The Cyberpunk Movement

Neuromancer was the flagship of cyberpunk, a movement that mixed noir fiction's cynicism with science fiction's speculation. Bruce Sterling, Pat Cadigan, and Rudy Rucker joined Gibson in imagining futures where corporations and individuals held the power while governments faded into the background.

Cyberpunk rejected the clean, optimistic futures of earlier science fiction. Instead: rain-slicked streets, neon ads in many languages, body modification as fashion, and hackers fighting corporate systems with the systems' own tools. It predicted the aesthetic of the internet age with startling accuracy.