I'm a "post-cyberpunk" writer. That is, I was raised on and inspired by cyberpunk fiction, and, unlike the majority of the cyberpunks, I actually went to work in the tech industry, thanks, in large part to them.

tor.com/2020/10/13/bey…

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Over the years, I've given a lot of thought to what it means to be "post-cyberpunk" and I think the key difference lies in how you relate to computers and networks: whether they are metaphors, or concrete things in the world.

2/
The technologist-wizard archetype of cyberpunk needs to be able to cast spells with technology, to transcend its limits and make it do the impossible - but the post-cyberpunk hero depends on their comprehensive knowledge of the POSSIBLE, ALL the things a computer can do.

3/
In some ways, this transition was inevitable. The 15-or-so-years of cyberpunk supremacy coincided with a moment of both widespread technological excitement and technological inexperience: most people hadn't used computers much, but they really wanted to.

4/
Today, in the post-cyberpunk era, technological know-how is much more widely distributed, as is technological disillusionment. The "poetics of the technological subculture" (as @greatdismal memorably phrased it) are no longer quite so esoteric.

5/
Attack Surface, my latest novel, is a decidedly post-cyberpunk novel, inviting readers to relate to its technological elements as they relate to their daily lives, rather than their dreams of the future.

6/
I'm doing an event on Oct 19 hosted by @AndersonsBkshp with OG cyberpunk, "Chairman" @bruces Sterling; and @NB_Chris, a new and exciting post-cyberpunk writer (both Chris and I were mentored by Bruce) on this subject:

eventcombo.com/e/Virtual-even…

eof/

7/

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More from @doctorow

14 Oct
In 2014, I gave a keynote at Museums and the Web on the suicide-mission of cultural institutions that had decided to sacrifice access - making their collections as broadly available as possible - for revenues (selling licenses to rich people).

mwf2014.museumsandtheweb.com/paper/glam-and…

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I argued that rich people didn't want museums, they wanted to own the things the museums had in their collections; so if museums eschewed universal access to get crumbs from plutes, they'd end up with rich people slavering to dismantle them and no public to help them resist.

2/
Now, a group of professionals and institutions from the galleries, libraries, archives and museums (#GLAM) sector have published the "Passenger Pigeon Manifesto," in which they eloquently make the same point.

ppmanifesto.hcommons.org

3/
Read 11 tweets
14 Oct
I first encountered @jmcdaid through "Uncle Buddy's Funhouse," his 1993 ground-breaking, award-winning hypertext project - one of the first CD ROMs written up in the NY Times. It was such an exciting, original, weird and artistically satisfying piece, especially the music.

1/ Image
Later, John and I became writing colleagues, attending workshops together, and then friends - for decades now. His work remains weird, erudite, accessible, madcap and brilliant.

2/
He's just released a new album of filk/folk music: "Trail Of Mars," recorded during the plague months with an all-star set of session musicians whom John was able to contract with thanks to the unprecedented drought in musical work.

johnmcdaid.bandcamp.com

3/
Read 6 tweets
14 Oct
Writing on tor.com, @NB_Chris proposes that dystopian narratives are a form of clickbait: as the "boundary between dystopian fiction and the evening news" blurs, dystopian narratives become political ads.

tor.com/2020/10/14/dys…

1/
When the @NRA wants to scare old white people, they run ads that look movies adapted from the "second civil war" novels that emerged after 2016, amping up the underlying message of dystopia: to "excuse or encourage our failure to take agency over our own futures."

2/
Brown is a dystopian novelist himself; his recent novel FAILED STATE revisits a world in peril that he documented in two previous novels that blended authoritarian rule and ecological collapse, and finds tantalyzing glimmers of hope.

pluralistic.net/2020/08/12/fai…

3/
Read 7 tweets
14 Oct
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Pandemic shock doctrine vs internet freedom; What happened in Florida; Prop 22 is a scam; How to spreadsheet; The Ministry of the Future; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2020/10/14/fin…

#Pluralistic

1/ Image
Pandemic shock doctrine vs internet freedom: Freedom House's 2020 report is grim reading.



2/ Image
What happened in Florida: Surrender, Bush v Gore style.



3/ Image
Read 20 tweets
14 Oct
This month marked the publication of Kim Stanley Robinson's latest novel, "The Ministry for the Future." I have a copy, but I haven't been able to bring myself to read it.

hachettebookgroup.com/titles/kim-sta…

1/ Image
The last time I saw Stan, he told me he thought it might be his last novel. He's writing nonfiction about the Sierras now. The thought of a world with no unread KSR novels is thoroughly depressing, precisely because his books are so inspiring.

2/
But after reading his interview with @eliotpeper, I've reconsidered. No one writes optimistic novels about crises the way Robinson does, and reading about his approach to narrative is just as inspiring as the narratives themselves.

eliotpeper.com/2020/10/kim-st…

3/
Read 8 tweets

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