The Internet Crashed

Dragon*Con with Richard Epcar

*tap* *tap* Is this thing still on? Yeah, this has been neglected. But, I have some interesting news: Richad Epcar is going to be at Dragon*Con this year, and I’m moderating the session he will be attending discussing his work on Ghost in the Shell. You might know him as the voice of Batou in [...]

Dragon*Con with Richard Epcar is a post from The Internet Crashed. Visit us for all your cyberpunk cravings!

GitS cyberspace via Kinect

Saw a link to this, thought people here might find it interesting. It’s a recreation of cyberspace from Ghost in the Shell as a game for the Kinect. 「攻殻機動隊 S.A.C.」シリーズ電脳空間システム from BMCL on Vimeo. (via http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/30/kinect-dives-into-anime-cyberspace-dares-you-to-catch-cute-robo/) Interesting concept. Still, I think it requires too much activity to be a functional replacement for the good [...]

GitS cyberspace via Kinect is a post from The Internet Crashed. Visit us for all your cyberpunk cravings!

The next evolution of cyberpunk?

I’m heading to a conference for the “day job” part of my life next week, so I might not have time to post. So, I’ll leave you with an open-ended question to discuss: what’s the next step in cyberpunk? I think the obvious first step is to update the technology. Wireless technology, for example, has [...]

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Technology in Cyberpunk

Seems a bit of an odd topic? But, think about it. Besides the network, neural interface, and abstractly futuristic portable computers, what sorts of modern technology is really in cyberpunk? Let’s take a look, shall we? As I wrote in last week’s post, there’s an assumption that a lot of technology has stagnated. Most stories [...]

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Exploration in Cyberpunk

This week, let us consider the theme of exploration in cyberpunk works. How it shapes the world and how it could be expanded. In classic cyberpunk, the dystopian nature of the world was reinforced by humans essentially being stuck on Earth. Contrary to the optimistic space operas of previous eras where man explored the galaxy, [...]

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Religion in Cyberpunk

Let’s take a look at what is often a touchy subject: religion. How does it fit within cyberpunk? If you’re interested in reading about religion in science fiction in general, I highly recommend a wonderful series of posts on the topic over at Chris Bateman’s “Only a Game” blog. A really great look at how [...]

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Games in Cyberpunk

Given my “day job”, I love games. But, they seem to be conspicuously absent in a rather technical-minded genre like cyberpunk, particularly in the classic works. So, let’s take a look at the role of games in the future. The only older cyberpunk type story I can think of that includes games is the story [...]

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Immortality in Cyberpunk

Immortality is a recurring theme in many fiction stories. It tends to appeal to the part of us that fears death, or at least wants to hold it off until we’re ready. Immortality, while desirable, is sometimes seen as a bad thing in stories. Cyberpunk, of course, has its own twist on the subject. Let’s [...]

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Changing it up

So, according to the feedback thread last month, it seems people are still interested in the site. But, it seems people haven’t been thrilled with the content so far. So, I’ll change it up a bit. Once a week I’ll post up a theme for discussion. We’ll look at the topic from a cyberpunk point [...]

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Chaos vs. Order

I came across another interesting review of TRON: Legacy today over at Terra Nova, an academic site that covers online games. The article is Blizzard is CLU, and goes into some interesting detail about the nature of MMOs and how the “living parts” were driven out, reminiscent of the plot of the movie. (Warning, there [...]

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Review of TRON: Legacy

I recently went to see the new movie TRON: Legacy, the biggest cyberpunk-related movies this year. It’s the sequel some of us have waited decades for. I’m sure all the hard-core fans here have already seen it, but in case you haven’t I’ll be including a few spoilers. Go see the movie if that’s a [...]

Review of TRON: Legacy is a post from The Internet Crashed. Visit us for all your cyberpunk cravings!

Has this site failed?

I’m taking a long hard look here. Posting has fallen off for various reasons. As I’ve mentioned before, most of the original 6 writers I lined up for this site have left. The last remaining one hasn’t talked to me in a few weeks now. I’ve been busy with a project that I’m hoping will [...]

Has this site failed? is a post from The Internet Crashed. Visit us for all your cyberpunk cravings!

