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Cyberpunk
Be it book, film or any other medium, share your favorite works of the genre (and why it's your favorite!)
www.penguinrandomhouse.com
It has lots of stories from authors such as William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Neal Stephenson, Cory Doctorow, Charles Stross, and Philip K. Dick.
The Blind Spot is about a city where no one has any privacy. Everything they say and do is recorded. But there's one district in this city, called The Blind Spot, which offers full anonymity and privacy. Everyone even puts on masks when they enter this district. There's a delicate truce between the residents of the city and The Blind Spot. The book centers around two main characters, one who lives in The Blind Spot, and one who is a resident of the city. The resident's storyline is really where data privacy and the anonymity of The Blind Spot are on display. The residents of the city have an app on their phone which notifies them anytime someone (anywhere in the city) says something nice about them. The main character is desperate for approval so he intentionally says lots of nice things about his co-workers out loud as he walks to work just so they'll be notified that he said something nice. But there's a rumor that you could jailbreak the app and actually hear *everything* someone says about you, not just the nice things... Unfortunately, the other main character, the one who lives in The Blind Spot, has basically every cybernetic enhancement possible. It makes her character boring in my opinion. Her storyline and the conflict she's trying to resolve is fine, but I think the author made her so overpowered that a lot of the tension goes away. The novel is full of your standard cyberpunk tropes with low-lifes, crime bosses, hackers, cybernetic enhancements, giant corporations trying to keep the populace subdued, etc. But it's rare to find a cyberpunk novel that also touches on privacy and anonymity. That's really where I thought this book stood out. Unfortunately, aside from some fun ideas with the resident's storyline, the author doesn't really have anything to say about privacy in general. I read the second book in the series and it's about Ms. Plot Armor going on an adventure in a different city and data privacy is no longer a theme at all. So yeah, this is a soft recommendation. It's a fun pulp cyberpunk read but nothing more. https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Spot-Science-Fiction-Thriller-ebook/dp/B07SGFYF3W/ I know if I really wanted data privacy handled in a cyberpunk novel I could read [Little Brother](https://www.amazon.com/Little-Brother-Cory-Doctorow-ebook/dp/B003X27L7M/), but that isn't cyberpunk *enough* for me. It's a great YA novel but it's more "near future" than cyberpunk.
A crew of low-lifes working with an android in a dirty old spaceship for a faceless corporation that treats them as expendable. Obviously the movie is really scifi horror, but it does hit a lot of cyberpunk themes. So do you consider Alien to be cyberpunk? If you don't, what would need to change to make it cyberpunk? I usually include a trailer for the movies I reference but come on, it's Alien. You already know about this movie. It's streaming on [Hulu](https://www.hulu.com/movie/alien-27389b6b-bf27-45a6-afdf-cef0fe723cff) if you haven't watched it recently.
Source: [Lost Control - Characters (by Pawel Kozera - ArtStation)](https://www.artstation.com/artwork/rJdE0O) > Some original characters from my upcoming wordless graphic novel "Lost Control" > 🀄 https://pkozera.com ArtStation profile: https://www.artstation.com/pkozera RSS Feed: https://www.artstation.com/pkozera.rss
www.engadget.com
I'd be interested in seeing a movie based on Stray, but I'm not a fan of this statement: > Annapurna Animation head Robert Baird told Entertainment Weekly that the film is in active development and that it’ll be the “greatest hopepunk movie that's ever been made.” "Hopepunk"? I'm so tired of the "-punk" suffix just meaning "genre" these days.
I think you could probably call Nirvana a hidden gem. It made $10 million at the box office in Italy at the time... but I have no idea if that's a lot for an Italian movie. It hits all the cyberpunk themes and cyberpunk visuals, but it's hard to say how big of a budget it had since this isn't a Hollywood movie. What I'm trying to say is it doesn't feel like a low-budget indie film but it also doesn't feel like a big-budget American film either. It just falls into this weird 90's mid-budget category. They have lots of interesting sets and locations but it's still with 90s effects. The story is about a video game designer whose current game he's working on gets attacked by a computer virus which somehow gives the main video game character sentience (happens all the time, right?). The video game character hates living in a video game world and begs the designer to delete him. So the game designer hires a hacker to help him hack into his company's servers and delete the game before it releases. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO4Q_6hr5II This is a small Italian movie from almost 30 years ago, so it isn't streaming anywhere... except maybe the [internet archive](https://archive.org/details/nirvana_film_1997).
