Class of '84: When Cyber Was Punk

Imaginary Worlds

Eric Molinsky

Arts, Science Fiction, Fiction, Society & Culture

4.8 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 14 February 2024

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the second episode of our mini-series on groundbreaking works from 1984, we jack into the system and upload our minds into Neuromancer. William Gibson’s novel became a seminal work of cyberpunk, where he introduced words like “cyberspace” and storylines that would become tropes of the genre. Sci-fi writer Eileen Gunn, and professors Sherryl Vint of UC Riverside and Hugh O’Connell of UMass Boston discuss how Neuromancer not only predicted the future of technology with surprising accuracy, but it also imagined the way that high tech would help fuel a new type of hyper capitalism. I also talk with Chris Miller aka Silver Spook, creator of the game Neofeud, and Gareth Damian Martin, creator of the game Citizen Sleeper, about how they used indie games to bring cyberpunk back to its roots in Neuromancer. Also, Lincoln Michel discusses why in his novel The Body Scout, he wanted to bring cyberpunk out of cyberspace. Featuring readings by actor Varick Boyd. This week’s episode is sponsored by Ship Station, Henson Shaving and Babbel. Use the promo code “imaginary” at shipstation.com to sign up for a free 60-day trial. Visit hensonshaving.com/imaginary to pick the razor for you and use the code “imaginary” to get two years' worth of free blades. Get 50% off at Babbel.com/imaginary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to imaginary worlds, a show about how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief.
0:05.0	I'm Eric Melensky.
0:07.0	Eileen Gunn is a science fiction writer and editor.
0:11.0	Around 45 years ago, she was beginning her career and she went to a writer's workshop in Oregon.
0:17.0	And she met another writer there. His name was Bill, Bill Gibson.
0:23.3	One of the other participants brought Gibson as a guest
0:27.6	to workshop the story.
0:29.4	And it was the Grinsbackuum, which he had just sold.
0:35.4	So we hadn't read it.
0:36.5	It hadn't been published yet.
0:38.5	The Gernsback Continuum is about a 1930s vision of the future which gets overlaid onto modern day America
0:46.4	blending realities. It was like nothing Eileen had read before.
0:51.6	So that's how I got to know Bill and Bill and I became friends and
0:55.9	corresponded a lot and he sent me the first draft or a newish draft of Nuremancer, which was fantastic.
1:09.2	Nuremancer, the groundbreaking novel by William Gibson that would kick off the genre that is now known as cyberpunk.
1:19.0	Nuremancer is about a hacker named Henry Case who lives in a futuristic city. Case was caught stealing from his previous employers.
1:27.0	His punishment is that he got banned from a virtual reality space called The Matrix. Then he gets hired to commit a
1:35.0	heist. His new employers want him to steal a storage drive which contains the
1:40.4	mind of someone who uploaded their consciousness.
1:43.7	Taking the job can restore his access to the Matrix.
1:47.9	This sounds like the plot of a book from 2024, not 1984. Hugh O'Connell teaches science fiction at U.S. Boston. He says the ideas in
1:58.5	Neuromancer and other works of Cyberpunk. Like a virus, it just began to infect culture,
	...

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