brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (12/12/87)
Cyberpunk has attracted a great deal of attention recently. Some have even gone so far as to call it a "genre," even though it is certainly not in the class of other genres like horror, mystery or SF. Aside from the finely crafted writing of Cyberpunk's demigod, William Gibson, what is the reason for this popularity? I think the answer comes from Mr. Gibson's own term for the computer expert/heros of his stories. They're "cowboys" and "jockeys" in the Neuromancer vernacular, and the romance of these names comes through to the technophiles reading the stories. In the past, almost all literary or dramatic attempts to make heros out of scientists, and in particular programmers, have failed miserably. The authors are always forced to introduce some utterly ridiculous extra clause to add the dramatic element they want. They're hoping that the lay public will accept it unawares, but the educated reader laughs, and gets upset. The most common stereotype of the past was the nerdy kid with knowledge nobody could understand. Not the heroic character people want to idolize. Consider Broderick in Whiz Kids or the character Lynch from Max Headroom. Gibson created a world where the computer whiz could be a real, honest to goodness, cowboy style gritty action-hero, without it seeming silly. And people eat it up. People talk a lot about the dystopian "punk" part of cyberpunk, but I suspect it's the "cyber" part that keeps them coming. Or, more likely, the mere thought that "cyber" (computers) and "punk" (cool, street-smart) could go together so neatly. -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473