I have a weird obsession with integrating LEDs into fashion: https://www.jilanico.com
Both seasons of Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 are on [Netflix](https://www.netflix.com/title/81030224). They already released a recap/compilation movie of season 1 called [Sustainable War](https://www.netflix.com/title/81513128), now a season 2 recap/compilation movie is coming for those too impatient to watch all the episodes. Like the poster says, it'll be in japanese cinemas in November. No word on when this movie will be added to Netflix, but I assume it will at some point. SAC_2045 uses CGI animation so it's been pretty divisive among GitS fans. The story is solid though if you can get past the animation style. If you aren't up to date on Ghost in the Shell, there's also a 5-episode OVA called [Ghost in the Shell: Arise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell:_Arise) which came out in 2013. Those five 1-hour episodes were recut into ten 30-min episodes, called Ghost in the Shell: Arise: Alternative Architecture. Those ten 30-min episodes were then recut into a single movie, called Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie. All iterations of that show are streaming on [Crunchyroll](https://www.crunchyroll.com/series/GYDKQX9Z6/ghost-in-the-shell-arise), so you can watch it however you want!
Serial Experiments Lain is definitely a classic cyberpunk anime. But it's also incredibly slow. This isn't an action anime, it's a psychological anime. And I wonder just how dated it feels. Aside from the CRT monitors everywhere, are the themes still applicable today? I think the anime was enamored with the idea of what The Internet could become. But now, in 2023, does that message still hold up? What do you think? For those who have already watched Lain, would you recommend it today to someone who has never heard of it? Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5y4nQ5Y1V8 It's streaming on [Funimation](https://www.funimation.com/shows/serial-experiments-lain/). For some reason it isn't on Crunchyroll yet, even though Crunchyroll and Funimation were supposed to merge libraries over a year ago.
Cyberpunk 2077 is getting an update to version 2.0 on the same day the Phantom Liberty DLC releases (September 26). Here's the list of what's included in 2.0 vs the items you'll have to pay $30 to get with the DLC. https://kotaku.com/cyberpunk-2077-phantom-liberty-update-2-0-free-patch-1850797911
Ok, clickbait title aside, it isn't *quite* a lovecraftian horror. But this is the closest to a lovecraftian cyberpunk novel I've ever come across. The novel is about a hacker named Debian who joins up with a crew of organ harvesters. The organ harvesters start noticing that their victims have something... odd in their biology. And then it gets a little "Shadow Over Innsmouth" in my opinion after that. I'll admit I initially bought the book because there was a character named [Debian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian) but I ended up really enjoying it. https://www.amazon.com/Xenoform-Mike-Berry-ebook/dp/B005GXLKGO/
A cool 3d printable model made by Z0r4n. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4947757
Source with timelapse: [Cyberpunk City (by Michal Kváč - ArtStation)](https://www.artstation.com/artwork/39BNaA) ::: spoiler description > It's a big day, this took me four days! > I planned this for some time, finally I was able to upgrade all my pre-made buildings and Cyberpunk City is born! > I really love those buildings, they're so cool, mostly inspired by Ghost in the Shell, because I like the architecture of gits and I also used my new experience making windows, holograms, composition and everything! Will you be able to find all characters in the scene? Not only humans! > Hope you like it, please share!! :3 > Will be in September 2023 Patreon reward batch! > Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/kvacm > Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kvacm/ > Twitter: https://twitter.com/kvacm ::: ArtStation profile: https://www.artstation.com/kvacm RSS Feed: https://www.artstation.com/kvacm.rss
Big budget, A-list actors, lots of marketing, great movie. Is anyone here not aware of Dredd? I keep trying to come up with recommendations for cyberpunk movies that people might not have seen. Yet most obscure movies are obscure for a reason. It's usually "this movie is good *but* ____" or "it's a fun movie *if you can ignore* ____" So for most of these recommendations, I hesitate to say "this movie is awesome and you need to see it!" because I don't want to mislead anyone. Of course, this means all the movies that I truly do think are awesome I assume everyone has already seen and I don't need to suggest them. But maybe enough time has passed that some people here haven't seen Dredd? Well, if you haven't, you should. It's awesome. Just don't watch the [1995 Judge Dredd](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9zBb3Q2Kso) movie with Sylvester Stallone and Rob Schneider because that one is *not* good. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqqgrUna28w Of course, I say everyone should watch Dredd but it isn't streaming anywhere... except [DirecTV](https://www.directv.com/guide/movies/dredd-b8f70941-c0fe-9df0-775e-b400ec9d9da9) I guess, if that counts. But I made a post earlier where I mentioned I've been avoiding recommending movies that you can't watch online and some people said I should recommend them anyway. So here we are.
