"Bruce Sterling - Cyberpunk in the Nineties" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sterling Bruce)

Bruce Sterling

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Sixth INTERZONE column



"Cyberpunk in the Nineties"



This is my sixth and last column for INTERZONE, as I promised a
year ago when I began this series. I've enjoyed doing these pieces,
and would like to thank the energetic editor and indulgent readership
of INTERZONE. A special thanks to those who contributed terms and
comments for "The SF Workshop Lexicon," which remains an ongoing
project, and will show up again someday, probably in embarrassing
company. Those readers who had enough smarts and gumption to buy
the SIGNAL catalog (see column one in issue 37) have been well
rewarded, I trust.

In this final column, I would like to talk frankly about
"cyberpunk" -- not cyberpunk the synonym for computer criminal, but
Cyberpunk the literary movement.

Years ago, in the chilly winter of 1985 -- (we used to have chilly
winters then, back before the ozone gave out) -- an article appeared in
INTERZONE #14, called "The New Science Fiction." "The New Science
Fiction" was the first manifesto of "the cyberpunk movement." The
article was an analysis of the SF genre's history and principles; the
word "cyberpunk" did not appear in it at all. "The New SF" appeared
pseudonymously in a British SF quarterly whose tiny circulation did
not restrain its vaulting ambitions. To the joy of dozens, it had
recently graduated to full-colour covers. A lovely spot for a
manifesto.

Let's compare this humble advent to a recent article,
"Confessions of an Ex-Cyberpunk," by my friend and colleague Mr.
Lewis Shiner. This piece is yet another honest attempt by Someone
Who Was There to declare cyberpunk dead. Shiner's article appeared
on Jan 7, 1991, in the editorial page of THE NEW YORK TIMES.

Again an apt venue, one supposes, but illustrative of the