Patrick, Things are progressing a little slowly in my end as my job is taking more and more of my spare time. Fortunately I have made some progress too. First of all I guess I should make my background clear as it will probably help explain the whys and hows of my quest or whatever we can call this. My background is not in litterature at all but in hard sciences, and I used to be a researcher up to just a few years ago when I reached the point where salary as a researcher no longer was financially viable, salaries are rather low as you probably know. Nevertheless, in my field reading SF in general and Cyberpunk in particular is almost de rigeur, especially as William Gibson touches on a few parts of my field in his stories. Knowledge and structure are essential parts of any kind of research and although I don't carry my professional methodology that much into every day life I do find it useful here too. This doesn't mean that I am aiming for an excrutiatingly detailed, painstakingly researched tome of a thesis but I feel it is important to date things as closely as possible. References are very useful too, especially in the long run. Guesses, postulates, assumtions and other less than certain factstoids are OK too, as long as they are marked as such. Otherwise I fear what you mention below, that someone will in the future believe that William Gibson was a hoax made by some 13-year old kid. It might seem far fetched but don't forget that there really are people out there who believe the works of Shakespear was in reality written by Francis Bacon! I guess the Internet will not be a safeguard either as it allows even faster propagation of errors. > Subject: RE: CNS/cyberpunk timeline > Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 12:34:09 -0500 > From: Patrick Clark > To: "'sgjoen@mail.nyx.net'" > The Cyberpunk Timeline did not begin as a serious chronology. In some > respects it has become that. I applaud your desire to map out accurate > description of CP while there is still time -- before it is all smothered > under the mass of the Internet. I have taken your enthusiasm to heart and > will be making some additions to the Timeline. But these, for the most part > are American items. I'm still without much at all for Europe, Asia > (especially Japan) and pretty much the entire southern hemisphere. And, > truly, I don't know what to do about this. Here is this piece of news I got recently. I was (and still am in fact) discussing Cyberpunk in Japan with a guy who is both a cinephile and also japanophile. He feels that Cyberpunk in Japan has taken on a very different shape from the west, where technology and humanity crashing head on comes to light in the Japanese underground movie scene. His prime example is "Tetsuo - the Iron Man" created by Shinya Tsukamoto (sp?) who has made a lot of other movies in similar style. You can check it out in www.imdb.org where you will find references to his other work. According to the web pages of the cult movie cinema that screened a whole season of such movies, William Gibson has a copy of "Tetsuo - the Iron Man" though it does not say what he has said about it. In case you haven't see it I should warn you it is horrifically violent and gory, I have never seen anything like it before or since, thankfully. It was a black and white low budget movie but strong stuff nevertheless. A sequel was made, in colour. I didn't go to see it. There is a number of such movie makers in Japan but the litterary scene I do not know much about. I mentioned Bubble Gum Crisis earlier and I just remembered that a sequel was made, Bubble Gum Crash, which was not much of a success. > I used to hang out at news.alt.cyberpunk but that was some years ago. My > life became complicated and I abandoned all the alt-groups except Philip K. > Dick (have I seen you post to pkd.lists.best.com?). And at that point I did Probably not. I am a big time lurker and only post in groups local to nyx, the computer system from which I am sending this. I do send direct e-mail now and then though but as I get plenty of spam as it is I try to keep as low a profile as possible. If you browse the net you will find me as a member of the Linux Documentation Project (LDP) as an author of a HOWTO called "Multi Disk HOWTO". It is big, involved, heavily researched, and in the best of Cyberpunk traditions, free. Information wants to be free, and I guess I am a part of the modern gift economy of the net. Future historians will wonder what happened to the net culture this decade... > not find alt.cyberpunk to be very useful. It had become pretty stale. You > say it has become interesting again -- I'm pleased to hear it. The "good > old days" cp's were there then and they tended to engage in endless disputes > with the "edgier" cp's (who claimed to be real hackers) over what was or was > not "real cyberpunk." This generated more heat than light. Still, there > were some funny and thoughtful posts on a regular basis. I remember one > discussion as to whether someone or something named "William Gibson" > actually existed. Gibson was finally "revealed" to be a 13 year-old hacker > who began cyberpunk as a joke. It was pretty funny though I remember > thinking at the time that, as these messages never really disappear, someday > in the future someone would ressurect this "fact" and present it (probably > on some future alt.cyberpunk group) as proof that William Gibson was