Abstract
Recent American science fiction (which commercially dominates world science fiction) incorporates two schools of thought, ‘cyberpunk' and ‘hard SF’. which may be read to embody, respectively, radical/liberal and patriotic/ conservative propaganda. This article, after attempting to define aspects of these schools, examines Queen of Angels by Greg Bear (who before producing that text had been a proponent of hard SF). This text is shown to have strong elements of cyberpunk (possibly, to judge by one critical review, appealing to a cyberpunk audience) but to have transformed and inverted the radical and liberal themes of cyberpunk into conservative themes. The text thus illuminates philosophical and technical differences between the schools. It is suggested that the imagery of cyberpunk, and perhaps that of science fiction in general, is liable to such reversals of ideological significance.
Highlights
Science fiction has long divided itself into competing schools pursuing different ideas which com pete with each other in the marketplace
Cyberpunk writers had certain common pursuits; information-related technologies such as artificial intelligence and biotechnology were to cyberpunk what space travel had been to earlier writers
The movement is strongly influenced by the American counter culture and appears suspicious o f the international political establishment
Summary
Science fiction has long divided itself into competing schools pursuing different ideas which com pete with each other in the marketplace. Some cyberpunk texts are satirical (such as Laidlaw’s D ad's Nuke - 1986) but cyberpunk visions o f radical social change, driven by technology and wealth are usually presented seriously. C yberpunk’s dystopian vision may have been driven by the plight o f the American radical/liberal intelligentsia in the 1980s, who had voted for Carter only to see their ideals betrayed, and faced the Reagan landslide with shock.. C yberpunk’s dystopian vision may have been driven by the plight o f the American radical/liberal intelligentsia in the 1980s, who had voted for Carter only to see their ideals betrayed, and faced the Reagan landslide with shock.1 It deals with individuals excluded from power. Cyberpunk writers often model style and treatment on the works o f detective w riters like Raymond Chandler (with whom Gibson w as com pared in the jacket blurb for C ount Z ero - 1990), whose detectives are solitary men o f integrity in a threatening, corrupt world
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