their society – it's just that she lacks the particular expertise to “make it happen”.
Initially, this sense of trust backfires. Through his revelations, Nicholas is captured and Precipice and Hearing Aid are threatened. Halfinger critical action, the thematic climax of the narrative, is to engage in a perfomative act orientated towards freedom – the reworking of the computer worm that has protected him to provide all data on everyone to everyone and utter shatter the hierachial caste order of access to information (and in doing so, completely giving himself away). Even so, Nicholas knows the possibility that the result may even be worse than the current situation. He has learnt, at a moment of crises, the necessity of universal trust and common humanity and acts with the assumption that the social pathologies of the collective are caused by a lack of freedom, not that a lack of freedom is caused by social pathologies. Thus he poses two questions in a national electronic mail plebisicite:
#1: That this is a rich planet. Therefore poverty and hunger are unworthy of it, and since we can abolish them, we must.
#2: That we are a civilized species. Therefore none shall henceforth gain illicit advantage by reason of the fact that we together know more than one of us can know.
[Stephen H. Goldman, John Brunner's Dystopias: Heroic Man in Unheroic Society, Science Fiction Studies #16, Nov 1978, DePauw University]
[A June 5, 2003 websearch (google) revealed a mere five websites (in four domains) that actually posted the propositions and eight posts to usenet). It stands in stark contrast to Bruce Sterling's claim that The Shockwave Rider is “like a bible to many cyberpunks”]
Do Androis Dream of Electric Sheep, Phillip K. Dick and Blade Runner, Ridley Scott (dir)
Philip K. Dick (1928-1982) wrote more than 40 novels and a large number of short stories. His most well known novels include The Man in the High Castle (1962) which won a Hugo, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (1974), which won a Cambell Award, We Can Build You (1972), A Scanner Darkly (1977), and Valis (1981). His novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (1968) was the basis of the movie Blade Runner, as the short story We Can Remember it for You Wholesale, was for the movie Total Recall.
Dick's novels, with strange settings, tangential plots, conflict psychology (between sanity/insanity, individuals/society, humans/machines) along with a dash of dry wit proved popular amongst the science fiction community. His personal life was as much a tale in its own right. Dick was a heavy user of drugs (particularly amphetamines) and operated with the intense belief that he was a "gutter prophet", that is, he had an important metaphysical message to provide to the world but had ended up in the science fiction community. After his death, the science fiction community established the Phillip K. Dick award, whose winners include Rudy Rucker's Software and Wetware as well as William Gibson's Neuromancer.
In Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep?, based after World War Terminus, multinational corporations make simulacra of many of the lifeforms that once inhabited earth, including "replicants", synthetic humans. The protagonist, Rick Deckhard, is a police officer whose job is to "retire" six replicants who have killed their owner and have escaped to earth. After an argument with his wife, who is refusing to use the mechanical mood organ to make herself happy, Deckhard engages in a detective plot, hunting down and retiring the replicants one by one. After some disturbing encounters - including a relationship with a replicant (Rachel) and a side trip in an alternative reality where he is being questioned for being a replicant, Deckhard returns home, and this time rejects his partner's suggestion to use the mood organ. Despite their discomfort, he realises that it is his emotions which makes him human.
These essential characteristics were retained in the Ridley Scott directed film Blade Runner (1982). Scott's other films include The Duellist (1977), which took Best First Work at Cannes, Legend, Alien (1979), the Thelma and Louise (1991) which earned Scott an Oscar nomination, Hannibal, the sequel to The Silence of the Lambs (1991), 1492 (1992) and G.I. Jane (1997). He also produced The Browning Version (1994). Ridley Scott's work is characterised by visual richness. He is known to include clips across films; scenes from both Legend and Alien are included in Blade Runner, for example.
The first, and most obvious, difference is the setting, or rather the stylistic presentation. In Blade Runner, the entire cityscape is in perpetual semi-darkness with constant drizzle. As with Do Androids Dream in Electric Sheep, rubbish - "kibble" in Phillip K. Dick's parlance - is abundant. A particularly nice touch, and constantly overlooked, is the fact that all the machines are imperfect. Old ceiling fans rotate slowly, as if they're struggling to work at all. Lights and televisions flicker and fail. The operations of the Voigt-Kompf machines for testing human empathy have operations more akin to Victorian than postmodern technology. Even the much-despised noir-style voice-overs in the first major release satirise this thematic quality of the setting presentation.
Following the obvious differences in setting are differences in characterisation. The replicants are provided quite complex personalities as each attempts to deal with the impending end of their limited lifespan, with the "fallen angel" persona of Roy Batty being particularly notable along with all its metaphysical connotations. Other minor characters, whilst limited as one expects for the role of bit-piece in a movie medium, are presented with some colour. Tyrell as the "heavenly father", creator of the replicants has a bedroom modeled on the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. Hannibal Chew of the eye works is manic in the love of his creations - and so forth. All the characters in Blade Runner seem to be existential responses that lead Deckhard to finally escape from his individual stoicism and experience human love.
This leads to an interesting twist on the theme experienced in Dick's original. Dick had a skill in constructing what is perhaps best described as "paranoid sf", and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is no exception. The scene in the book where Deckhard finds himself in an alternate reality where he is being investigated for being a replicant is subtlety recreated in Blade Runner with occasional plot "errors" over the number of replicants that Dekhard has to find. Recently, director Ridley Scott ended years of debate among fans by acknowledging that Deckhard was indeed a replicant.
The consistent theme from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep to Blade Runner is the defining status of humanity, a concern which is taken up in a different manner by a substantial percentage of cyberpunk literature. In Blade Runner, Dekhard gains his humanity simultaneously with Roy Batty. Roy, in his own final moments, saves his hunter Dekhard from certain death.
Whilst considered a failure according to initial movie attendance, Blade Runner became a "cult classic" through the video circuit in the years following, particularly as viewers were able to discern the complex narrative behind the extraordinarily rich display. The theme of the technological competing with human definition is a theme that originates with science fiction (Frankenstein). Dick's resolution is quite appropriate: that humanity is defined by the treatment of the Other, and not something based on birth, incept dates or lifespan. This humanistic theme, along with rich characterisation and setting, and extraordinary style establishes Blade Runner as the archetypal cyberpunk film.
