>What I find fascinating about the cyberpunk sensibility is the dramatic shift from the classical view of the future. When you dig into older science fiction it is almost universally accepted that the future will be clean, bright, and government-controlled.
I know that this is a popular narrative about science fiction of the past but I'm not sure it is actually true. For instance looking at the greats from 19th C. to the first half of the 20th C (although perhaps looking at the greats is not the best approach).
1. Isaac Asimov's "The Foundation" (1942) is about the collapse of an empire and the birth of a new empire. Social science turns out to be more powerful than spaceships but it has some pretty serious failure modes.
2. Jules Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" (1869) is largely about a rebel. Technology doesn't seem to be fixing problems.
3. H.G. Well's "Time Machine" (1895) has the end of all human civilization and "The Shape of Things to Come" (1933) while utopian is also extremely grim at points.
4. Stapledon's works, "Star Maker" (1937) and "First and Last Men" (1930) which were extremely influential on the science fiction of that time are grand and chaotic. Several of the time periods described could easily be cyberpunk.
5. C.S. Lewis's Cosmic Trilogy (1938) is explicitly anti-progress.
Cyberpunk was essentially a switch from telling pulpy adventure stories to telling pulpy noir stories.
George R. Stewart, The Earth Abides (1949), Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818), On the Beach, John Brunner Stand on Zanzibar (1968) The Shockwave Rider (1975), and The Sheep Look Up (1972). John Christopher (Christopher Samuel Youd)'s Tripod trilogy (1967) and The Sword of the Spirits, George Orwell (Eric Blair) 1984 (1948), Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1931), Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (1962). Much of the work of Ray Bradbury and Philip K. Dick.
I'd gotten into this with David Brin a few years back on G+ when he was grousing that modern sci-fi is pessimistic in was the classics never were. He is wrong. Though happy stories do tend to sell better.
Verne's "Paris in the Twentieth Century" (which wasn't published because he was told it was too negative) has an extremely pessimistic view of the future as well. It's and extremely sad book
I know that this is a popular narrative about science fiction of the past but I'm not sure it is actually true. For instance looking at the greats from 19th C. to the first half of the 20th C (although perhaps looking at the greats is not the best approach).
1. Isaac Asimov's "The Foundation" (1942) is about the collapse of an empire and the birth of a new empire. Social science turns out to be more powerful than spaceships but it has some pretty serious failure modes.
2. Jules Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" (1869) is largely about a rebel. Technology doesn't seem to be fixing problems.
3. H.G. Well's "Time Machine" (1895) has the end of all human civilization and "The Shape of Things to Come" (1933) while utopian is also extremely grim at points.
4. Stapledon's works, "Star Maker" (1937) and "First and Last Men" (1930) which were extremely influential on the science fiction of that time are grand and chaotic. Several of the time periods described could easily be cyberpunk.
5. C.S. Lewis's Cosmic Trilogy (1938) is explicitly anti-progress.
Cyberpunk was essentially a switch from telling pulpy adventure stories to telling pulpy noir stories.