(CYBER) PUNK'S NOT DEAD – RICHARD MORGAN'S ALTERED CARBON

Abstract

The term cyberpunk refers to an offspring or subgenre of science fiction which rose to popularity in the 1980s. It was first coined by Bruce Bethke in his story of the same name, published in 1983. Even though there are critics today who claim that cyberpunk is long dead, numerous examples from the 21st century show that it is still very well and alive, and this revival is particularly aided by television, as cyberpunk has a massive visual potential. Hence, the 21st century saw the sequel to the cult Blade Runner (originally released in 1982), titled Blade Runner 2049 (released in 2017), another (fourth) sequel of The Matrix (set to be released in 2020), TV adaptations of Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams (2017) and, the main interest of this essay, Richard Morgan’s Altered Carbon (season 1 in 2018 and season 2 set to be released in 2020). In this essay we are going to, first, outline the main narrative and stylistic conventions of cyberpunk, which include: a time and place in the future dominated by advanced achievements in information technology, science and computers (hence the term ‘cyber’) at the expense of a loss or breakdown of social order (hence the term ‘punk’) to the point of a dystopia (or post-utopia, as has been argued); virtual reality, data networks, illusion, bodily metamorphosis, media overload, intensity of visual components, bordering on what Norman Spinrad said was a fusion of the romantic impulse with science and technology. All of these encapsulate a core theme of the loss of distinction between real and artificial. In addition to this, the term cyberpunk requires clarification against several other terms which often appear alongside it and are related in one way or another, including science fiction, neo-noir, hard-boiled, post-cyberpunk, transhumanism, post-anthropocentrism, etc. Second, we are going to look at how those elements come together in the context of the first novel of Richard Morgan’s trilogy about Takeshi Kovacs, titled Altered Carbon, published in 2002 (the sequels, Broken Angels - 2003 and Woken Furies – 2005, have not yet been adapted for television and will, therefore, not be included in our analysis). We are going to, then, compare those elements with the Netflix version of the novel, a 10-episode TV series, released in 2018. The comparison of the visual versus the verbal narrative will show the differences in the presentation of cyberpunk elements and how (or whether) these differences are dictated by the medium or not. It will also show whether what started out as a dystopia in the original text has grown into a post-utopia in the television series, simply reflecting the current trend of nostalgia and nostalgic recycling.