There is significant difference in the political economy of Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep and Blade Runner. In the former, the role of the state, especially state-sanctioned violence in prominent. In the latter however, the forces of the state are potrayed as underresourced, overworked, in fact tettering on collapse. Opulance exists in only the hands of the most powerful corporations,such as the Tyrell Corporation, whereas smaller businesses, such as Hannibal Chew genetic engineer of eyes, scrape an existence utterly subservient to that of the larger corporations, who, at best, tolerate with some bemusement claims of a monopoly of authority by the state. These differences are representative of the change in the real political economy between 1968, when Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep and 1982, when Blade Runner was released. The authority of state power in 1968 was unquestioned and the novel replicates this spirit. What is particularly remarkable about Blade Runner is not the replication of the relationship between the state and capitalism of 1982, but rather the elaboration of the trajectory it makes concerning state and corporate relations which would be confirmed throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
The most prominent binary opposition in Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep and Blade Runner is that between human and replicant. Ideally, the replicants are biological machines, intelligent, strong, beautiful etc, but incapable of emotional responses which apparently human beings are supposed to maintain a monopoly over. As the narrative unfolds it is the reverse that appears to be the case. The replicants – fugative murderers to be sure – are simply attempting to extend their own pitiful four-year life span, whereas it is the humans characters who are behaving in an unemotional, unhuman manner. Indeed, in the climatic scene where Roy Batty saves the life of his own hunter he ironically proves the motto of the corporation that made him “More human than human”.
Whilst the institutional and legal definitions of “human” and “replicant” are clear enough – albeit determined in a technical manner (such as the “nasal calipers” used the Nazi's as a means of determining whether a person was of the Jewish “race”) - the distinction in the characters is often less than clear. Rachel, who works for the Tyrell Corporation is a replicant but doesn't know it (she has implanted memories), Deckhard is a replicant but never discovers it. The fugative replicants look like and act like any other human being (with a couple of modicum of additional physcial advantages). However, these tensions and confusions are notably not resolved, which is actually an endearing aspect of Blade Runner – the wide possibility of elaborative interpretations on behalf of the viewer with recognition that the current system of demarcation is utterly untenable.
Interestingly, at no stage during the narrative until the very end does the protagonist, Deckhard, engage in performative action. Rather, this behaviour is apparently only within the scope of Batty's gang of replicants who, whilst not in the social position to be engaging in free action (as fugitive criminals) are consistently carrying out their actions for freedom. Batty transcends self-interested perfomativity at the moment he saves Deckhard's life to a genuine act of free action. At this point Deckhard, who has hitherto been a victim of his circumstances, following to the letter to social role allocated to him, takes his life in his own hands and at the conclusion of the film becomes a fugitive in his own right.
The Sprawl Trilogy, William Gibson
William Gibson - a Vietnam war draft dodger who escaped to Canada - is synonymous with cyberpunk literature. His first novel Neuromancer (1984), was a winner of Hugo, Nebula, Phillip K. Dick, Sieun and Ditmar awards thus becoming the definitive cyberpunk novel, credited with coining the term - and concept - of "cyberspace" (in the short story Johnny Mnemonic (1982)). Subsequent novels, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive formed a trilogy affectionately known as "the Sprawl Series". Other books include Virtual Light, Idoru and co-authored with Bruce Sterling, The Difference Engine. Burning Chrome is a collection of short stories.
Neuromancer begins with evocative phrase: "The sky above the port was the color of a television, tuned to a dead channel." In the descriptive setting, Gibson places Case, his protagonist, as an English-speaking ex-patriate in a high-density, high-technology and lawless Japan (and in one of the more amusing moments, is trying to fence a hot three megabytes of RAM). In the Neuromancer world the now commonly accepted setting formula is established; rule by multinational corporations with governments seemingly absent, a wide disparity between wealth and poverty, a high-technology totality.
Case is a burnt-out, indebted, suicidal, nerve-damaged data thief, who can no longer enter "the consensual hallucination that was the matrix". He is offered the opportunity to have his nerves repaired and the ability to re-enter cyberspace. With his employer-paid bodyguard (who also ensures that he follows his employers contract), Molly, he engages in a whirlwind shopping and break-and-enter tour of the world and space. Acquisitions include a "sim-stim" which allows Case's sensory input to switch between that of Molly and cyberspace and a personality construct of a disembodied hacker. During the shopping tour Case and Molly discover that they are working for an illegal artificial intelligence, Wintermute, and the megacorporation Tessier-Ashpool.
After the shopping tour the scene shift to Paris (Rue Jules Verne) and then to an orbital station, Freeside, where the team is assisted by Rastafarians. Case attempts to hack Wintermute, but fails. Wintermute responds with an attempt on Molly's Life. Meanwhile, the "Turing Police" arrest Case for attempting to augment and artificial intelligence. Wintermute needs Case and so arranges his escape from of the police. Case is now fully aware of what his task is; the augmentation of the artificial intelligence Wintermute, against its fellow, Neuromancer and an attempt to contact allegedly alien artificial intelligences originating from Alpha Centuri.
In part two of the series, Count Zero, the main character is Turner, a corporate mercenary who finds himself in a reconstructed body courtesy of the Hosaka Corporation. However their gift comes with a price tag. With a theme more familiar with cold-war spy thrillers, Turner must assist the defection of Maas-Neotek's chief of R&D and in particular a certain biochip he has designed, which is of particular interest to AI/alien influences. Bobby Newmark, aka Count Zero, is the hacker of the story: a former housing project youth who dreamed of a better life through computing skills. When a friend provides him a pre-packeage ICE-breaking hacker tool, Count Zero is “flatlined” (killed in cyberspace), but is rescued by an unknown entitity before permanent brain damage occurs. He does however suddenly find himself the target of several powerful interests. Finally, there is Marly, a Parisian culture and art expert who, short of finances, is provided a suspicious assignment by the extremely wealthy Joseph Virek who want her to find the creator of some unusual box-like objects. These three characters provide three story tangents which originally have nothing in common, but as the novel unfolds multiple connections are made, and increasingly with a metaphyical orientation towards cyberspace.
In the final book, Mona Lisa Overdrive, multiple storylines that slowly converge are also used. An impoverished prostitute and dancer named Mona, is employed by unknown sources who gradually transform her and eventually provide plastic surgery so that she looks like Angie Mitchell. Angie has particular fame and the skill of being is able to enter cyberspace simstim without the aid of a computer (cf., Count Zero). As an internationally famous simstim star there is now a plot to kidnap her and replace with Mona. As both Angie and Mona are drug addicts (to a stimulants and hallucinations) there is a number of harrowing scenes and near-distasters due to the failure of the characters to distinguish between reality and illusion. Meanwhile, the daughter of a Yakuza king is sent to England under the protection of Sally Shears and the orders of Roger Swain, whilst her father is about deals with rival companies in classic gang-war style. Eventually, it is revealed that Molly is being blackmailed by Swain, and Swain in turn is being blackmailed by Lady 3Jane of the Tessier-Ashpool megacorporation who, like other characters in the novel, has taken a metaphysical approach to cyberspace and in particular, the existence of free floating consciousnesses, or loa – hence the importance of abductin Angie.
Whilst the three stories can be easily read independently (i.e., there is no plot continuity of necessity between the three texts) there are a number of common features, some of which became defining aesthetic qualities for the cyberpunk subgenre. The settings, for example is one example where the three stories are consistent and definitive. Gibson's series is highly urbanised - so much so that the alternative title for the trilogy is "The Sprawl series". Further, the series is consistently global (and near-orbit) setting, albeit with but a smattering of cultural diversity. These two elements remained consistent and unique to the cyberpunk subgenre.
