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Cyberpunk: Bruce Bethke
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William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy novels are the most famous early cyberpunk novels. Cyberpunk is a science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life." It is ... a subgenre of industrial rock music. The name is derived from [C]ybernetics and punk and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk," published in 1983,[1] although the style was popularized well before its publication by editor Gardner Dozois. It features advanced science, such as information technology and cybernetics, coupled with a degree of breakdown or a radical change in the social order.
Cyberpunk is a literary science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life". The term was originally intended to describe Bruce Bethke’s characters in a 1980 short story, but since then a full genre developed. Its name is a portmanteau of "cybernetics" and "punk". It features advanced science such as information technology and cybernetics, coupled with a radical social breakdown or change.
The term cyberpunk was first coined by Bruce Bethke in his short story Cyberpunk published in 1983. "Cyber" was derived from cybernetics, a control theory that studies, for example, human/machine interaction and is often used in connection with information technology. "Punk" was taken from from punk rock music, suggesting an urban anti-establishment sensibility.
This word, which literally combines the words cyber and punk, first appeared as the title of a short story entitled “Cyberpunk,” by Bruce Bethke. The term was published in the AMAZING science fiction stories magazine in 1983. The short story was a high-tech science fiction story about a group of teenage crackers with ethical shortcomings. Bethke said that the coining of the word was his attempt to find a word that would combine the notions of “punk attitudes” and “high-technology.”
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