Some of the stuff that really stuck with me from “classic” cyberpunk — the things that really remind me of @bruces and @GreatDismal’s work — have nothing to do with aesthetics and everything to do with control of language, manipulation of discourse.
The role of corporate dominance, the slow eclipse of city-states in favor of warring commercial interests, was a theme that soaked into all of their work. As a kid growing up in a very conservative world, swimming in the water of capitalism, those were world-shaking ideas.
A little over two decades ago, IIRC, I wrote to @bruces because a friend and I were building a new project and wanted his blessing to name it “Mirrorshades”, in homage to his short story and anthology.
He was kind and generous, and offered sound advice: while the name was fine, he suspected that we would come to regret it as we spread our wings and wanted our ideas to stand on their own. We contemplated what he’d said decided he was right.
Instead of simply aping what he’d written, we decided to look carefully at the world in the way we felt our favorite authors (the Cheap Truth crowd in particular) had. We asked, “What forms will power and conflict take in a world that follows the path we see emerging?”
I think it’s fair to say that the conclusions @chiangku and I came to in the next couple of years shaped our perspectives, our careers, and our lives for decades to come. I’m tremendously grateful for that advice.
And, not to put too fine a point on it, disheartened when watching “modern” cyberpunk — it oftrn has the form, the aesthetics, of that earlier work but feels trapped in anachronism rather than vibrant and engaged. I understand why both @bruces and @GreatDismal moved on.
In a similar vein, it’s genuinely disorienting to see today’s generation of titans and wannabee titans live like those stories’ villains. They want the gadgetry, the accouterments, but also to control the systems of power that the genre, at its best, was determined to critique.