cyberpunk.

[heBAY]

Hebay - I remember I was always attracted to Domu too, just because the cover of the first manga issue was so bizarre looking, but I never got the chance to actually pick them up. I was afraid they'd be a let down in comparison to Akira, but maybe if I can find them somewhere scanned for download I'll grab 'em.

I'm on a Mac now, been having a problem finding a Sega CD emulator for it, but I had one on my PC laptop with a few RPG's. But anyway, the last game I tried to break out again and play was Fallout a few summers ago. Surprisingly my old CD installed fine on my Windows XP system.

Back to Akira though. What did Kanye use from it for his video? I hate Kanye ... haven't heard about this move. Now that I think about it, I have an Akira wallscroll somewhere in my house from years ago. Wonder if it's still in decent condition, I believe it's of Kaneda walking to his bike. If you pick up the manga, make sure to dive into the series with this cover first:

Not sure if there's any changes in the Tokyopop release of the manga, because I haven't read through those but this series published by Kodansha were great.

Ha Fallout was fun.

I have that exact volume of Akira. Theo nly book I have out the series I think...or maybe it's the only o9ne I read thusfar. Domu is ill as shit at least to where I'm up to...I just never finished it. Definitely some Tetsuo/Akira business going on in there.

Kanye's "Stronger" video is LOOSELY based around Akira...mostly aesthetic elements...but he kinda reenacts Tetsuo's bedroom cell break (no giant teddy bears or glass through the foot). It's wild corny...just like the song.

cZd1Js0QaOI

I have a mean GITS wallscroll...and always wanted the Tetsuo "entrenched in machinery" wallscroll...where he's almost a stoney grey color and half of his torso is in a heap of "metal stuff."

[Appleseed]

I JUST realized Appleseed Ex Machina is NEW and NOT the remake of a few years ago. I was incredibly disappointed with the og Appleseed anime when I rented it back in the days...shit was so fractured and had no real flow to it. I read a little bit of the manga and knew the anime did not do it justice...plus I loved the patented Shirow design and artwork...so I was real happy at the remake. I need to see Ex Machina.

What about tentacle porn though? I don't see how they would fit that into the story (unless it's some type of killer machine with flailing, phallic cables or some shit). Weird that they'd go there.

Yeah the og Appleseed anime was straight 80's steez, the story mostly lifted from the 2nd graphic novel. And yet it was better than the CGI movie from a few years back.....

As far as the tentacle porn; you got it- phallic cables everywhere, part of a reanimated cyborg. Again, I did a double take to make sure I wasn't watching The Matrix.......

After Dark Horse finished putting out the Akira series, I too, took a trip down to Borders and read the entire series, cover to cover. The anime was amazing, the manga was fucking out of this world.

[notesee]

That Kanye video ... what the fuck man. This guy is a fuckin asshole.

I was able to check into that abandonware stuff you were mentioning, hebay. I downloaded Bloodnet, Syndicate, and Syndicate Wars. I came across the Darkseed games, but didn't download them yet.

The controls for Bloodnet are a little awkward on my laptop ... so unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to get into that game. But Syndicate is fine and I've been sucked into it the past couple of days, forgot how much I liked this game. Not having a right click is a little annoying though.

The CD-R's I have aren't large enough to fit Syndicate Wars on the disc, so I have to go back and try to get an 800MB CD. If anyone wants the links to these games, let me know.

[haptronic]

i am still confounded when i hear people talk about EBM...at the time we called it cyberpunk...there was an idea that this music could change that we humans processed information..

o64NGQsZzCI

[NESK]

i dig what everyones saying but i want to express an issue i have with the cyberpunk genre. i often find films (especially) get caught up in the aesthetic qualities of mechanization or just plain cyber chaos and theresnever much room for subtlety. its unfortunate because the general themse of the genre are amzing but too many films/anime try to wow you with crazy technovisuals that might look cool in an isolated sense, but lack any substance or credibility when related to the larger issues that these works try to take on. hackers woulda been good if it wasnt trying to be too cutting edge. ooooooh a code writer rides a skateboard at the office, so futuristic. ghost in the shell lost me with the jargon. if anyone has an example of a film or graphic novel where the director/illustrator somehow dives into the themes without relying on flashy effects, id be all over it. strange days is halfway there but not quite.

[heBAY]

i am still confounded when i hear people talk about EBM...at the time we called it cyberpunk...there was an idea that this music could change that we humans processed information..

o64NGQsZzCI

My brain just exploded twice.