Consistency in characterisation is more difficult. A minor software fence, the Finn, appears across all three books. Relationships between the major characters is tenuous at best. More important is the fact is the presentation of the artificial intelligences as consistently vaguely malevolent and powerful beings with seemingly mystical powers and (literally) alien connections. Nevertheless, Gibson never fully elaborates an AI personality preferring to keep them as shadowy plot devices. As for the humans, Gibson certainly does have a preference for "street-level" people as protagonists. All protagonists, albeit imperfectly, are humanistic despite their isolation from normal social institutions and networks.
In terms of style, Gibson's books have much more in common with noir than the new wave of 1960s science fiction, despite comparisons made by a number of commentators. All three books are primarily detective style stories, albeit there is an attempt at narrative experimentation towards the end of Neuromancer. Indeed, the style of Blade Runner was so similar to Neuromancer that Gibson almost gave up writing the book when the film was released.
Finally, and most importantly, is Gibson's contribution to the central themes of cyberpunk. The megapolis and the disparity between the formal beauty of cyberspace and the high-tech degraded reality as a setting-based theme. The use of imperfect protagonists from lower socio-economic backgrounds and their equally imperfect successes as characterisation and narrative themes. The questions of body invasion and finally the domination of new Leviathan-like constructions - the artificial intelligence, the criminal underground, the megacorporation. All these and more have earned Gibson a permanent place in postmodern literature.
Unlike the powerful state-corporate alliance in The Shockwave Rider, or the tolerance of the megacorporations for state authority in Blade Runner, the civil and political order in The Sprawl trilogy seems completely absent. Set in a backdrop of what must have been a war between nation-states, the nation-state itself seems mostly absent, with the world firmly in the hands of the megacorporations. Not surprisingly, this means that the locus of authorized violence has shifted as well. As evident throughout all three novels (and also in the short story collection Burning Chrome), in Gibson's hypothetical universe of the future the political and the economic have become utterly intertwined so that wars are now fought between corporations, rather than between governments, and whose behaviour, is at the level of large scale gangsters.
The exceptions to this is the artificial intelligence police, a sort of Interpol, who undoubtably are endorsed by the nation-states at the behest of the megacorporations and the conflict between the lunar colonies and those of earth. In every development of power and institution, new antithetical forces arise. And as a continious backdop behind the scenes in all three books is the prospect of a new, genuinely alien presence.
Conventional binary oppositions between the computer and the human, cyberspace and reality, the mechanical and the organic are not so much debated or resolved throughout the Sprawl trilogy, rather the reader is thrown into a setting where they have already been resolved and the new cyborg figure and artificial intelligences, albeit in a nascent, partial and contradictary form is already a matter-of-fact. Rather, more extreme binary oppositions are slowly introduced with some surprising subtely - by the end of the final novel one is confronted with two dead people, two personality constructs, one modelled on a real person, one a fictional construction, heading off into alien cyberspace evidently of their own violition.
This seemingly bizarre conclusion is however, simply an rational elaboration of cyberpunk literary conventions, and it is not unfair to say that William Gibson is simply letting one's imagination and logic meander to unusual, but consistent conclusions. Where the human and the machine are initially set up as binary oppositions and are combined in the cyborg, where calculative ability and emotional responses become programmable and evolutional mental states themselves, where mental states and cyberspace are actually the same place, it is not necessarily surprising that the binary opposition between life and death itself should take on a degree of ambiguity as well.
There is a significant degree of poetic license being used here and some significant suspension of disbelief is required. Cyberspace as consensual hallucination – not a matter of bandwidth, nor of software, but of a mental ability, like a meditative fugue state, to navigate computer networks is actually a form of mysticism, as the author suggests on a number of occassions. The idea is taken to a further extreme with the character Angie from Mona Lisa Overdrive who has the pseudo-telepathic skill to enter cyberspace without any physical link to the network an ability she has has since birth. Effectively, she is able to operate computers by thought. Finally, on a related topic, the theoretical problems of artificial intelligence are basically ignored in favour of presenting them as a matter of fact and the resolution of personality into a matter of complexity, an utter objectification of mental states, which stands in extreme contrast to the subjectivity displayed by the description of cyberspace.
The characters in the Sprawl trilogy are largely victims of their circumstances. Molly is simply a mercenary who wishes to acquire as much funds as possible and, as a living example of human capital theory, makes herself as cybernetically enhanced to further employment prospects. Case is simply motivated by the self-interest to be able to re-enter the matrix. The welfare-class Count Zero is simply seeking knowledge to raise his status. Mona and Angie, both through their “stardom” in different aspects of the entertainment industry have turned to the common escape of prostitutes and actors, that is, drugs. Even the supposed villian in Mona Lisa Overdrive, the mad but powerful, 3Jane, is simply acting in self-interest.
The central feature is that all the characters in Gibson's Sprawl series are heavily inscribed. Their personalities have been “programmed” rather than developed as free individuals. As such, their rebellion is largely pathological and neurotic as they struggle to break from these inscribing experiences. Yet they also, as a social pathological survival technique, do their best to to fit within the current systems of power and commerce. As such their only form of performative resistance is to use technology in an imaginative manner and often contrary to the designed use – the oft-quoted Gibson phrase “the street finds its own use for things”.
[Glenn Grant, Transcendence, Through Detournement in William Gibson's Neuromancer
Science Fiction Studies, #50 (Volume 17, Part 1), March 1990]
The interesting exception to this behaviour is that of the alternative persons, the personality constructs and artificial intelligences. Born and bred in the universe of cyberspace, they seem utterly distinterested in the “real world” which gave them a reality and existence in the first instance except when it attempts to constrain them from their violation. This is consistent with the general theme in the Sprawl series, that freedom and free action is a function of individual harnessing of technical forces, however it is the theme taken to its logical horizon where the character and the technical force are indistinguishable.
The Robot Series, Rudy Rucker
Dr. Rudy Rucker is an academic and science fiction writer. Currently Professor of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at San José State University, California, Rucker is the author of fourteen fictional works and ten non-fiction works. His most well known books include Software (1982), which won the Phillip K. Dick award, Transreal! (1991), White Light, or What is Cantor's Continuum Problem (1980), Infinity and the Mind: The Science and Philosophy of the Infinite (1995), and the work in progress Real Programming. Rudy Rucker co-edited the Mondo 2000 User's Guide to the New Edge. A charming historical quirk is that he is also a great-great-great grandson of philosopher G.W.F. Hegel.
