The Cyberpunk Sci-Fi Subgenre Explained
The term «cybernetic» refers to the melding of flesh and machinery, while «punk „refers to the aggressive and rebellious genre of hard rock music. Combining the two evokes imagery of robotic augmentation, artificial intelligence, rebellion against corporate oligarchy by a battered but scrappy underclass, and Keanu Reeves.
Today, seeking out the word cyberpunk mainly turns up results about the CD Projekt Red video game that uses the name. That blockbuster title was inspired by a tabletop RPG, which in turn was inspired by decades of fiction that gradually defined and perfected the subgenre that has remained immensely popular and depressingly prescient.
The Steampunk Sci-Fi Subgenre, Explained
The term cyberpunk was coined by writer Bruce Bethke as the title for his 1980 short story, but the aesthetics and themes that make up the genre came into use long before then. Literature was the original home of cyberpunk, as the 1960s New Wave of science fiction attempted to keep up with and realistically present the social upheaval of the era. Bringing the razor's edge of current events to the optimistic balloon of utopian fiction led most artists toward crushing dystopia, tinged with new expectations of technology. Samuel R. Delaney, J. G. Ballard, Harlan Ellison, and many more groundbreaking visionaries laid the framework during the 60s. Delaney's 1968 novel Nova introduced the idea of interfacing with computers via neural implant, an important mainstay of the genre. The same year, the subgenre's largest building block was laid into place; Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?.
Inspired by Asimov's Robot series, Philip K. Dick's opus is better known today by the name Blade Runner, the movie it inspired. Ridley
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