Cyberpunk

I don't know anything about this game other than what's in the article but I figured I'd share. So when it says there are sex scenes, I have no idea if it's the "may contain nudity" type or more "full-blown hentai game" type. Good luck to anyone who tries it!

I have a kind of specific fascination for proto-cyberpunk, generally stories that preceded the cyberpunk genre's start and have most of the elements but aren't quite there for one reason or another. I think it's fascinating to see how these things form, to try to find strands of DNA through fiction. Writers, sometimes decades earlier, voicing the same complaints, identifying the same problems I associate specifically with cyberpunk.

The first one I thought I'd mention is a pretty safe bet: Frederik Pohl and C M. Kornbluth's The Space Merchants

Written in 1952, this book has everything but the 1980s feel of a cyberpunk story: Megacities, corporate-states, corporate espionage, addiction-based-marketing, subscription-based-police, corporate citizenship in layers right down to indentured servitude, ecological collapse and a society that doesn't care. Even the visuals of layered, overcrowded, continent-spanning cities.

But it feels like a 1950s science fiction story. It's great; very slick and steeped in the language of marketing. That works really well for it. But it doesn't feel like a cyberpunk story.

I think that's part of the reason I find looking at these precursor stories so fascinating. Cyberpunk discussions often fold in on 'is this even cyberpunk?' and it can be really interesting to see something that has so many of the elements but is still something else.

Obviously these are all just my opinions, and I'd love to hear anyone else's on this book.

Oh, one last opinion: If you're going to get a paperback, get the 1976 version, it looks great.

The show was about a low-life trying to infiltrate a corporation. I find it interesting because all other cyberpunk stories I know will only show the evil CEO hiding at the top of some giant building. It's rare to find a story that shows the life of the average worker drone. Obviously, it was cancelled after one season.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7eKEHhSw00

Most of the ones I knew about, like Neon Dystopia, seem kinda dead these days, and I was wondering if anyone here knew of anything active, especially fiction zines.

This video is only 4 minutes long and I still struggled to get through it. It's rough.

There's a Mad Max-themed event in the Mojave Desert called Wasteland Weekend. The people behind Wasteland Weekend decided to make another event, but this time cyberpunk-themed, called Neotropolis.

All I know about Neotropolis is what I see on the website so I'm curious if any of you have actually been there.

We all know the second season of Netflix's Altered Carbon series was terrible, but Netflix also made an anime movie called Altered Carbon: Resleeved which is completely unrelated to the show. It isn't the best cyberpunk anime ever made but it's still worth watching.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmDxxoFslzs
On Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81001991

Daniel Deluxe also provided the soundtrack for the video game Ghostrunner

I'm not sure how well-known this series is, but I really enjoyed it. The entire series is written in first-person perspective and it has a fun dark humor to it.

Synopsis of the first book:

In the near future, the only thing growing faster than the criminal population is the Electric Church, a new religion founded by a mysterious man named Dennis Squalor. The Church preaches that life is too brief to contemplate the mysteries of the universe: eternity is required. In order to achieve this, the converted become Monks -- cyborgs with human brains, enhanced robotic bodies, and virtually unlimited life spans.

Enter Avery Cates, a dangerous criminal known as the best killer-for-hire around. The authorities have a special mission in mind for Cates: assassinate Dennis Squalor. But for Cates, the assignment will be the most dangerous job he's ever undertaken -- and it may well be his last.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KCTKVP7

More posters here: https://kuciara.com/project/bladerunner

To be clear, this movie isn't cyberpunk. It isn't even scifi. As the article puts it "The film feels like Grease by way of Escape from New York" and that's pretty accurate.

And yet, the movie is referenced in Megazone 23 and Bubblegum Crisis. And was one of the influences for the Cyberpunk tabletop game:

Streets of Fire was also a formative influence on Mike Pondsmith’s Cyberpunk tabletop role-playing game, serving as a chief inspiration for the game’s “Rockerboy” player class, the character of Johnny Silverhand, and even the worldbuilding of the game’s videogame adaptation Cyberpunk 2077. “While Blade Runner​ ​is the most obvious go-to for the visual style, I think the original material is even more influenced by the little remembered ​Streets of Fire,” senior quest designer Patrick Mills said in an interview with Collider

The article is a couple years old, so while it mentions the movie being available on Netflix... it isn't anymore.

