I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m taking a course on Cyberpunk right now at a local university. The main focus of the course is about what defines Cyberpunk as a genre… a combination of the aesthetics, auditory, visual, and written media that are labelled as such, and how to determine whether a given work is Cyberpunk or not.
To some extent, this is purely academic. What makes a genre is that books are put in that genre, and people acknowledge the social contract in which the author(s) work. But it is kinda neat thinking about work that I wouldn’t instinctively consider Cyberpunk and try to figure out what it is about that piece that either does, or doesn’t, make it part of the genre. Altered Carbon, for example, is a perfect case of something I didn’t consider, but almost certainly is. One could make the same argument for the first book/season of The Expanse, a favourite of mine.
Anyway. My final term paper is due on Friday, and I’m writing this post here as a way of procrastination without actually procrastinating. I’m thinking about the paper, I’m writing about writing the paper… it’s kinda like actually doing the work, right?
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!