A trans protagonist definitely has me sold, though detective-wise it depends on whether it’s just functioning as pro-cop propaganda.

Ah, that’s kind of what I gathered it would be but wasn’t sure. I may still take a gander out of curiosity, but I’ve spent too many decades playing games as it is so I’m not sure I’d get much from reading about characters doing the same inane tasks. Barring some outstanding story that just uses it more as flavor/set-dressing, that is.

Added, thanks! “Modern day dystopian sci-fi” may as well be a cyberpunk tagline at this point.

I guess I didn’t think of solar-punk as a book genre to explore. The context I’ve always seen it is very much in-life non-fiction (ala the various solar-punk communities on the threadiverse). Somehow it didn’t occur to me that there would be literature as well.

I’ll have to poke around. Thanks for the info!

“How has cyberpunk been updated for the modern era” is indeed what I’m ultimately asking about. I figured there would be a chance that the genre wasn’t everlasting and that modern takes would either ultimately be throwback fanservice, or something so wildly different that it couldn’t even be considered cyberpunk anymore… but that’s why I asked.

I had Gibson’s and Morgan’s works in my list already, though I’m definitely going to have to bump “Altered Carbon” up given your recommendation. Does Gibson’s style differ in “The Peripheral” compared to “Neuromancer” though? I’m currently reading the latter but not having the best time with his style/flow so far and am unsure if that’s just him, or the book/Sprawl series… or me, for that matter.

Oh and I had originally posted a more long-winded version of the OP in [email protected] but it was with my now-deleted piefed account that was just too buggy to keep using. Given how book-specific the ask was I figured here was probably a better fit.

A downed internet definitely seems like an intriguing direction to explore, added to my queue!

Currently playing through the game so probably best I wait. The titles of a few seems like spoilers may be possible, though presumably most are unrelated-but-still-in-universe stories like the animated Edgerunners show? Or are some of them actually intended (i.e. prequel supplements) to read before the game?

On the plus side: never gonna say no to more books in my list! I’m not actually sure how I missed the rest of Sterling’s work, so it’s good you brought him up.

And non-fiction is what I’m trying to escape ;P Or at least by some bizarre sadomasochistic method cope with via the fiction that everything seems far too inspired (predicted?) by.

You may very well be right, and it’d make sense if so. Some would probably consider what I’m asking for “post-cyberpunk” (or whatever), but that gets bogged down in semantics that I’m not familiar enough with to navigate.

But that’s all part of my curiosity and why the specificity of the ask. What does it even mean to write cyberpunk nowadays? If it’s a particular past vision of the future and we’re in that future (or some vaguely similar situation), then what is today’s vision? Is it even possible for it to resemble classical “cyberpunk” enough to be considered the same genre? Would it just be the same-but-more tropes? More/less grounded in existing tech? Or is it the path to creative entropy? I have no idea. And thus: the ask.

I don’t disagree, propaganda is always part of it. But use something less flimsy (if not outright contradictory when viewed in context) because this particular example loses “control of the message” with the slightest bit of scrutiny. If it’s going to be a fabrication then just use a piece of art, a rumor, or at least something vague/unverifiable rather than a single frame of an easily available video that shows the opposite of what is implied.

Perception is reality, but if you build it out of twigs then it’ll become a liability that will do more harm than good.

I’ll add the rest of Sterling’s novels to my list because hey why not (I already had a “Schismatrix” and “The Artificial Kid” on there), but most are a bit too old for the ask at hand and would be missing the (potential) influences of the last 30ish years that I’m curious about.

“The Murderbot Diaries” sounds spot-on to what I’m looking for, bonus points for being a series! Added it to my list.

I’ll check out “Dungeon Crawler Carl”, but I’m not really sure what LitRPG is. Glancing through the wiki entry it seems like I’ve got plenty of experience with RPG-but-not-LitRPG books (i.e. tabletop supplementals, actual RPG rulebooks/scenarios, in-universe-inspired, “choose your own adventure”, etc), but never LitRPG itself. Should at least be a curious stroll… I’m not usually big on aliens so we’ll see. Running Man + Hitchhiker’s Guide (the later being my all-time favorite series) has me very interested.

Because I’m curious how our current reality has influenced the genre and how major world events, societal shifts, etc. have been potentially incorporated or reimagined. So much of the classic cyberpunk concepts are based on 40+ year old pre/early-internet ideas and I’d like to see how that has changed as our society and technology has. Maybe the answer to that is “it’s niche fiction, so not at all”, but that’s why I’m curious.

As for the specificity to five: It’s a fairly arbitrary choice on my part, though I have been finding that stuff created post-covid often has a very different energy to it even if that isn’t part of the fiction itself.

Just finished Philip K Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep”. Enjoyed it for the most part, though some of the stuff towards the end I got lost in/annoyed by. I’ve always found Dick’s more surreal bits to be very hard to follow, though thankfully this time things stayed (mostly) grounded/sober. My bigger issue is that it ended up feeling too much like a ham-fisted faith allegory, of which I’ve had more than a lifetime’s fill of. Maybe that’s just my current state and not the common vibe or intention from it though.

I’m also stumbling around William Gibson’s “Neuromancer” but having a very hard time with it, despite being well acclimated to the cyberpunk tropes it popularized. Something about Gibson’s style/flow just isn’t clicking and I find myself completely lost in what the point of anything he’s describing is, only sometimes realizing in retrospect. Perhaps most unexpectedly it’s not the cyberspace interpretation (or jargon, etc) that throws me either. The whole thing just feels very disjointed.

Finally, and seemingly perpetually, I’m picking my way through my battered copy of Mark Z. Danielewski’s “House of Leaves” that I’ve trucked around for the past 25 years. Not necessarily a fun read, but nonetheless a fascinating puzzlebox of literary art that my brain is the perfect/worst fit for. I’m very glad I don’t smoke anymore because the paranoia this journey would cause would obliterate what few bits of me remain.

Nothing about how this was presented is genuine though, and that’s my point.

And plenty have done more. People are constantly martyred fighting back, in part because they have been actually willing to die for their cause. Any one of them could have been used as a more authentic representation of resistance than this… and have more of an impact because it’s not a cherry-picked, out-of-context fabrication.

I realize we’re post-truth, but jeez.

I realize that. But there are countless current examples of real resistance and sacrifice that could have been used instead.

Good intentions and all, but the full video context (the vehicle just keeps going and the blocker moves out of the way after several seconds of nudging) makes this a terrible example that only reinforces the sense of futility, in my opinion.

Not saying not to stand and fight, but this isn’t the posterchild to use.