Culture

Some of the Best Cyberpunk Lives in the World of Short Films — While Black Mirror might have made the idea of short and bleak sci-fi popular, the show is not the first to have come up with the idea of cyberpunk short stories. Whether you’ve just finished the show or never really liked it in the first place, I’ve got good news for you. There’s a lot more out there. 

We propose a cyberpunk reading of Christopher Nolan’s filmography. While stopping short of defining Nolan’s catalogue as cyberpunk per se, this author is interested in exploring what a cyberpunk interpretation of these films might reveal, or what value these films might hold for the cyberpunk enthusiast looking to reframe popular culture.

Upgrade Blends Genres to Make it Ultimately Cyberpunk — When a mysterious benefactor offers to help him walk again by implanting an experimental technology called STEM, Grey gets the opportunity to regain a normal life. However, STEM ends up being a lot more than a piece of tech that enables of Grey’s body again. The tech is actually semi-autonomous evolving program.

Codeburst introduces a novel synthesis of media, but despite some great world-building descriptions and cool concepts like AI wirelessly “pushing” commands that limits someone’s free will, it still suffers from some weaknesses in the story department.  Nonetheless, the efforts of the artists should be applauded as an excellent example of “cool” incarnate. Codeburst is a perfect for a neon afternoon of reading, and it’s worth your time to pick up a copy today.

In Neon Leviathan, twelve cyberpunk short stories ricochet off one another. They center around marginalized perspectives in Australia after a futuristic war entangled that country, Vietnam, and China. The stratification of class has been exacerbated. Each story focuses on one or more individuals who are just trying to get by in a world where the corporations dominate. Expect tales of criminals, gamblers, medics, and soldiers.

Vin Diesel’s Bloodshot was meant to be the first installment in a series of films set in a Valiant Comics shared cinematic universe. But after the pandemic put everyone’s plans on hold, it’s anybody’s guess whether this will actually be the first part of a series of films.

The opening line to Neuromancer (1984) by William Gibson sets the tone for a dark and gritty cyberpunk world that’s progressively looking more like the world of today. An uninformed reader would be hard-pressed to imagine the book being written during the 1980s, seeing as much of the once-speculative technology has been realized.

Richard Kadrey’s Metrophage says “Society is a Carnivorous Flower.” Written in 1988, Metrophage is a first wave cyberpunk novel with most of the usual trappings. There is no middle class anymore, just the super-rich and the dirt poor.

In a near future Los Angeles stands the Hotel Artemis, a sanctuary for criminals with a full-service nurse . . . for members only, of course. Things go unexpectedly wrong for a group of crooks when riots break out during a heist. Packing futuristic tech, they make their way to the Artemis and to sanctuary, or so they think.

All right, chums. Today, we’re gonna focus on a cyberpunk magazine that holds a special place in my heart, since they published my first story ever: Write Ahead: The Future Looms (shortened to WA/FL for convenience and amusement).