a hoax. Well, in some ways it is stale, some of the amusement comes from the culture clash between old timers who actually read the books and know the story on one hand, and the newcomers who believe a change in wardrobe will bestove upon them this coveted title: cyberpunk. Not surprisingly, most of the humor seen is unintentional. Such as for instance people complaining about mainstreamers when it is painfully obvious they themselves are as mainstream as anything that came out of Hollywood. Yes, there is more heat than light and I do miss the more intellectual angle of days bygone. In fact I find there is a bit too much anti art and anti intellectual posers there now. The old crown such as Nemicol, Sourcerer, Sweet Poly, .mpa and more are seen less frequently. > You sound like you are a regular at alt.cyberpunk so let me ask you: would > the various members be willing to provide additional information and > suggestions to a timeline? In particular, are there many non-American > people (or Americans with access to non USA sources and materials) that > could fill in the picture for the timeline? The English-language barrier is > definitely a serious obstacle at my end. Or do you know of anyone who might > have such material. You spoke in your email of having sked Jpapanese people > about cyberpunk with negligible results. But had they nothing at all to > tell you? I think some help is possible but as my attempts of getting a few errors in the FAQ corrected has stranded I would not expect a huge tidal wave of information but some might trickle in. I get by in several languages and have kept eyes and ears open but with little result. There was a thread from news:de.jugend crossing into news:alt.cyberpunk and even though "jugend" means "youth" and the discussions were in German there was just noise and no visible value. My discussions with Japanese colleagues were fruitless, though they all seemed to know about "Tetsuo - the Iron Man". One bought "Count Zero" on my recommendation and as it was available in Japanese translation I couldn't get further. The enormity of the translation job sure does boggle the mind but as my colleague didn't find the book that great I am not sure how well it had been translated. In one of Bruce Sterling's "Catscan" columns he mentions a trip to Japan on an invitation but I could not get any impression on how the Cyberpunk scene there was. > If such a strategy is possible would you be willing to post such a message > to the list and then monitor the list and collect information? All the Sure, I could try. Already I have suggested putting a link to it in the FAQ for the newsgroup and I am waiting for a reply. It isn't there yet but I feel it is very relevant and should be there. > citations to the current timeline have some sort of legitimate documentation > to back them up. I would want to continue that tradition -- someone's > memory is not necessarily reliable (unless, as it says in the READ ME page, > that person is the author of the deed). Nor do I necessarily consider some > posting to the Internet reliable --there is entirely to much crap on the Net > to trust and I would think you would like the "map" to be accurate, too. At > the same time, being too hard-nosed about this works against a growing > timeline. I supposed we could always include ambiguous items, noting that > they are unattested. I agree with you here. But as long as a guess is marked a guess it should be OK to include in the timeline. A simpler start would probably be the publishing dates for all the central books, you could probably get some help from www.amazon.com and other book related sites. What about the Library of Congress, would that place have an online database of books? > Of course any volunteers to this project would need to see what has appeared > already. I don't know if the Timeline is mentioned in the alt.cyberpunk > FAQ. As I said, the whole project began as something of a lark and both the > Timeline and the issues of CNS sit on a rather unusual Web site. So > possibly many people may not be aware that it is available. I am doing my best to get it and a few other links included. I have a few in my bookmark file that I will append at the end of this mail. > I have to tell you though, Stein, that tracking down "facts" is a laborious, > time-consuming and frustrating activity. I once did this sort of thing as a > part-time job for Minnesota Public Radio and it was a big pain in the butt. > That's one of the reasons I let the timeline go fallow after 1997. That is > why I had hoped that other people would send me things to include rather > than have me dig them all out myself. And some did. Rudy Rucker and Paul > Di Filippo sent me items -- that was pretty neat. I know the feeling, much of my time as a scientist was spent in libraries and on searching databases for references and articles. It was very time consuming and not always fruitful either. As for direct Cyberpunk sources I found Steve Brown very helpful, it was in fact him who brought CNS and the web page to my attention. Also I have been in contact with Bruch Sterling too. > Anyone is welcome to copy the Timeline to another site or to link it to the > present location. I'm not possessive about this sort of thing and still > proud to uphold the old CP slogan "Information wants to be free!" If you > would prefer to create a timeline of your own, as you were originally > thinking