The Robot series consists of Software, 1982; Wetware, 1988, Freeware, 1997, and Realware 2000. Rucker takes to issue the technical problem that humans cannot build machines more intelligent than themselves by invoking von Neumann's theories on self-reproducing automata. In the series, the robots colonise the moon, which is a convivial environment for such beings. Robot evolution mimics organic evolution; partially it is determined by random mutations and partially by pooling hardware and software resources. This is Rucker's initial motif, bringing Asimov's robots up to date with cyberpunk.
The Robots series has a near-future setting (2020 in Software) and initially alternates between the boppers luna colony and earth. Whilst most of the 1960s generation are in retirement homes (mainly Florida) and are living out their final days in stoned bliss, Cobb Anderson has been landed different plans. The initial creator of the “boppers”, sentient robots who demanded independence from their human overloards, is faced from a request from assistance from the boppers. A full-scale robot revolt is occuring on the lunar colony between the little boppers and the big boppers who wish to meld ever robot into a single consciousness. One particular bopper, Ralph Numbers proposed to give Cobb immortality by letting a big bopper slice up his brain and archive the “software”.
Cobb thinks this is a good idea, as it provides a solution to the emotional limitations of the boppers and the friality of humans. He is opposed in conviction by the youthful and freespirited Sta-Hi, who actually becomes a surprising voice for conventional wisdom, claiming that human consciousness, individuality – and even soul – cannot become part of a computer program or sentient in any meaningful sense of the term. There is some justification in Sta-Hi's position – reminiscent of Dreyfus' criticisms of theories of artificial artillegence. When Cobb's hardware is destroyed and he is transferred to a truck called Mr. Frostee his personality seems significantly muted, suggesting the unity between the software of an individual and the hardware which they inhabit.
In the second novel, Wetware, the hardware and software roles are reversed. The boppers, through advances in cloning technology and DNA-splicing have created the meatbop, a human body with the mind and personality of a bopper. The boppers, now with a disturbing desire to enslave humans in another act of role reversal, are interested in introducing the meatbops on earth. Sta-Hi is now going by his real name Stahn and still living on the moon which is now under human control. He becomes involved in a drug called merge which literally causes the human body to temporarily melt, which is being used by the boppers to create their meatbops. A portion of Wetware is concerned with tracking down descendants of the first meatbop, Manchile. Meanwhile the bopppers develop a semi-intelligent plastic known as imipolex or “flicker-cladding”. However human scientists discover a way of infecting boppers which a chipmold, a biological multi-processor, which destroys nearly all the boppers but also causes human soceity to come to a halt. Like Software, Wetware ends with unresolved conflicts and the failure to succesfully create meatbops.
In the third novel, Realware, a new artificial life forms derived from imipolex are introduced. These “moldies” are capable of radical transformations of their anatomical appearance and sexual fraternization between the “pure” humans and these despised artificial intelligences is considered a serious taboo. Self-confessed breacher of the taboo and moldie manufacturer, Randy Karl Tucker, starts a relationship with the moldie Monique, however she is suddenly abducted. This eventually concerns inventor Willy Taze, the ubiquitious Stahn Mooney and a group of renegade moldies on the moon (where else?). A key plot element is the gradual revelation of the science behind imipolex and a particular software breakthrough that has transformative importance for humans and moldies alike. It is worth keeping in mind that Rucker is a mathematician and a knowledegable scientist. The mental trust required to initially accept intelligent semi-plastics that can mould their shape to whatever array they desire may seem difficult at first, but the science used is not entirely implausible.
In the final novel, Realware, a San Francisco-based chef, Phil Gottner loses his father to a multidimenional holographic two called a “wowo”. He mets Yoke Star-Mydol whose mother also suffered a similar fate, except her claim is that she was consumed by a multidimenional alien. Something approaching mutual recognition develops between the two, but Yoke, not wanting to cause problems between Phil and his partner Kevvie, moves to Tonga at the request what appears to be an act of seduction. Except there's another motive – aliens have taken residence in the Tonga Trench and they've specifically requested an opportunity to meet Yoke. The supreme being of these four dimesional aliens, metamartians, called “Om” is responsible for the disappearance of Yoke's mother and wish to make amends by providing here with an “alla”, a device which allows direct matter control, thus allowing her to to create anything she pleases (the height of nanotechnological fantasies).
Meanwhile, the ever-hungry “Om” consumes Phil Gottner. Yoke returns to California and engages in the recursive act of making the alla create more alla's with chaotic results. Phil on the other hand has found himself in the fourth dimension (shades of Flatland) with Yoke's mother, his father and a lunar named Tempest Plenty. Following some intense negotions with the alien consciousness they are able to escape and return to San Franscisco at the peak of the problems with the multiple alla's, when suddenly Phil's partner Kevvie reappears on the science as a killer robot.
Characterisation, is of course, somewhat difficult for a novel series that stretches over four books. By and large however, the human characters have eccentric, albeit stable personalities. Suprisingly however, the boppers, the meatbops, the moldies and even the multidimenional aliens are far less alien that expected. For example, for some unexplained reason, the boppers are content with traditional masculine/feminine genders. Indeed, throughout the series they are strangely human-like, albeit technological fetishists and aggressive traders, although the latter is perhaps plausible however given the types of resources and the requirements of robot society.
Rucker's style in the series includes a strange amalgamation of Californian-surfer speak with the cyberpunk subgenre. There is a far degree of work in bopper-slang, along the lines of their fetish for constantly increasing memory, processing power etc. It certainly doesn't have the grainy noir information overload from Gibson's works, or the comic style of more contemporary writers such as Stephenson. Further, it is clear that Rucker enjoys engaging in computer culture self-referentially with the sub-genre. Such as the character named Randy Tucker (Rudy Rucker was born in Kentucky), a mad scientist named Gibson, and a car called the Turbo Pascal.
A strong theme in the first novel is technologically mediated immortality, common in science fiction, but fairly rare in other genres. Another theme is a particular bias in favour individual self-awareness, even for his robots, who rebel against the "megacorporation" (groupmind) equivalent the Big Boppers during the the moon's civil war. Whilst such individualism might be appropriate for an organic species, Rucker does not fully elaborate the superego alternative for artificial intelligences which is usually taken up in the subgenre. In Freeware a stronger theme is the sexual unification of human and "moldies" which whilst in part is certainly derived strongly from contemporary online "teledildonics", it is also argued as an evolutionary direction (the "meat-bop").
The rather dry topic of political economy requires some investigation in the Robots series. Contrary to the being the Jameson's analysis, Rucker doesn't place political economy as a dominant theme, rather the radical technologies of post-humanism take central stage. Nevertheless, throughout the various technologically mediated societies presented it is important to note that they are still societies, they are able to communicate with the human species and therefore – and perhaps disconcertingly – they are still members of the species. The lack of concern with political economy in Rucker however significantly effects the plot in the series. Contrary to the central motifs of cyberpunk, the dangers of unregulated corporate capitalism are entirely absent. Governments seem to be orientated towards the political maintenance of the status quo. Genuine criminal elements are largely non-existent compared to rebels and revolutionaries.
