Can't talk about cyberpunk without mentionning Blame!

What I like most about cyberpunk genre is that most of the time the story happens in a desolated setting. I've always been fond of eerie, quiet, empty and vaste wastelands. For some strange reason, it feels comforting, kinda like home.

The gloomy amosphere often has this clash between the robotization of humans and the humanization of robots. As if one in his (foolish ?) attempt to emulate the other, becomes neither and is out of synch with his true nature.
The search for an identity is a theme deeply rooted in this genre, as the boundaries between machine & human are shattered.

In a sense, this resonates with me as I've always been in a quest of finding a place where I belonged. Sometimes I feel like I am a robot trying to emulate the normals' behavior without being a normal myself.
Kinda ironic that the first board I felt a deep connection with was 4ch/r9k/ back in 2014, misfits so out of sync with society they felt like robots.

I don't want to turn this into a ronery post, but you get my point why i like cyberpunk.

>>41256
> often has this clash between the robotization of humans and the humanization of robots
Nicely worded, I'm not really an avid cyberpunk reader but one novel that really made an impression on me was "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" and it focuses on precisely this theme.

>>41259
How different is that book from Blade Runner?

>>41261
I haven't watched the movie, though I did watch the 2049 sequel several years back (an odd choice, I know). From what I remember of the 2049 version, they're not really comparable. The movie has some of the same characters and setting as the original, but really the crux of the plot is different. I imagine the same is true when comparing against the original Blade Runner as well. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep leans much more philosophical in nature and has various minor threads to that end; its contents would not really directly translate well into a movie.

I think if you like cyberpunk and Blade Runner it may be worth reading the novel, but you shouldn't expect a "novelization" of blade runner, it would be closer to reading something like "The Stranger" (Camus) with the expectation of noir philosophy.

Post edited on 17th Mar 2023, 8:47pm

>>41261
There's important elements in the novel that don't appear in the movie at all, like the empathy machines and the religion of mercerism. Others are just suggested or mentioned briefly. The basic premise is kept but not too much of the characters or anything else. P.K.D. could only watch 40 min. of the movie before he died, but he was astonished by it, saying it was exactly like how in his head looked like. Probably because the aesthetics worked so great and maybe the overall theme was left intact.

>>41261
I've read blade runner, it was really a 5/10 book, but I need to read neuromancer
>>41256
I began to read blame!, I have the volume 1 and 0

Are the TERMINATOR movies cyberpunk?

>>41577
Not the first two, which are the only ones worth watching. Cyberpunk is also more about the evils of capitalism, while terminator has machines and the military be the antagonist.

>>41577
It's set in the present day for its time and the post-apocalypse, so not really. I've always viewed cyberpunk as a "setting" (which I'm sure you can picture), not a particular kind of story. Although naturally, it leans towards certain kinds.

>>41580
>I've always viewed cyberpunk as a "setting"
It's been rendered to that in media, but I've heard cyberpunk enthusiasts complain about this being superficial.

>>41582
I think a lot of them believe in a made up version of it in their head. I saw people complaining about the lead character in some cyberpunk work being a police officer, which would discount Koukaku Kidoutai/Ghost in the Shell. I don't think a definition that excludes that series works very well.

>>41583
>complaining about the lead character in some cyberpunk work being a police officer
Seriously? That would discount Blade Runner too.

edit: Armitage III too. Cops are a common occupation for cyberpunk protagonists, so whoever that was doesn't know what they're talking about.

Post edited on 18th Jul 2023, 4:54pm

>>41584
Exactly! It annoyed me a lot which is why that kind of opinion stuck with me for so long. I don't understand it at all.

>>41254
I loved cyberpunk when I was younger.
The funny thing us that even though cyberpunk tends to be dystopian in nature, the actual reality we're in is shaping up to be much worse in some respects than most of the cyberpunk media you saw 30, 40 years ago.

>>41259
My favorite PKD book is Valis, which explores in great detail the philosophical and religious ideas which underpin his cyberpunk books, but contains only trace amounts of science fiction.

>>41254
I feel kind of indifferent about cyberpunk as a genre these days, because really we're basically living a world with much of what was imagined in cyberpunk media in the past. I mean, we're not at the level of cyborgs or brain-in-a-vat level of tech. But you could easily write a cyberpunk narrative set in the modern world.

You should try watching some stuff from the noir genre OP. I really like series directed by Shuko Murase myself. I also just finished the first season of Psycho-pass, and it was phenomenal