A Cyberpunk Canon

Credit for coining the term “cyberpunk” belongs to author Bruce Bethke, whose short story of the same title was published in a 1983 issue of Amazing Stories, and picked up by Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine editor Gardner Dozois. What it described was a combination of cutting edge tech hardware and anti-authoritarian energy that had steadily been creeping into adventuresome sci-fi cinema and literature—see for instance Blade Runner, arguably the cyberpunk ur-text. Ridley Scott’s film here joins further visions of failed futures courtesy of Mamoru Oshii, Paul Verhoeven, Shinya Tsukamoto, and others, sure to delight enthusiasts of post-industrial rot, twisted steel, and man’s merging with machine.