That Kanye video ... what the fuck man. This guy is a fuckin asshole.

I was able to check into that abandonware stuff you were mentioning, hebay. I downloaded Bloodnet, Syndicate, and Syndicate Wars. I came across the Darkseed games, but didn't download them yet.

The controls for Bloodnet are a little awkward on my laptop ... so unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to get into that game. But Syndicate is fine and I've been sucked into it the past couple of days, forgot how much I liked this game. Not having a right click is a little annoying though.

The CD-R's I have aren't large enough to fit Syndicate Wars on the disc, so I have to go back and try to get an 800MB CD. If anyone wants the links to these games, let me know.

Yeah that video is terrible...

Bloodnet def. had some not-so great moments in play control...but the story is just too ill...it IS very old though. Still great graphics and a perfect cyberpunk universe (just trying to get you to play it...you'll enjoy it once you get the feel for the game...but a Mac definitely isn't my choice of hardware for it). Is there a 2 button mouse out there for the Mac?

i dig what everyones saying but i want to express an issue i have with the cyberpunk genre. i often find films (especially) get caught up in the aesthetic qualities of mechanization or just plain cyber chaos and theresnever much room for subtlety. its unfortunate because the general themse of the genre are amzing but too many films/anime try to wow you with crazy technovisuals that might look cool in an isolated sense, but lack any substance or credibility when related to the larger issues that these works try to take on. hackers woulda been good if it wasnt trying to be too cutting edge. ooooooh a code writer rides a skateboard at the office, so futuristic. ghost in the shell lost me with the jargon. if anyone has an example of a film or graphic novel where the director/illustrator somehow dives into the themes without relying on flashy effects, id be all over it. strange days is halfway there but not quite.

I hear you but I think that Ghost In The Shell DEFINITELY qualifies and should not be compared to some silly almost teeny shit like Hackers...Hacker is a perfect example of what you are saying about so-called style over substance...but GITS actually DOES execute if you peep it...the jargon isn't that bad...especially if you've seen or read A Clockwork Orange. Blade Runner and the book (Do Androids Dream Of Electric SHeep) really do justice to the genre. Akira as well. There are definitely some great movies/animes/books out there...but it also depends on what you're looking for within the genre. Do you want something that is more philosophical about shit like the internet and hacking...or cloning and cyborgs...or unified corporate control and the effects it has had on the world...or do you want something that is set in that dystopian terrain, but doesn't necessarily go too deep into the cyberpunk mindfuck stuff.

I def. hear what you're saying...and would nominate Demolition Man as another style over content piece of shit that should really be forgotten when talking about CP.

[viv1984viv]

serial experiments lain is another theory over style example - for better or for worse ( and partly because it was a so wonderfully realised concept that emerged through Gibson et al ) cyber punk became merely a style that emerged as a genre. And although I find this quaint in a romantic nostalgic sense I understand how someone striving to find philosophical facets of the genre/whatever may get frustrated and confused between the difference between Running Man and Demolition man, - See Tron and Videodrome easily fall within the more cerebral side of CP but when one looks at a screen cap they may appear pretty much how every other trashy, sci-fi punk flick looks.

[heBAY]

serial experiments lain is another theory over style example - for better or for worse ( and partly because it was a so wonderfully realised concept that emerged through Gibson et al ) cyber punk became merely a style that emerged as a genre. And although I find this quaint in a romantic nostalgic sense I understand how someone striving to find philosophical facets of the genre/whatever may get frustrated and confused between the difference between Running Man and Demolition man, - See Tron and Videodrome easily fall within the more cerebral side of CP but when one looks at a screen cap they may appear pretty much how every other trashy, sci-fi punk flick looks.

Yeah what he said.

I was going to mention SE Lain regarding the real "heady" CP type stuff that isn't done in a very typical CP style...but the theory is all there.

Kudos on the bit about nostalgia...one of the reasons why CP definitely holds a special place in my heart region.

[notesee]

Yeah, there's a mouse that I have that I can use for the games. I just don't have it with me, but I might pick it up later this afternoon.

Shit, I forgot about SE Lain. That was definitely one of my favorite CP related pieces when I first came across it. I thought the story was incredible, I really want to watch that series again.

Has anyone seen Ergo Proxy? I recently came across a couple of reviews praising it and have an itch to check it out. The plot sounds quite interesting:

It is set in the future. A group of robots become infected with something called the Kojiro [sic] virus, and become aware of their own existence. So these robots, which had been tools of humans, decide to go on an adventure to search for themselves. They have to decide whether the virus that infected them created their identity, or whether they gained their identity through their travels. This question is meant to represent our own debate over whether we become who we are because of our environment, or because of things that are inherent in us.