about doing, you may certainly incorporate anything I have up -- > even the whole thing -- and then develop it as you see fit. So may anyone > else. Anyone may translate it into a different language and put it all over > the Net. Maybe someone has. I'm re-writing the READ ME page to reflect > that offer. > > So, Stein, think it over and let me know what you'd like to do. I'll make > some more additions to the present site soon. I would prefer if you continued the work but I would very much like to search out and contribute various bits and pieces, especially as I now have got some contact with the people who started the original movement. If I could make a suggestion I would like to see the timeline divided into epochs such as proto-cp, pre-cp, "the golden era", first decline, neo-punk (such as Snow Crash) and post-cp as I am afraid we have reached. I see several members of the movement have declared it dead, Sterling, Gibson, Shiner and I think also Swanwick. > About the paper version of Cyber Noodle Soup and Interference on the Brain > Screen, where the Timeline originated -- yeah, in the beginning it was > hardcopy. You could only get it if you happened to see the review in > Factsheet Five or a couple of other zines. Jean Heriot offered to put it on > her Web site and I took her up on the offer. CNS still goes up there (there > is another issue in the works, by the way) but Interference on the Brain > Screen is only available in paper. There is one copy left of the fourth > issue (1997) -- "Farewell to Cyberpunk" which you would probably enjoy. > It's $3 to Clark PO BOX 2761 St. Paul, MN 55102 USA -- unless you are not > in the States; then it's usually a trade of some sort. Let me know if you > are interested. Are you in the States? Your email provider is nyx.net but > that sort of thing means nothing these days. Well spotted, my e-mail address and in some ways my net presence is indeed in the US, yet personally I have never even been there! I am currently in Norway which I can assure you has very little cyperpunk-ness about it. There was this play about 10 years ago as I mentioned but very little since. For example: William Gibson was invited to a Con in Oslo a few months ago. It was not mentioned in any of the newspapers I know of. It was like a non-event. > Additions: > > 1987 - Bubble Gum Crisis begins in Japan > 1993 - The movie Nemesis released -- later to be praised by Gibson > 1993 - Bubble Gum Crisis released in the West > 1996 - Kyoko Date activated > 1997 - Communications Decency Act ruled unconstitutional (June 26) > 1997 - Blade Runner computer game released (Nov.) > 1998 - Gibson/Maddox episode, "Kill Switch" appears on The X-Files (Feb. > 15) Perhaps you could add "Freejack", a movie with some Cyberpunk elements and also one of the very first. Also "Tetsuo..." if you feel it is relevant and the sequel. > More in the works. Excellent, I am looking forward to seeing more. I should perhaps mention that I was talking to my Japanese colleagues about Cyberpunk while I was working in Japan, in the research capital called Tsukuba. The city itself looks in some ways like it was pulled straight out of William Gibson's "The Gernsback Continuum". I guess the authorities want to steer away from the picture he painted of the future Chiba city. Out of interest, why is the magazine called Cyber Noodle Soup? Here are some of my bookmarks that may be of some help: - Regulars in news:alt.cyberpunk http://www-hep.phys.cmu.edu:8001/~rostykus/home.html A Liralen's Eyre http://www.onshore.com/~vagans/index.html Sourcerer's archive http://www.city-net.com/~vagans/sourcerer.html Sourcerer http://www.city-net.com/~sweet/sweetpoly.html Sweet Poly http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/~erich/ Schneider, former FAQ maintainer - Authors http://www.idoru.com/ William Gibson (defunct?) http://www.slip.net/~spage/gibson/biblio.htm William Gibson Bibliography / Mediagraphy http://www.comicsworld.com/cw/Interviews/gibson.htm William Gibson talks to ComicsWorld http://lonestar.texas.net/~dub/sterling.html Bruce Sterling Online Index http://www.darkecho.com/JohnShirley.html John Shirley http://www.addicted.com.au/issues/1.07/Features/Neal_Stephenson/index.html Neal Stephenson (interview) - Misc docs http://bush.cs.tamu.edu/~erich/alt.cp.faq.html FAQ http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/science_fiction/neuromancer.html Study Guide for William Gibson: Neuromancer (1984) http://www.cs.ubc.ca/spider/harrison/Cyberpunk/cyberpunk.html The Cyberpunk Reading List http://www.wwmatrix.com/cyberpunk/plainmenu.shtml The Official Cyberpunk Home Page http://www.netlink.co.uk/users/joel/teabowl/ The Tea Bowl - A Chatsubo Archive http://www.teleport.com/~jaheriot/ Jean's index page - Tech http://lcs.www.media.mit.edu/projects/wearables/ Smart Clothes: Wearable Computing Intro Page - Misc unsorted ftp://styx.ph.msstate.edu/pub/tempus/books/ http://www.cyberfest.uiuc.edu/main.html http://www.oz.net/~conal/bartalk.htm http://www.addict.com/issues/2.10/html/hifi/Cover_Story/ http://www.halcyon.com/jstewart/atl/index.htm Not complete by any means and I am missing what probably is the most important one which I think is http://www.euro.net/mark-space/ but I am not sure. It is an online Cyberpunk dictionary, you will probably find a link to it from http://www.slip.net/~spage/gibson/biblio.htm I hope you find some useful stuff in here. Regards, Stein