882c548a   
   From: trminlxGARBAGE@bitstreamnet.com   
      
   In article ,   
    3ngine  wrote:   
      
   > Greetings all!  I'm currently doing some research for my Masters   
   > thesis, and would just like a few quick opinions: in my own personal   
   > opinion, I think that the cyberpunk movement started in 1980 with   
   > Shirley's _City_Come_A_Walkin'_ and pretty much ended in '92 with   
   > Stephenson's _Snow_Crash_.  Can anybody come up with any influential   
   > books/short stories to the genre either before 1980 or after '92?   
   >   
   > I'm not sure that Gibson's bridge trilogy fits into the definition of   
   > cyberpunk, nor am I 100% sure that _Heavy_Weather_ by Sterling fits   
   > the bill.  Any thoughts on this?  This is very preliminary research;   
   > I'm pretty much compiling a list of CP books/stories that I'll be   
   > looking at, so feel free to jump in with anything you've got.  Thx.   
      
   After having read all answers so far ... I think you're getting far to   
   caught up in the idea of a "label" and a "time frame" .. no genre will   
   ever die completely as long as someone out there wants to read and/or   
   write in the style.   
      
   And styles will always shift slightly over time, but the feel of the   
   thing is what counts, not the details. Take the movie "Dark City" for   
   example, SF film, maybe some CP overtones but definitely a Film Noir in   
   its overall feel. And that style of film hasn't been popular for years.   
      
   Cyberpunk was, is and always will be walking the line of various kinds   
   of S/F anyway. A good portion of the reason it started was because S/F   
   itself was becoming a rather boring genre of literature getting stuck up   
   in space operas and fantasy stories set in space. CP grounded it back   
   down to what it was way back in the 30s - the future coming at you very   
   quickly whether you like it or not.   
      
   If you really need to pin dates on the thing just say the High Point of   
   CP was between 80 and 92 .. but it definitely had seeds before 80 and   
   will have works after 92 that will fit the bill. Besides, it's also a   
   matter of personal taste. [And if you want to really get picky you can   
   say the whole idea for CP probably came from Tofler's "Future Shock"   
   which is non-fiction.]   
      
   And personally, I'm not sure I like all this sub-sub-genre bullshit   
   that's going on around here ... nanopunk, biopunk, genepunk .. If your   
   definition of cyberpunk is so rigid you can't twist it a little to fit   
   nanotech and biotech and blahtech underneath it if the same Feeling   
   behind the words is there then you missed the point somewhere. Stay   
   flexible or you're going to get sucked down, chewed up and spat out.   
      
   [And Gibson wrote Neuromancer listening to The Velvet Underground... I   
   don't know if any of the CP authors listened to Ministry. Especially   
   since during most of the time frame you mention they were a pop-techno   
   band. A shitty one at that, thanks the Gods someone gave Al drugs.]   
      
   ghost   
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