I devoured scifi books from a very young age. Books in the library were sorted on the shelves alphabetically by writer's last name, and marked by coloured dots on the spine. Scifi was "yellow".
I read every yellow dot from A to Z.
When cyberpunk came on the scene, it was very much more aligned with the times. Rather than the utopean space operas, LSD fueled fantasies, or space westerns, this alligned with the culture of kids brought up with the 'no future' of rapid industrial workforce decline and imminent nuclear armagedon.
Dark, gritty places were people made do despite being under totalitarian mob/goverment rule. It felt so much more real than the clean spaceships exploring the universe in sweet harmony.
I still love all (nearly) scifi. What is true though is most near future works tend to age poorly. Cyberpunk might have had an alignment dip at yhe end of the century's irrational exuberance, but I guess it's back.
I read every yellow dot from A to Z.
When cyberpunk came on the scene, it was very much more aligned with the times. Rather than the utopean space operas, LSD fueled fantasies, or space westerns, this alligned with the culture of kids brought up with the 'no future' of rapid industrial workforce decline and imminent nuclear armagedon.
Dark, gritty places were people made do despite being under totalitarian mob/goverment rule. It felt so much more real than the clean spaceships exploring the universe in sweet harmony.
I still love all (nearly) scifi. What is true though is most near future works tend to age poorly. Cyberpunk might have had an alignment dip at yhe end of the century's irrational exuberance, but I guess it's back.