(Max T. O’Connor). Meanwhile, cyberpunk fiction
often described artificial intelligences (AIs) that were
native to cyberspace and that strove with disembod-
ied humans for control of the virtual universe. Gib-
son called cyberspace a “consensual hallucination,”
but the notion acquired a greater authority as com-
puter software became better able to produce visible
models of three-dimensional space incorporating
sophisticated “virtual realities.” The progress of this
kind of software and the hardware for displaying
its results was most conspicuously seen during the
1980’s in the development of video games played on
PCs and on coin-operated arcade machines.
As a manifest movement, cyberpunk did not out-
last the 1980’s—Bruce Sterling boasted that the
term was “obsolete before it was coined”—but the la-
bel found continued life beyond its early enthusi-
asts. Marketing departments continued to apply the
term to books that did not necessarily warrant it, and
postmodernist critics adopted it as well to discuss
important trends in American culture, especially
the burgeoning confusion of the meaning of the
word “real.” Moreover, the subgenre inspired several
other related subgenres, notably steampunk—in
which stories are often set in an alternate, techno-
logically advanced version of Victorian England.
Impact Cyberpunk’s iconic motifs were so closely
pursued by actual developments in computer tech-
nology that they soon lost their capacity to inspire
awe. However, the fantasy of a physically or spiritu-
ally accessible cyberspace, a virtual reality to which
humans could travel, remained a powerful part of
the cultural imaginary. While cyberpunk fiction was
not solely responsible for this idea, it did shape the
popular understanding of the atmosphere and na-
ture of cyberspace worlds. Thus, even as it became
outdated, cyberpunk continued to influence the de-
velopment of both science fiction and popular ideas
about technology, especially about interactions be-
tween technology and humans.
Further Reading
Butler, Andrew M.The Pocket Essential Cyberpunk.
Harpenden, Middlesex, England: Pocket Essen-
tials, 2000. Succinct overview of the literature and
its authors.
Cavallaro, Dani.Cyberpunk and Cyberculture: Science
Fiction and the Work of William Gibson. London:
Athlone Press, 2000. A rather slapdash retrospec-
tive analysis of the movement and Gibson’s cen-
tral role within it.
Featherstone, Mike, and Roger Burrows, eds.Cyber-
space/Cyberbodies/Cyberpunk: Cultures of Technologi-
cal Embodiment. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 1995.
Collection of fourteen essays—first featured in
a special issue of the journalBodies and Society—
discussing the cultural impact of cyberpunk ideas
and imagery.
Heuser, Sabine.Virtual Geographies: Cyberpunk at the
Intersection of the Postmodern and Science Fiction.
Amsterdam: Rodolpi, 2002. A more careful ret-
rospective study than Cavallaro’s, viewing cyber-
punk as a quintessentially postmodern phenome-
non; includes a timeline of cyberpunk history
and a good bibliography.
McCaffery, Larry, ed.Storming the Reality Studio: A
Casebook of Cyberpunk and Postmodern Science Fiction.
Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1991. A
showcase anthology whose compendium of liter-
ary examples casts a wider net than usual; its
twenty items of miscellaneous nonfiction include
Timothy Leary’s “The Cyberpunk: The Individ-
ual as Reality Pilot.”
Sterling, Bruce. Preface toMirrorshades: The Cyber-
punk Anthology. New York: Arbor House, 1986.
The combative “manifesto” of the cyberpunk move-
ment,employed as a preface to the subgenre’s pri-
mary showcase; also reprinted in McCaffery’s an-
thology.
Brian StablefordSee also Book publishing; Computers; Gibson,
William; Literature in the United States; Video
games and arcades; Virtual reality.268 Cyberpunk literature The Eighties in America