I've been debating whether or not to recommend Akudama Drive. The anime definitely starts out in your standard cyberpunk city with giant billboards and bright neon lights, but then the majority of the series actually takes place on a train and in the wasteland. That wouldn't immediately disqualify it from being cyberpunk of course, but the show also focuses more on the characters and their interactions than your standard cyberpunk themes. I wouldn't say this is a "style over substance" anime, even though there is a lot of style, it's just that the substance here is something other than cyberpunk themes in my opinion. The core theme of the anime is really "what does it mean to be a criminal?" So the anime is well-made, has great animation, and great characters. And it takes place in a cyberpunk city for part of it but in my opinion it doesn't have many cyberpunk themes. For those who've seen it, am I being too harsh? Is it obviously a cyberpunk anime and I'm just being too nit-picky? Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47QY-u0CXMo It's streaming on [Hulu](https://www.hulu.com/series/akudama-drive-eaf2e394-7e37-4359-ab98-161231cc1a4c) and [Crunchyroll](https://www.crunchyroll.com/series/GKEH2G440/akudama-drive)
I'm not saying Zone 414 is a bad movie, I'm saying it's a bad *cyberpunk* movie. Here's the premise: rich old guy hires a retired detective to enter a zone inhabited by androids to retrieve his lost daughter. Sounds like the perfect setup for a cyberpunk movie. And yet, if you watched this movie with the sound off, I'm not sure you could even tell it's supposed to be scifi. For most of the characters, we only know they're androids because someone said they were. I think there are a total of 2 scenes early in the movie which show these characters are indeed androids. Yet for the rest of the movie, there is no hint of anything scifi/futuristic in the sets or the characters. I'm guessing the budget they could've spent on VFX was spent on hiring Guy Pearce instead. The image attached to this post never happens in the movie. There are no building-sized advertisements; those are just images of the female lead superimposed on buildings for marketing purposes. Now, I'm not someone who needs neon lights and cybernetic limbs to call something cyberpunk, but this movie is really just "rich old guy hires a retired detective to enter *the red-light district of a city* to retrieve his lost daughter." When I say there's no hint of anything scifi/futuristic, I mean the characters use rotary phones, listen to record players, and drive in standard yellow taxis. Can something set in the present day (or even in the past, given the rotary phones) be considered cyberpunk? I don't mean retro-futurism, I mean nothing scifi at all. Are there cyberpunk themes in this movie? Somewhat. A rich person hires a detective to avoid staining his giant corporation's image. Are the themes strong enough to stand on their own without the accompanying visuals? That's where I say no. To reiterate, I'm not saying this is a bad movie. If you want to watch a movie about a retired cop tracking down a lost rich girl, I don't think it's a poor execution. But the android aspect of this movie is really down-played in my opinion and that's all there was to make this a scifi. Have any of you watched this movie? Do you disagree? Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7GYp9VLcow The movie is streaming on [Netflix](https://www.netflix.com/title/81408705)
Does Overwatch, the Blizzard game, count as cyberpunk, or does cyberpunk require a darker aesthetic? I only know cyberpunk through CDPR’s Cyberpunk 2077 game, and I guess also through the Blade Runner movies. So, I don’t really know much about it from literature or tabletop games. That said, Overwatch has a lot of the same themes, but with a brighter “Sunday morning cartoon/anime” aesthetic. So yeah, thoughts?