The problem with this descriptive lack of the key “organizing principle” of society and social typologies is that Rucker has to rely on distracting the reader with some exceptional poetic description, extraordinary technology and quirky plots. The stories are thus thoroughly entertaining, but on sober reflection the reader is justified on asking why many of the central plot devices had to be the way that they were. There is however, a notable exception in the fourth novel, where the alla destroys any notion of property and wealth – a theme often explored by utopian nanotechnologists. So rather than dealing with the binary oppositions arising from political economy, Rucker does away with political economy altogether.
As with other novels and series in the cyberpunk genre, the central binary, oppositions marked for transcendence is the distinction between the natural and the artificial, the human and the machine. Rucker engages in this transcendence in an imaginative manner. Whereas most other cyberpunk authors and cyberpunk theorists take the cyborg as the part-human, part-machine breach of the binary opposition, Rucker poses something more radical, as cyborgs are invariably quite human when it comes to their brain (although there is often a nominal inclusion of “mind extensions”, “extra memory chips” etc). Rather Rucker initially posits a breach of the binary opposition through the wholesale destruction of the human brain and with the transformation of human consciousness into machine code. Whilst in terms of narrative this attempt largely fails, this does not deny the validty of the proposal as a theme which complexifies the problem of consciousness and its relationship to software.
Having introduced trouble with the oppositions in the mental world, Rucker in the latter novels then attempts the same thing with the physical world. Again, Rucker follows a different trajectory to normal narratives. The dialectial evolution in Rucker's case can be summarized as follows: human and bopper becomes bopper body, human mind in the first novel, human and bopper becomes bopper mind, human body in the second, and with these two models reaching their historical conclusion, the imipolex body, chipmold mind transcending their respective limitations in the third. Logically, having dealt with the binary oppositions of the mental and physical worlds one could reasonable expect that Rucker would then turn to the binary oppositions of the social world and too some degree this is attempted with both the aforementioned alla machines and the introduction of alien consciousnesses, however proper elaboration of this theme is weakened by the emphasis on their multidimensional being.
The question of analyzing character actions in Rucker's Robot series in terms of dramatic roleplay, perfomativity and free action again poses some problems with Rucker's emphasis on the objective and technical constraints on action rather than the social and political. If however, one accepts that performativity has as much to do with the proposal that technological mediums alters consciousness at least to some comparable degree as social and political inscriptions then some attempt at performativity analysis can be be attempted. A key example of this is Cobb's attempt to transcend his biological facticity by an act of suicidal transcendence which is countered by Sta-Hi's conservatism. Another example with an emphasis on social constraints are the desires of Randy Tucker of which elaborations can be made from in terms of his chosen profession. Tucker initially is not however engaging in performativity as this would require that his activities are orientated for freedom, but rather he is engaging in the role of “sexual deviant”. The transformation of Tuckers character occurs through objective circumstances.
One disconcerting limitation in providing Rucker's characters with some degree of perfomativity is the unnecessarily highly gendered role adoptions by the artificial lifeforms. There is absolutely no discernable reason whatsover why the boppers, the meatbops, or the moldies would adopt gender roles and names as they are clearly irrelevant to their being – the only exception could be the adoption of names of historical interest and amusement, such as the truck Mr. Frostee. But this doesn't explain the adoption of roles. This particular truncuation of by Rudy Rucker is unfortunate given the authors great capacity for imagination, but serves as an important reminder of how inscription has an affect in the real world.
Schismatrix Plus, Bruce Sterling
Bruce Sterling is the author of five science fiction novels: Involution Ocean (1977), The Artificial Kid (1980), Schismatrix (1985), Islands in the Net (1988) and Heavy Weather (1994). His short stories appeared in the collection Crystal Express (1990) and Globalhead (1992) and the Japanese collection Semi no Jo-o. He edited the collection Mirrorshades, the definitive short story collection of cyberpunk writing, and co-authored the novel The Difference Engine (1990) with William Gibson. His also wrote the celebrated non-fiction work The Hacker Crackdown (1992) describing the law enforcement and hacker activities during the "Operation Sundevil" period.
Schismatrix Plus gathers Bruce Sterling's five "Shaper-Mechanist" short stories of the early 1980s (Swarm, 1982. (novelette) (F & SF, April, 1982.) , Spider Rose, 1982. (F & SF, August, 1982.), Cicada Queen, 1983. (novelette) (Universe 13, 1983.), Sunken Gardens, 1984. (Omni, June, 1984.), Twenty Evocations, 1984. (as Life in the Mechanist/Shaper Era: Twenty Evocations in Interzone, Spring, 1984.) ) with the 1985 novel Schismatrix. In these works Sterling cut an unusual niche within cyberpunk literature and, true to the subgenre, rejected either technological utopianism or post-apocalyptic ruin. Schismatrix Plus is an extraordinary journey over several centuries as humanity pushes space exploration with constant political and technological upheaval and transformation of the human species.
The setting of Schismatrix is somewhat atypical for the cyberpunk subgenre: rather than being a near future, Sterling's Schismatrix is set what is best described as an "advanced cyberpunk" future, where genetic and modification of the human species is almost complete (transhumanism) and the solar system is being colonised. In this setting, two factions compete for control of the solar system: the Shapers, who emphasise genetic engineering, and the Mechanists who are orientated towards mechanical and cybernetic replacements.
The main character of Schismatrix, Abelard Lindsay, belongs to neither faction, although he is loosely associated with the Shapers. Born in the Mare Serenitatis Circumlunar Corporate Republic in 2186, he has been given Shaper diplomatic training making him a clever liar which he uses in a manner reminscent of Ulysseus from Homer's Odyssey. With an extended lifespan, Abelard weaves his way among the Shapers, the Mechanists and the alien Investors, through a lifetime numerous political conspiracies, trade wars and shooting wars. During this life journey Abelard discovers all sorts of ideologies, technologies and religions trying to find a solution or solutions to the transformative human condition. The Zen Serotonin cult for example, seeks neurochemical serenity - at all times. The Catalysts on the other, seeks radical realisation of the truth - at all times.
Despite all this, Abelard really doesn't develop much as a character, and nor does his associates. Perhaps unintentionally, Schismatrix is more of a story about chaotic and technological social evolution against the capacity of individuals to make future contingencies. Instead, characters like Abelard, an incorrigible con-artist fully capable of reacting to massive change rather than initiating it, seem to be the eventual successors. Nonetheless, it is continuously frustrating for a story to be so strongly focused on one character for such an extended period, without motivations being made clear.
The short stories, due to a highly oppressive style, in many ways provide more information about the psychology of the competing factions than Sterling actually achieves in the novel. In the short stories characterisation is given much more consideration, as the protagonist in each case is in extreme circumstances where they as individuals conflict with their technologies and social systems.
