Though similar power to an early programmable calculator.
The Dutch suffered them as well as English. But sadly about 10x as many people died making them.
If the digital programmed computer hadn't existed, the parameters for such an analogue computer with gyroscopes and accellerometer could have been calculated before final landing.
Dune is not the best example here, since we know that they had sophisticated computers, but that they were outlawed.I was rather surprised by that fact myself when I first heard the backstory, from a gaming magazine dealing with one of the Westwood RTS games in that universe.
I will have to disagree here, you have your evil corrupt government and corporations, your down on their luck anti-hero protagonist, and a revolution in computing and information technology.
Say whatever you will, Gibson did not invent the genre, and there far more memorable and superior works that came out before he published Neuromancer with all the same tropes and ideas that prevalent in cyberpunk.It's more like an incompetent goofball government. The protagonist is kind of an old post-hippy and not a young "punk." I'll grant the computing. But the idea that Rucker is "far more important" than Gibson - in an objective "influenced most people" sense is not at all defensible. In a "quality and intellectual content" sense, maybe, but Sterling is more important than both put together in that sense. And Software came out "years" before Neuromancer only in the most literal sense: two years. But "Johnny Mnemonic" came out the year before Software and "Burning Chrome" the same year as Software. But then again, Rucker had published a fragment of a novel and one story by 1980 (though I don't know how relevant the story was and the novel wasn't especially cyberpunkish. And then again-again, Gibson had published a story by 1977. And Sterling had published a story and novel by 1976 (though, again, not especially relevant). Talking priority isn't especially useful with a bunch of people who basically knew each other and were contemporaries and were just part of something in the air.
That is the funny thing about cyberpunk, though. I've said this before but I love the editorial comment (forget who said it) about how "it takes more than two people to make a movement." Mirrorshades (1986) includes Bruce Sterling, William Gibson, Tom Maddox, Pat Cadigan, Rudy Rucker, Marc Laidlaw, James Patrick Kelly, Greg Bear, Lewis Shiner, John Shirley, and Paul diFilippo. Paul di Filippo was so new that he's already basically "post-cyberpunk" (and tried to invent "ribofunk" years later), John Shirley (speaking of hugely influential people that the general public is insufficiently aware of) was proto-cyberpunk, having been publishing since the early 70s and being far more "punk" than all the rest put together. Lewis Shiner was only fitfully cyberpunk and, like Maddox and Laidlaw, did not have a career that really sustained its start. (Laidlaw now does military SF for Baen, I think - no clue what Maddox is doing.) Greg Bear is as pure-quill old-school SF as you can get - being Poul Anderson's son-in-law is actually symbolically significant. James Patrick Kelly (like Michael Swanwick with Vacuum Flowers (1987)) wrote an extremely cyberpunkish story sequence but was as "Humanist" as you could get. Rudy Rucker was a gonzo metaphysical mathematician. Pat Cadigan had yet to publish a novel (her first "novel" (1987) was a fixup and tangentially cyberpunk but her later novels (1991+) are determinedly cyberpunk) and her short fiction involved old ladies meeting aliens and magical entities as well as the occasional "Pretty Boy Crossover" and (included in the anthology) "Rock On."
So, yeah, that's true original cyberpunk: Bruce Sterling and William Gibson. Bruce Sterling's fiction (beginning with the post-Delanyesque but embryonically cyberpunk The Artificial Kid (1980) and the Shaper/Mechanist stories (1982+) and Gibson's were turned into a movement by Bruce Sterling's non-fiction (Cheap Truth, etc.) and Bruce Sterling's anthology "proved" it was even a large movement.
To wind back around to the topic: either way, we again see a lot of people and a lot of works and a lot of history and not any one big moment of a single "trendsetter."
And while Gibson's about my fifth favorite "cyberpunk" I wouldn't take everything away from him. As I say, a lot of the ideas in Neuromancer can be found earlier elsewhere, of course, but some of those "elsewheres" are in Gibson's own short fiction.
It's more like an incompetent goofball government. The protagonist is kind of an old post-hippy and not a young "punk." I'll grant the computing. But the idea that Rucker is "far more important" than Gibson - in an objective "influenced most people" sense is not at all defensible. In a "quality and intellectual content" sense, maybe, but Sterling is more important than both put together in that sense. And Software came out "years" before Neuromancer only in the most literal sense: two years. But "Johnny Mnemonic" came out the year before Software and "Burning Chrome" the same year as Software. But then again, Rucker had published a fragment of a novel and one story by 1980 (though I don't know how relevant the story was and the novel wasn't especially cyberpunkish. And then again-again, Gibson had published a story by 1977. And Sterling had published a story and novel by 1976 (though, again, not especially relevant). Talking priority isn't especially useful with a bunch of people who basically knew each other and were contemporaries and were just part of something in the air.
That is the funny thing about cyberpunk, though. I've said this before but I love the editorial comment (forget who said it) about how "it takes more than two people to make a movement." Mirrorshades (1986) includes Bruce Sterling, William Gibson, Tom Maddox, Pat Cadigan, Rudy Rucker, Marc Laidlaw, James Patrick Kelly, Greg Bear, Lewis Shiner, John Shirley, and Paul diFilippo. Paul di Filippo was so new that he's already basically "post-cyberpunk" (and tried to invent "ribofunk" years later), John Shirley (speaking of hugely influential people that the general public is insufficiently aware of) was proto-cyberpunk, having been publishing since the early 70s and being far more "punk" than all the rest put together. Lewis Shiner was only fitfully cyberpunk and, like Maddox and Laidlaw, did not have a career that really sustained its start. (Laidlaw now does military SF for Baen, I think - no clue what Maddox is doing.) Greg Bear is as pure-quill old-school SF as you can get - being Poul Anderson's son-in-law is actually symbolically significant. James Patrick Kelly (like Michael Swanwick with Vacuum Flowers (1987)) wrote an extremely cyberpunkish story sequence but was as "Humanist" as you could get. Rudy Rucker was a gonzo metaphysical mathematician. Pat Cadigan had yet to publish a novel (her first "novel" (1987) was a fixup and tangentially cyberpunk but her later novels (1991+) are determinedly cyberpunk) and her short fiction involved old ladies meeting aliens and magical entities as well as the occasional "Pretty Boy Crossover" and (included in the anthology) "Rock On."
So, yeah, that's true original cyberpunk: Bruce Sterling and William Gibson. Bruce Sterling's fiction (beginning with the post-Delanyesque but embryonically cyberpunk The Artificial Kid (1980) and the Shaper/Mechanist stories (1982+) and Gibson's were turned into a movement by Bruce Sterling's non-fiction (Cheap Truth, etc.) and Bruce Sterling's anthology "proved" it was even a large movement.
To wind back around to the topic: either way, we again see a lot of people and a lot of works and a lot of history and not any one big moment of a single "trendsetter."
Because it's interesting?
My feeling about Software is that Rucker was only interested in the philosophical games he played. Great book, really great book - but no trendsetter.
Um, no.I think we might have read different books then!
All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
I agree that's pointless.
I think we covered the ideology bits in other threads, no need to mix politics with fiction here
