It’s time to reimagine the future of cyberpunk

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Not everyone agrees. Facing a burning planet, the idea of ​​using technology to achieve immortality seems naive at best. Chinese young people “lie flat” and do not work, and Swedish refugee children have “resignation syndrome”; in a world where despair is #mood, the desire to extend life indefinitely is a bit like a vampire, if not simply rude. “Cyberpunk is relevant and important to the baby boomers who are obsessed with law and order issues. They are determined to avoid the reality of human aging and embodying. In 2021, we will have new and different public obsessions. Let cyber Punk looks weird,” said Hugo nominee and Nebula Award winner Kelly Robson. “All in all, fucking cyberpunk.”

Considering that the world has caught up (if not surpassed) the imagination of the genre, its place in the novel may be limited, or rather limited, just as the retelling of Tolkien may be limited to fantasy writers. . This is one of the challenges of telling the story of the future: eventually time will catch up, just like a rubber band returning to its original state. Sometimes it stings. Readers usually think that authors are happy when they “predict” future events “correctly”, but we are rarely asked how uncomfortable we are when we see our worst vision happen. describe Lincoln Michel said that he wrote his debut work for CrimeReads, “Boy Scouts Try to replace the “network” in cyberpunk with the body, and see what happens when the human body becomes the main field of technological innovation and corporate control… Nowadays, the greatest dystopian novel may be the evening news. “

Just because the history of cyberpunk looks like the present does not mean it cannot point to the future. Bruce Bethke published the short story Cyberpunk in 1983. Ten years later, Octavia E. Butler published what can be said Is one of the most influential novels in science fiction, The parable of the sower. It tells the story of a young Black woman named Lauren Olamina living outside Los Angeles in 2024, watching as an authoritarian president is elected, human rights eviscerated, company towns built, and old neighborhoods destroyed. What Lauren should do as a hero: She is ready. She combined wisdom and seeds to lead her community to freedom, and eventually became a star in the sequel of the book. Like most of Butler’s novels, it shifts the narrative focus from personal rebellion and success to public liberation and legacy. If cyberpunk warns of the late stages of capitalism, simile Asked: “Then what do you do?” Although cyberpunk as a genre uses metaphors of slavery and autonomy, Butler’s book studies the actual transatlantic slave trade.

Butler’s novel focuses on genetic engineering, the specific experiences of aliens and post-humans, the individual’s debt to the family and the community, power and its use, and terrible sacrifices in the name of survival.Recalling having dinner with her NatureAuthor and scholar Tananarif Du said that Butler expressed the core question of her work: “How can we make ourselves a more viable species?” Although she is considered the mother of African futurism, she The narrative mode of is also repeated in all the successors of cyberpunk: hope punk, bio punk, sun punk and so on.She echoes in the works of Nalo Hopkinson Midnight robber, Premee Mohamed’s Annual migration to the cloud, Louise Erdrich The future home of the living God, Of Nnedi Okorafor lagoon, Becky Chambers The long road to the angry little planet, Ted Thompson Rose water, LX Beckett Game changer, And more. In Toronto, Black Lives Matter activists just purchased a 10,000 square foot community center for black artists and activists, and named the Wildseed Center after a book by Butler. Regardless of whether these activities are cyberpunk activities or not, it is still a model of the sport.

Butler said in her notes: “The struggle is to unite it, keep it alive, and teach it to be and do its best.” She is summarizing the ongoing mission of Sister Olamina, while also Describe the 21st century in detail. This is a work of forward-looking science fiction. For better or worse, many of the robotic dreams of cyberpunk have come true. Now we must imagine how to re-establish ourselves.



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