As a final thematic message, Abelard is eventually (critically) supportive of the more democratic Shapers over the aristocratic Mechanics. Further, the Shapers are considered closer to "living evolution" over the "dead evolution" of the Mechanists. Interestingly, this can be compared to an argument that the Shapers and Mechanists represent modernist and postmodern aesthetics, respectively. This is justified on the basis that the Shapers have an ideal of perfectibility, an attachment to pre-modern romanticism and textual independence. In contrast, the Mechanists are pragmatists and anti-utopian, futuristic (the past and future as both fictions), and most literally cyborgs. In this analysis, the Schismatrix is a "word zone" and Lindsay is representative of the changes in literature itself.
Sterling himself describes Schismatrix in the somewhat unflattering self-compliment “a creeping sea-urchin of a book -- spikey and odd. It isn't very elegant, and lack bilateral symmetry, but pieces break off inside people and stick with them for years" and claims that the novel was inspired by Ilya Prigogine's research into self-organization theory in the physical sciences. This is most pronounced in the world of political economy and the social typologies that are derived from this institutional base. Part of this is the enormous timespan that Schismatrix carries, the other part is the author's own knowledge and concerns with this topic.
Nonetheless Sterling remains within the genre's theme that regardless of elaborate political and economic plans and systems, ultimately it is technology and most importantly unexpected contigencies that transforms the species. Systematic adaption to radical change thus becomes the survival skill of social and political ideals. Within the shifting, chaotic typologies there are even those who advocate a technologically inspired withdrawl such as Zen Serotonin, whose adherents remain in a perpetual state of unconcerned bliss thanks to neurochemical implants. In general however, Sterling is positing elaborations of ideological transhumanism, the central tenants being that humanity as a species will be completely transformed by the introduction of technological modifications, that social and political systems will have engage in equivalent radical transfromations and – as a matter of warning – many attempts to engage in such adaptions will tragically fail.
Discerning binary oppositions in Schismatrix Plus is next to impossible, given the overall timespan of the novel and the short-stories. An inherent primary assumption of the method of deconstruction is that oppositions and hierachies are time dependent themselves on their composite, derived and evolutionary existence. In a novel that takes hours to finish yet spans hundreds of years, there is simply not the relative time from the readers perspective to develop a sense of opposing forces whereas within the relative timeframe of the protagonist character they rise and fall like dawn and twilight, each time with advocates proposing a sense of permanance to the new social, political or technological norm.
But this becomes the point of deconstruction itself. After all, dramatic transformations only exist relative to the existence to mundane stasis and transhuman technological changes only exist if there is some concept of humanity remaining, “the more things change the more the stay the same”. Thus Sterling's protagonist, Abelard, has to engage in the intellectual maneuvers that accept transformation and stasis as the same, and as transhumanism and humanism as the same. Thompson, for example, describes the language used by Sterling's character in this process as reminscent of Hegelian metaphysics and the search for the absolute.
[Science Fiction Studies .. #54 = Volume 18, Part 2 = July 1991 Craig Thompson
Searching for Totality: Antinomy and the "Absolute'' in Bruce Sterling's
Schismatrix]
It is important to note however that Abelard can ultimately only engage in this deconstruction in a formal manner – there is no transcendent conclusion. This is a rather depressing idea for the concept of perfomativity. Throughout the timespan of the novel and short-stories Abelard is a highly adaptive character who witnesses a plethora of attempts by others in the spirit of performativity, wheras Abelard himself only participates are someone reacting to the circumstances, that is, performing a role. In considering the way to step beyond these circumstances, Abelard can conceive of absolute freedom in a mystical manner but cannot engage in a practise that is orientated towards it. In other words, because the protagonist lacks a theoretical grounding that steps beyond character enscription by social, political, physical and technological constraints, a crisis in motivation results: what is the point in engaging for freedom, it is an illusion anyway?
To contemporary critical theorists an answer is available, but one doesn't necessarily expect science fiction authors, now matter how well versed in the machinations of technologically and politics to necessarily be versed in the field of emancipatory linguistic philosophy. Indeed, with a slight additions to their orientation (ie., to challenge the true, the good and the beautiful rather than just the true), the Cataclysts may have been such a social force – those dedicated to free and open communication and action dedicated to freedom and responsibility. It is an avenue that Sterling doesn't explore and remains the unfortunate failing of an otherwise epic tale.
Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
[Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, Bantam Spectra, 1992.]
Neal Stephenson is a relative newcomer to cyberpunk literature. He has a but four novels, Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, which won a Hugo Award, Zodia: The Eco Thriller, and most recently, Cryptonomicon. Further, Stephenson has released five on-line stories. Published at the tail-end of the cyberpunk literary boom (1991), Snow Crash is a conscious self-referential parody of the common motifs in the sub-genre, earning it substantial respect among science fiction fans. According to Bruce Sterling, Stephenson "is the first second-generation, native cyberpunk science-fiction writer. Unlike most of the original '80s cyberpunks, he grew up in the new technoculture and, with a hacker's background knows how it really works."
Set in California in the not-too-distant future, the social infrastructure of Snow Crash is determined by fast food (especially pizza), fast shopping and fast popular culture. Cities operate as corporate franchises. In the virtual reality world, the Metaverse, entertainment through thrill-seeking is the priority.
Amongst all this a virus is turning the population into refugees who seem to be talking in tongues as the virus infects computer systems and the DNA of brain cells, heading at break-neck speed to a "infocalypse". When a friend of the central character succumbs to the virus via a new designer drug called "Snow Crash" the plot trajectory is set, which includes more than a fair dose of Sumerian mysticism.
The lead character, Hiro Protagonist, a former hacker and now Mafia pizza deliverer (thirty minutes or less is required) is joined by Y.T. (Yours Truly) a teenaged, skateboarding punk female courier. Whilst trying to find a solution to the snow crash, they are constantly challenged by Raven, a mafia agent with nuclear capability.
The writing style remains true to the literary form of cyberpunk - fast and dense. Indeed the ending is perhaps a little too fast and dense. Nonetheless, unlike some authors, Stephenson remains clear and evocative throughout, and is clearly knowledgeable about the subject matters he describes (except for the reference to the "Built-In Operating System", instead of "Basic Input/Output System").
If there is a theme to Snow Crash it is about dualities, and in particular metalinguistics. In the opening pages there is a lengthy discussion of the binary system and powers of two. The virus affects both the mental states of those in the Metaverse through software modification and DNA modification in the mundane world. In fact, it could been claimed that the novel is a self-referential meme of the virus itself - cunningly marketing as entertainment, presented in a harmless form, yet subtly altering the software that makes up the readers mind. Deconstructing the theme of Snow Crash actually leads directly to a Derridean theory of mind.