You're an elite operative recruited to the experimental Deadlink project. Pilot an autonomous combat shell, fighting your way through cramped slums, twisted labs, grimy warehouses, and sleek office buildings on a mission to thwart the schemes of the most powerful corporations in the world. Wield a deadly arsenal, upgrade your skills and tech, devastate destructible environments, and slash corporate profit margins — all at the same time.

Deadlink recently fully released from Early Access and is currently on sale on Steam through August 4, 2023: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1676130/Deadlink/

Releasing August 18: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1353230/Bomb_Rush_Cyberfunk/

Amazon Prime Video has an original series called 'Upload'. Here's the premise: It's the future. The rich can have their consciousness uploaded when they die. They can spend their digital afterlife in a VR country club/resort forever (or until they run out of money, whichever comes first). In this world, the main character is working on an open source version of the digital afterlife so he can give it away to those less fortunate who can't afford this paradise. But before he's able to release it to the public, he's murdered. So his rich girlfriend pays to have his consciousness uploaded. Now he's in this VR country club with a bunch of billionaires, trying to solve his own murder.

With that premise alone, I'm interested. Sounds totally cyberpunk. The rich/poor divide, uploaded consciousness, murder mystery, all hints of Altered Carbon. And yet... it's a romantic comedy.

That entire premise I described above is just the sub-plot, the B story. What the show is actually about is the love triangle between the main character, his rich girlfriend (who's paying for his digital afterlife but treats him as an accessory), and the tech support rep assigned to his case (who's a genuinely nice person). He's falling in love with the tech support rep but if he breaks up with his psycho girlfriend she'll stop paying his afterlife bills and he'll die. Cue wacky sit-com antics.

If the focus was reversed and the character was spending all his time investigating his murder while gradually falling in love with this tech support rep, I'd probably really enjoy it. But instead, the focus is on the love triangle and his murder investigation is mostly just something to talk about while taking long walks with his tech support rep.

Now, obviously, the show simply isn't for me. It never claimed to be a gritty cyberpunk murder mystery; it was always marketed as a fun-loving rom-com. So it's my own expectations that are flawed. But the world-building is so close to a solid cyberpunk tv show that I can feel the wasted potential. I guess I'd say it's the most cyberpunk rom-com I've ever seen, but that's a really odd category to have.

Trailer, in case anyone is interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZfZj2bn_xg

Awhile ago I was watching a let's play(?) Podcast(?) using the Aliens tabletop game system. During one of the sessions, the players and GM joked about a keyboard being in Fly Agaric, like it was the Dvorak keyboard from hell you'd have to sit and really think hard to remember how to use. Wanting to know what they were talking about, I stumbled into this typography blog which did explain the history of that keyboard prop, but also goes into detail on any prop with text on it, some subtle foreshadowing, and even some translation issues that might be plot-relevant. It also talks about references to other films and ways Alien influenced scifi movies that came later.

Talking about Space Sweepers recently got me thinking about Alien/Aliens props and that reminded me of this. I hope you find it as interesting as I did.

By the way, which Alien stuff do you consider cannon? There's enough of it that most people I've talked to seem to pick and choose. Personally I go: Alien, Aliens, Alien Isolation, then these two tabletop podcast/video series.

I've been trying to come up with cyberpunk recommendations for this community to help keep it active. But my assumption is that anyone subscribed here already has basic knowledge of the cyberpunk genre. That is, I don't think we need any "what is cyberpunk?" posts.

But I spend (way too much) time wondering what cyberpunk works I can just assume everyone here already knows about. For example, there are quite a few cyberpunk works that are well-known enough outside of cyberpunk circles that I don't think I need to recommend them. Those would include:

• Blade Runner
• Ghost in the Shell
• Akira
• Neuromancer
• Snow Crash
• Altered Carbon

But then there are what I would consider the "second-tier" cyberpunk works that might not have reached pop-culture status but are still classics to those with knowledge of cyberpunk. Those would include:

• Hardware
• Strange Days
• Johnny Mnemonic
• Hardwired
• Cyber City Oedo 808
• I'm not sure where to draw the line here... Hackers? Dredd? Bubblegum Crisis? Serial Experiments Lain?