[heBAY]

I THNK I've seen an ep or two of Ergo Proxy...although one of these recent anime experts can probably correct me...is that the one that is pretty much 20-30 mins of straight mind-fuckery having to do with some inter-dimensional stuff with the internet and some other world? Shit was crazy as shit...watever I did see...the visuals were nuts...but I was lost and didn't have enough time to really peep.

[viv1984viv]

Havent seem Ergo Proxy, just bits and bobs off Utube, Texhologize is whats appealing to me right now....

[Appleseed]

Totally agree about Lain.

+ Half the beauty of GiTS is the 'jargon'. Read through Shirow's original manga- The guy is a total visionary, and in a similar sense to Crichton, postulates on near-future technology based of current cutting edge theory and progress.

He draws gud too- haha

[heBAY]

Havent seem Ergo Proxy, just bits and bobs off Utube, Texhologize is whats appealing to me right now....

Yo maybe I was watching Texhologize...does it sound like my summary of Ergo Proxy? Very mind fucky?

Totally agree about Lain.

+ Half the beauty of GiTS is the 'jargon'. Read through Shirow's original manga- The guy is a total visionary, and in a similar sense to Crichton, postulates on near-future technology based of current cutting edge theory and progress.

He draws gud too- haha

He drawy pretty/.

[Guest jmatsu]

i don't really get it, but do these count:

[napoleon]

100% ........

[Appleseed]

God it's been a while since I've seen some of those-

If not straight cyberpunk, the first Tetsuo certainly informed the genre. Weird and dystopian? Check. Does it make you hate yourself? Oh yeah.

[landho]

Cross posted from another forum re a guy who said he found reading Neuromancer difficult; remember seeing this thread, and thought you guys may appreciate.

---

Neuromancer is incredible--one of the best novels written in the twentieth century without any qualifiers of its being science fiction necessary.

It's pretty difficult to read if you're not reading it closely; Neuromancer is written very densely, almost Hemingwaylike, and there is a lot of information about the world the novel inhabits to be gleaned implicitly, from seemingly throwaway statements or bits of conversation. In Neuromancer, Gibson doesn't include anything incidentally. For example, Gibson's description of Operation Screaming Fist hints at the state of the American government and its relationship with the Soviet Union (culminating in the very brief World War III), and his brief discussion of the Tessier-Ashpool family hints at the culture of the incomprehensibly rich (something that would be explored in more detail in Count Zero).

(Compare, for example, Snow Crash [written by Neal Stephenson], the other great cyberpunk novel, whose prose can almost be described as baroque.)

To use another science-fiction novel as a referent point, a lot of my friends really liked Ender's Game, which is an exciting, well-written novel that explores some very interesting themes (namely, exploitation, the inability to communicate, the tendency toward domination/hierarchy, and the games/war dichotomy), but it's not a fraction of the novel that Neuromancer is. Ender's Game may be a better (initial) read, but it certainly doesn't reward later readings the way Neuromancer does.

I reread the Neuromancer trilogy last summer and was blown away by how good Neuromancer itself was. The later two books (Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive are very good, but they are just extensions of the world created in Neuromancer. I think Gibson knew that he couldn't re-create what he had accomplished in Neuromancer, so he simply sought to write good books that explored some of the ideas and consequences established in his first novel. Well worth reading in any case.

[notesee]

Nice review landho, I haven't read Snow Crash before ... that's something I'm going to look into.

I started re reading Neuromancer again the other day, already almost halfway through it. But I still feel like I could read through it again soon, just because it's so packed. If anyone else wants to read the novel, the whole book is posted here.

http://lib.ru/GIBSON/neuromancer.txt

[Clockwork_killa]

Technolyse is prettygood, but definitely hard to follow

Has anyone read or seen blame! it looks quite interesting, but I cant seem to get hold of it.

Also, is it just me or does anyone else think secondlife = metaverse?

[OCEANSECT]

revival? ?

i just finished moxyland by lauren beukes and i thought that was pretty good (though somewhat by the book and predictable... and the cover was a real turn off)

reading halting state by charles stross which is kind of cool but a little too like... nerdy? for me

also have altered carbon by richard k morgan that i'm tryna read after

does anyone else even read this ish anymore?

[Dead_Wizard]

Hah weird, I was this [ ] close to buying the new Lauren Beukes book "Zoo City" based off the recommendation of William Gibson