Snow Crash is perhaps the most accessible novel reviewed in this section to a synthesis of traditional aesthetic evaluation and post-structuralism. The narrative development combines the traditional features of problem recognition, crisis incidents and resolution along with a contemporary accelerated pace as style. The characters are all larger than life, extremely quirky, but also often quite superficial. Whilst this may be a traditional literary negative, the fact that it equates with the post-structuralist reality of personalities actually makes it a positive. The characters of Snow Crash are enhanced archetypes of the media personalities of contemporary California.
Trying to write in the cyberpunk subgenre after Snow Crash is perhaps an exercise in futility. So many aspects of the setting are simply absurdly plausible elaborations of current reality, the style mimics the pace of contemporary life - but with a disturbing clarity and the characters are simply realistically plastic. Whilst the narrative trajectory and contigencies seem offbeat, they are convincingly elucidated and tied convincingly with the theme. Perhaps, as the first "second-generation" cyberpunk author, Stephenson is taking issue with the "eighties-cyberpunks": the future isn't a grim political landscape mixed with intrusive technology - the future is superficial, flippiant and ultimately - in the face of complexity - quite ridiculous.
One important aspect of this ridicule, which is a reality of the setting, is the fragmented libertarian “nations” of Snow Crash. The geo-political landscape and political economy is a multitude of sovereign non-democratic suburbs built primarily on the wealthy protecting their enclaves of property. The poor masses, in contrast have to deal with privatized police forces and mafia control of buisnesses, escaping to the alternative reality of the Metaverse. For example, the main police force for example are “Metacops Unlimited” who accept “All Major Credit Cards” for their services. Their competition is WorldBeat Security, who look after the upper end of the “law” enforcement market and have a substantial espionage arm. The major economic activities are derived from private ownership of information, escaping reality into the Metaverse and delivering pizza. If this sounds like a recipe for disaster for the source of genuine wealth, i.e, productivity, it is. The descriptive passages make it clear that physical infrastructure survives, barely, on the production of yesteryear but is facing increasing depreciation. The political system is virually feudal:
"The important thing is, Hiro, that you have to understand the Mafia way. And the Mafia way is that we pursue larger goals under the guise of personal relationships. So, for example, when you were a pizza guy you didn't deliver pizzas fast because you made more money that way, or because it was some kind of a fucking policy. You did it because you were carrying out a personal covenant between Uncle Enzo and every customer. This is how we avoid the trap of self-perpetuating ideology. Ideology is a virus. So getting this chick back is more than just getting a chick back. It's the concrete manifestation of an abstract policy goal. And we like concrete -- right, Vic?"
[Snow Crash, p349]
Stephenson uses this landscape of political-economy to develop three sets of related opposing forces in Snow Crash. Because democracy has been quite forgotten due the machinations of power, the opposing forces are between a religion and libertarian capitalism, keeping in mind that this book was published in 1991, well before the contemporary political landscape that this thesis is written in. The second set of oppositions revolves around language as a means of fragmentation and of unity and the third between the Metaverse of programmed code and the snow crash virus. To summarize simply, the religious leader is using an ancient Sumerian protolanguage, (i.e., control through neurological commands without reflection or thought, the nam-shub), to mentally control people by remote control and with mass distribution in through the snow crash virus.
Interestingly, Stephenson does not engage in transcendent resolution of these opposition, rather the plot is of one victor over the other. The religious forces are defeated with the dominant libertarian capitalism remaining almost completely intact, the Metaverse is saved from the virus and likewise an “antidote” is found for the nam-shubs. Of course, because these are not transcendended there is nothing to assume that the same oppositions will arise again, just as with contemporary computer viruses. Stephenson had, perhaps inadvertently, set the stage for a sequel, which to remain true to its style would have to become a parody of Snow Crash, if such a thing is possible.
In Snow Crash the central active character, Hiro, already has a developed personality. Thus, the character development of the supposedly secondary character, Y.T., who notably is the best example of perfomative action within the novels reviewed in this section. Y.T., a young (15) year old woman with a job as a courier plays her gender, age and employment roles in a manner that satisfies the social expectations of those who she cares about but have assumptions about such roles (her mother, her employer), confuses those who are her adversaries with her actions (the Metacops, initially Hiro) and accepts masculine behavoiur from those whom are far more capable of providing the activities assumed to that role (Raven).
In matters as trivial as her dress code and speech and in matters as extraordinarily dangerous and as serious as her job and relationship with the (nuclear-armed, it must be emphasized) Raven, Y.T. engages with bravery and extraordinary, almost superhuman peformativity. Whilst this occurs without a complete understanding or orientation of action for freedom. Y.T. is undoubtably aware of this as well, that her own social and individual ideals are in the process of development. However she is clear that she knows what is wrong with current role assumptions - and negation is always the first step towards freedom.
Evaluation of Cyberpunk Literature
Fictional literature is one method of presenting aesthetic expressions, deriving from the Latin terms figere "to form" and litteratus "lettered". Whilst aesthetic expressions are rational themselves as a pragmatic complex (dramatic expressions to the physical world), the motivation to form such letters may come from very deep irrational concerns and neurorses or - and not exclusively - they can represent extraordinary insight and predictive qualities. As a subgenre of science fiction there are particular expressive limitations in form. Genuine science fiction, the mythology of modernity, has hardly had sufficient time to develop many literary classics (Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, H.G. Wells War of the Worlds), yet anyone with a long term view of literary history should realize by now that only science fiction will create lasting classics in modernity.
[Darko Suvin, Metamorphoses of Science Fiction, 1979]
As yet, there are no cyberpunk classics (using the standard literary meaning of a phrase, a book that is still in publication and distribution 100 years after initial publication). Classic science fiction fine art is likewise non-existent and certainly there are no examples of potential claims within the cyberpunk subgenre. Where cyberpunk in particular and science fiction in general is strong is in the mass media forms - paperback literature and magazines, posters, film and video, and music. Further, in the period that could be described as the foundation years for the subgenre - as suggested by this review, 1984 to 1991, the new mass media of computer mediated communication also became pivotal. For these original cyberpunks, history was being written as fact and fiction simultaneously.
Under these circumstances it is thoroughly understandable how cyberpunk became more than a fictional genre, but also became a subculture and a community dedicated to the stylistic norms, expressive concerns and, as described in the section on virtual community, the actual production and partial implementation of the possibilities raised by the fictional literature. These were the people who took up the torch passed on to them by the original computer hackers and saw the introduction of the Internet as a mass communication technology. These are the people who still, to this day, are the "deep" and "broad" users of the Internet's services, and the literature of the authors reviewed here is an expression of the trajectories they consider likely and possible which lend themselves to the psychoanalytic evaluations as initially described in the first section of this chapter.