I also want to make sure my recommendations are truly cyberpunk and not just cyberpunk-adjacent. For example, as good as they may be, I don't personally consider Upgrade or Ex Machina to be cyberpunk. And that brings me back to if something is truly cyberpunk then it probably falls into that second-tier list that maybe everyone already knows about. It's hard to draw the line between "this is unknown" and "this is a cult classic for those in the know".

Anyway, I'm going to continue over-thinking this and doing my best to come up with interesting yet not-widely-known cyberpunk works. I just wanted this post to run through all the cyberpunk works I won't be recommending because I assume you're already aware of them (even if you haven't watched/read them).

This is a cover of an Essenger song but I prefer the Machinae Supremacy version since I prefer rock/metal over synthwave.

I find alternative approaches to prosthetics fascinating. With enough crativity, prostethics dont need to be replacements for standard limbs. How long do you think it will be before prosthetics exceed regular limbs?

This movie is only two years old so maybe everyone here already knows about it, but definitely check it out if you haven't seen it. As far as I know, it's only available on Netflix.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1WYnJF1Pwo

I guess Dex goes 90% off fairly often so this isn't like some awesome deal you can't pass up (you could just wait for it to go 90% off again sometime) but I figured I'd take this opportunity to mention the game.

The combat is pretty janky/awkward but the world-building and side quests are fun and well-made. And the visuals are perfectly cyberpunk. For $1.99, I think it's worth playing.

I'm new to this community but I know we're still trying to work out the kind of content we want here. I really like discussions of cyberpunk settings, technologies, and their implications so I thought I'd submit my recommendation for a(n unfortunately less-well-known) story that has a lot of that. (I've got a few other recommendations if anyone wants to hear them.)

I'm biased here because I'm already a fan of the author, who passed away last year, but it's really, really good and I wanted to recommend it.

The Other Kind of Life is a cyberpunk noir detective story. It's thoughtful, well-built, and it never cheats the audience out of seeing how the protagonist pulls something off. The story and setting are cohesive, take no shortcuts, and build a very distinct world.

The elevator pitch about a con artist solving robot murders sounds pretty trite in summary, so I'll give you the cool parts:

1: It's set in a custom world, fantasy style, with no connection to our world, which gives the author a lot of freedom and neatly exposed how accustomed I am to seeing this in fantasy books with the slightest hint of magic, and how much it throws me when a hard scifi story exists in the same kind of place.

2: Everything about the AIs carefully considers how they would develop, rather than just writing mechanical humans. They're wonderful and alien in small, interesting ways. And the book is saturated with conversations about them, their drives and design challenges. It feels like a successor to Free Radical, one of his earliest books, but more polished.

3: This book takes no shortcuts. It shows you how the protagonist talks his way past people, plans his heists, and even how he finds and maintains his contacts. (Transmet for example had a habit of letting Spider summon up past contacts whenever he needed a lead, before burning them, making me wonder how he ever made those connections. It worked there, but this stood out in contrast.) I love stories about characters who are smarter than me, and this one shows him being smart. Every step of the investigation feels earned. As trite as the buddy-cop-robot-murder-investigation premise feels... for me, this might be The buddy-cop-robot-murder-investigation book.

Bonus stuff: There's a DM's fascination with how things got the way they are in the setting, from infrastructure to bureaucracy, to technology, to politics. An analyst's perspective that informs pretty much everything else.Young has a real knack for making careful analyses of situations and emotional states almost absurdly engaging, and he has a focus on workable AI designs that I really enjoy. His writing voice shows through in places in the novel's narration and dialogue, but it has the effect of making the characters seem more thoughtful and intelligent than you often get with this genre so I don't mind it. There's not much hacking in this one, which is a shame because he does it well elsewhere, but what's here is solid and believable, and the social engineering probably make up for whatever's missing. I'm probably overselling it, but if you enjoy scifi, I'd say it's worth it for the AIs and the world at the least.