Sp.A.I

A reader sent a link to the game Sp.A.I, a cyberpunk themed “third-person puzzle platformer”. I had already downloaded the game, but it’s taken me a bit to actually sit down and play it. The game was developed by // No comment, a team of 5 students from the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, [...]

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Fear and New Orientalism in Cyberpunk

Fellow cyberpunk enthusiast End_User send in this though-provoking article. Enjoy! ‘Modern Japan simply was cyberpunk.’ – William Gibson ‘The Orient […] seems to be, not an unlimited extension beyond the familiar European world, but rather a closed field, a theatrical stage affixed to Europe.’ – Edward Wadie Said, in Orientalism Cyberpunk is a genre obsessed [...]

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Interview: Jess C. Scott

Jess contacted us with news about her new book, The Other Side of Life which combines Urban Fantasy and Cyberpunk. She offered to do an interview, so we took her up on the offer before she changed her mind. ;) This is her first book in a series, and she’s offering free copies to people [...]

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The Cyberpunk Soundtrack

And he woke again, thinking he dreamed, to a wide white smile framed with old incisors, Aerol strapping him into a g-web in Babylon Rocker. And then the long pulse of Zion dub. ~ Neuromancer by William Gibson What does cyberpunk sound like? We’ve discussed what it feels like, and what it may look like at [...]

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Dystopia in the near future

I stumbled across an interesting article recently, A radical pessimist’s guide to the next 10 years by Douglas Coupland. Perhaps a bit much on the “pessimist” side, but what struck me is how this list mentioned some cyberpunk-like concepts. Let’s take a look at a few of them. 2) The future isn’t going to feel [...]

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Walls

For Case, who’d lived for the bodiless exultation of cyberspace, it was the Fall. In the bars he’d frequented as a cowboy hotshot, the elite stance involved a certain relaxed contempt for the flesh. The body was meat. Case fell into the prison of his own flesh. ~ Extract from “Neuromancer” by William Gibson. Walls, [...]

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Cyberjournalism

Journalists often have a prominent place in cyberpunk. A lot of times the story in a cyberpunk setting is told as being a news story. It can be a reminder of how much corporations control everything if the newscast is missing information that the reader/viewer knows, or it can be an affirmation of how an [...]

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Guest Post: The Pursuit of Cyberpunkness

Here’s a guest post by guest writer Scrivener talking about cyberpunk’s place in our current world. He echoes some of the points I’ve written about, how the old concept of cyberpunk has become our reality. He also makes an great call to action in the last paragraph, and I’d also love to hear your thoughts [...]

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Cyber/Gothic

Cyberpunk is a curious beast – it feels just as virtual as cyberspace itself, and yet it’s based in shocking reality. There’s an art to it all; with all the dingy alleyways, cyborg fashions and towering industrial complexes we see in comics, films and games, cyberpunk feels more fantastical than it wants us to believe. [...]

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Interview: Dragonkhan from Dragon*Con

I went to Dragon*Con earlier this month as a speaker and as a fan of many aspects of geekdom. The great thing about the conference is that you can meet people of from every sort of fandom possible. It’s a huge convention in Atlanta, spanning across 5 hotels. One panel I wanted to make sure [...]

Interview: Dragonkhan from Dragon*Con is a post from The Internet Crashed. Visit us for all your cyberpunk cravings!

Interview with William Gibson on NPR

NPR recently had an interview with William Gibson. Although they mentioned his new book, Zero History, they didn't talk much about it. Instead, it's a great conversation about science fiction in general. You can listen to a recording at: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/09/17/midmorning2/ (Thanks to my good friend Christine for pointing it out!)

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Massively-Multiplayer Online Mercerism

Users the world over engage in a virtual, multi-user environment in which they, playing the protagonist, must work their way up an increasingly violent learning curve. They share their experiences, of the struggle and of the enemies which seek to destroy them. It is a finite experience, and their journey does have an end; once [...]

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Our Twitter broke

Yeah, not surprising. Well, actually, the problem was on our side. :) The plugin we used to echo posts to Twitter broke because Twitter changed how they accept posts. I posted a few manual updates to Twitter for some posts that didn’t get mentioned. Anyway, I updated the plugin and things should be back to [...]

Our Twitter broke is a post from The Internet Crashed. Visit us for all your cyberpunk cravings!