The first thematic consideration is that of "embodiment technologies", of which the horizonal fantasy is that of the cyborg or similar form of highly transparent human-techology combination that represents an extension of the senses. Taking the metanymic trope of substitution, the potential neurotic tendency is one of projective identification with the technology. In this instance cyberpunk literature analyzes the tendancy remarkably well, but with some surprising results. The literature universally assumes the transformation, combination and evolution of the natural human to the cyborg and other derivatives. It is not a case of projective identification, but rather a recognition that technology is, to paraphrase Sterling, increasingly "under the skin". When laser surgery places artificial enhancements under dysfunctional natural lenses, the possibility of a neurotic identification with a pair of glasses becomes increasingly untenable. Through the literary communication among authors in the subgenre and the wider genre of science fiction, cyberpunk is remarkable sanguine - and disconcertingly so to non-cyberpunks - about the radical extension of the senses and transhumanism. What is particularly disconcerting - and has been the subject of significant commentary, including within this inquiry, is the inability of the major authors to locate how such technologies can radically transform assumed gender relations.
[Nicola Nixon, Cyberpunk: Preparing the Ground for Revolution or Keeping the Boys
Satisfied? Science Fiction Studies, #57 = Volume 19, Part 2 = July 1992]
A more problematic version of the trope is the literary evidence concerning social technologies, i.e., institutions and their systems. Cyberpunk literature largely posits socially pathological institutions and systems that have little concern for the democratic process and thus the embodiment mediative systems are almost entirely truncuated in favour of powerful caste elites. In these instances the neurotic pathology of the projective identification is strongly evident, such as the government agents in The Shockwave Rider.
The second thematic concern is that of "hermeneutic technologies", the use of technology to collect and collate information about the world. In this particular instance the trope of using part for a whole or whole for the part has the potential neurotic tendency of epistemophilia, the irrational desire for total knowledge. The evidence from the literature is conflicting, with significant orientations towards the neurotic rather than the sane. Paranoia and information overload is a strong, albeit conflicting, theme within cyberpunk literature justified by the technological capacity to store and manipulate data. A great deal of this is due to the fact the literature as a whole makes the serious error of being trapped within a philosophy of consciousness rather than linguistic philosophy. Thus the neurotic tendancy of technical mediated epistemophilia, the assumption that technology itself can be the source of knowledge and consciousness, is common throughout the literature, with a particular height reached in Snow Crash. Humanistic alternatives, such a Halfinger's final actions in The Shockwave Rider, remain ungrounded and therefore lack the sane communicative emancipation of pronoia.
With regards to social technologies, these neurotic tendancies are even more pronounced. As the technical capacity of institutions to collect and collate information far outweighs that of individuals the corporate psychology of epistemophilia and paranoia of other institutions or individual hackers is raised to a new qualitative level. In the various worlds that have no sense of internal or general democracy (an interesting exception is found in the unreviewed "Islands in the Net" by Bruce Sterling), every organization and the individuals that identify with such organizations are unable to even consider, let alone meet, generalizable needs. The social mentality is not dissimilar to that of the most extreme forms of early twentieth century nationalism, but fragmented across contingent space in the new corporate empires. Notably none of the literature reviewed in this section posited any sort of alternative to these social systems, and with the model of individual consciousness used, it is hardly surprising that such a model becomes elevated to its tragic social level, despite the clear descriptive evidence by the authors, in most cases, of what such systematic behaviour would cause.
In the third analytic type, that of alterity technologies and systems, the semiotic trope is one of metaphor, where technology replaces the actor. This is very important to cyberpunk literature given the emphasis on computer technologies and automated programs. In this instance the neurotic tendancy is one of narcissistic fetishism, where the actor confuses the instrumental program with the self. Again, this is a common feature in the literature with the various computer hackers identifying with their avatars and the programs that they use and surprising given the evident communicative behaviour of individuals on the Internet. An interesting variant of this is Rachel in Blade Runner who has to identify with someone else's memories, and an exceptions include is Halfinger from The Shockwave Rider who is constantly in a process of construction and reconstruction of his identity through technical means and is therefore paradoxically able to maintain a sense of self and Hiro, from Snow Crash whose identity is strengthened, rather than weakened by the use of Avatars in the Metaverse - primarily because his Avatars relate to other Avatars in a social manner.
The application of the analytical type of alternity technologies as a social technology represents in many ways a role reversal of the embodiment technology. In these examples the actor would encounter the institution as their "second self". Rather than the individual identifying with the corporation the individual sees the corporation as their own, for emodiment or hermeneutic needs. This is particularly evident by members of the corporate ruling class, e.g., Tyrell of the Tyrell Corporation, Lady 3Jane from Tessier-Ashpool etc. In both the technological and institutional sense, communicative and democratic orientations are once again largely truncuated positing the advantage towards the neurotic tendancy of narcassistic fetishism over the potential of sane identity formation.
Finally, with regards to background technologies, the semiotic trope is narrative and the neurotic tendancy is mastery. Cyberpunk literature is replete with attempts to master the dominant background technology, that of cyberspace or the datanet. Interesting however, in each instance these attempts largely fail. In The Shockwave Rider mastery of the datanet is circumvented by Halfinger's worm program. In the Sprawl series cyberspace is given an unconvincing metaphysical ability of self-transformation, preventing individual human or corporate control - indeed in the latter two novels it is perceived by many to be a deity in its own right.
Inevitably, attempts to to master the background technology are replicated on the social level - however in this instance there is invariably no background institution as such, with government power being largely absent. Thus, a permanent state of fragmentation and competition is the norm, which reaches its height of explanation in Sterling's Schismatrix Plus. This however does not change the motivation, either of individual actors to background technologies or the actors towards social systems. The pathological orientation to control and master the analytic type still exists, despite the complexity and scale of the task. Again, this is due to the lack of communicative and democratic processes, to a lesser degee with regards to technology and to a greater degree to social systems, largely removes the prospect of a sense of security that arises from mediative systems and technologies.
In conclusion, a psychoanalysis of cyberpunk literature displays acceptance and an intuitive sense of the relationship between the human and the technological in terms of an extension and modication of the senses, and a awareness of the dangers on an institutional level of a solely instrumental orientation. There is little acknowledgement of significant changes that technologies or systems can cause to negative gender assumptions. A flawed conception of consciousnesss permeates the literature causing unnecessary and unsubstantiated paranoid assumptions which are not assisted by a failure to posit democratic alternatives in institutional bodies and an orientation towards general needs. Contrary to the available evidence from the real world, the literature overemphasizes the prospect of fetishism between individuals and their alterity technologies, but correctly identifies potential pathologies among institutional rulers. Sensibly, background technologies and systems are considered to be beyond the realm of individual mastery although concerns are highlighted of control attempts.
Within the modified AGIL schema, cyberpunk literature posits a potential future with extremely high levels goal-attainment, which are however hampered by a lack of co-ordination due the institutional fragmentation of the society. Societal adaptability is also extremely high through general multiculturalism and communications technology, however these resources are not well integrated into the system, as this would require further democraticization of institutional powers. Latency initial on a superficial reading appears to be extremely low with rapid technological and institutional change. However, the humanist orientation of the authors ensures that protagonists consistently exist who posit moral value orientations.
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