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

It takes shockingly little, really, to become a genre guru.
Basically, it's as easy as turning over in bed. It's questionable whether
one gains much by the effort. Preach your fool head off, but who
trusts gurus, anyway? CHEAP TRUTH never did! All in all, it took
about three years to thoroughly hoist the Movement on its own petard.
CHEAP TRUTH was killed off in 1986.

I would like to think that this should be a lesson to somebody
out there. I very much doubt it, though.

Rucker, Shiner, Sterling, Shirley and Gibson -- the Movement's
most fearsome "gurus," ear-tagged yet again in Shiner's worthy article,
in front of the N. Y. TIMES' bemused millions -- are "cyberpunks" for
good and all. Other cyberpunks, such as the six other worthy
contributors to MIRRORSHADES THE CYBERPUNK ANTHOLOGY, may be
able to come to their own terms with the beast, more or less. But the
dreaded C-Word will surely be chiselled into our five tombstones.
Public disavowals are useless, very likely *worse* than useless. Even
the most sweeping changes in our philosophy of writing, perhaps weird
mid-life-crisis conversions to Islam or Santeria, could not erase the
tattoo.

Seen from this perspective, "cyberpunk" simply means "anything
cyberpunks write." And that covers a lot of ground. I've always had a
weakness for historical fantasies, myself, and Shiner writes
mainstream novels and mysteries. Shirley writes horror. Rucker was
last seen somewhere inside the Hollow Earth. William Gibson,
shockingly, has been known to write funny short stories. All this
means nothing. "Cyberpunk" will not be conclusively "dead" until the
last of us is shovelled under. Demographics suggest that this is likely
to take some time.

CHEAP TRUTH's promulgation of open principles was of dubious
use -- even when backed by the might of INTERZONE. Perhaps
"principles" were simply too foggy and abstract, too arcane and
unapproachable, as opposed to easy C-word recognition symbols, like
cranial jacks, black leather jeans and amphetamine addiction. But
even now, it may not be too late to offer a concrete example of the
genuine cyberpunk *weltanschauung* at work.

Consider FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelley, a wellspring of
science fiction as a genre. In a cyberpunk analysis, FRANKENSTEIN is
"Humanist" SF. FRANKENSTEIN promotes the romantic dictum that
there are Some Things Man Was Not Meant to Know. There are no
mere physical mechanisms for this higher moral law -- its workings
transcend mortal understanding, it is something akin to divine will.
Hubris must meet nemesis; this is simply the nature of our universe.
Dr. Frankenstein commits a spine-chilling transgression, an affront
against the human soul, and with memorable poetic justice, he is direly
punished by his own creation, the Monster.