A HISTORY OF DARK FUTURES
Although earlier examples do exist, nothing sums up the mood and aesthetic of cyberpunk quite like the opening of William Gibson’s 1984 novel Neuromancer: “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” It’s a genre of science fiction often marked by its contrasts; low life and high tech, to quote author Bruce Sterling, and a vision of the near future with its feet heavily planted in both the obsessions and pessimism of the 1980s.
It’s instantly recognisable, and yet defies neat categorisation, with elements of noir, satire, fetishism and paranoia all typically mixed together. In its stock form, it’s the near future as seen from the gutter – individualists struggling to live as they choose in the perpetual darkness and driving rain of oppressive future cities where megacorporations rule everything and everyone. It’s the antithesis of utopian sci-fi such as the Star Trek series, typically rooted in a sense of nihilism and criminality. Corruption is rife,
