Re: RARA-AVIS: Cyberpunk Recomendation?

From: Jess Nevins ( jjnevins@ix.netcom.com)
Date: 05 Oct 2005


-----Original Message----- From: Tribe < tribexx@gmail.com>

> Well, certainly Blade Runner was enormously influential on
> first-generation
> cyberpunk and was in turn influenced by hardboiled novels, but the
> influence
> of hardboiled detective fiction goes beyond the film. Where do you think
> the
> persona of the first-generation (which is quite different from
> second-generation
> cyberpunk, to which my generalizations no longer apply) protagonist comes
> from?
> The non-cyberspace milieu of first-generation cyberpunk is almost always
> urban,
> and the protagonist is often a hardbitten, cynical loner with a romantic
> streak
> and a firm code of ethics. Hell, even the early cyberpunk
> novelist--Gibson's
> earliest, and his immediate imitators--were aping Chandler's style.

> I'm sure you'd agree that urban settings and cynical, loner protagonists, in
and of themselves, don't necessarily equate to hard boiled. Aside from that, there has to be that thing we call "style" to make it hardboiled. If Gibson and the others were trying to write in that style, then I totally missed it
'cause I don't see it. Admittedly, it's been some time since I read those.

And what style, exactly, would that be? Hammett or Chandler? Brett Halliday or Erle Stanley Gardner? Daly or Gruber?

Besides, I didn't say that these writers were doing good Chandler imitations. They hit some of the notes but missed the music.

Finally, I wouldn't call cyberpunk hardboiled. I do say it was (or, again, first generation cyberpunk) heavily *influenced* by the hardboiled writers and characters.

jess

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