Bruce Sterling writing about Cyberpunk.
The movie is about low-lifes and there's a strong (overwhelming?) anti-consumerism theme, but it's really an alien invasion movie and the only high-tech comes from the aliens. Otherwise, it's a "modern day" scifi. So what do you think? Do you consider They Live to be cyberpunk? Here's a clip if you haven't seen the movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z9hMartaFc As far as I can tell, it's only streaming on [Starz](https://www.starz.com/us/en/movies/they-live-68889) right now.
www.youtube.com
[Warframe](https://store.steampowered.com/app/230410/Warframe/) is a free-to-play game where you're a space ninja fighting on various planets and spaceships. They just announced a new expansion pack Warframe: 1999 which takes place in 1999 and *may* be cyberpunk? It's hard to tell from just this announcement but I figured I'd share.
I read a lot of random cyberpunk novels from the kindle store and I'm always on the lookout for more. Cyberpunk novels are annoyingly difficult to find since the "cyberpunk" category on amazon is [nothing but LitRPG](https://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/digital-text/6401749011), but that's a different rant altogether. Anyway, I don't actively try to find trans characters in literature (I'm not trans) but I don't avoid books that have trans characters. I figure trans characters actually fit pretty well into cyberpunk universes. So for anyone who *is* interested in reading cyberpunk stories with trans characters, here are the ones I've read: [Escapology](https://www.amazon.com/Escapology-Ren-Warom-ebook/dp/B015MA7R9Y/) by Ren Warom - The main character is trans but is post-transition so the fact that he's trans isn't even mentioned until ~80% into the book. And it's really only revealed so the villain can make trans-based insults about the main character just to get him riled up. Given that the character is post-transition, I liked the fact that being trans didn't define who he was, it was just something from his past that he didn't really think about anymore. Of course, this also means the reveal of being trans almost felt tacked-on and an after-thought. But in the sequel, [Virology](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LZ6ITOC/), everyone's cyberspace avatars are visible in the real world and the main character has a theory that being trans affected how his avatar behaves. So being trans does eventually have an effect and doesn't feel tacked-on anymore. [The Chimera Code](https://www.amazon.com/Chimera-Code-Wayne-Santos-ebook/dp/B088HH7BF8) by Wayne Santos - This novel is about a mercenary crew where each person has their role (the leader, the hacker, the muscle, etc.). Their hacker dies so they need to recruit a new one (they even load up the old hacker's consciousness like Dixie Flatline to train the new hacker, so that's fun). Anyway, the new hacker they find is non-binary. This is handled pretty well where every time a new character meets this hacker they ask for the hacker's pronouns. The hacker tells them, and they move on with the story. So the hacker being non-binary is handled throughout the book but it's never a main theme of the story. The plot continues to drive forward regardless of the hacker's gender. [Bang Bang Bodhisattva](https://www.amazon.com/Bang-Bodhisattva-Aubrey-Wood-ebook/dp/B0BQL36DNC/) by Aubrey Wood - This novel is about two characters trying to solve a murder mystery. One acts like he's a hard-boiled detective in a film noir while the other is trans and mid-transition. Now, given that the trans character is mid-transition I'm sure this makes sense, but being trans is a constant topic of discussion. It's like having a character who's vegan *constantly telling you they're vegan*. Again, I'm not trans, so I don't doubt that someone who is mid-transition constantly has it on their mind. But as a reader, yeah, I get it, she's trans. She's also pansexual and in a polyamorous relationship. I feel like this is more of the focus of the story than the murder mystery. I do like that the author changes writing styles depending on which character is the POV of the chapter, so the detective character always has short, terse sentences while the trans character has more free-flowing sentences. But this is the only novel in the list where I went "ok, this novel isn't meant for me." It feels more like a novel *for* trans people than just *including* trans people. And that's it. Those are the cyberpunk novels I've read with trans characters. I find it interesting how it spans from "almost feels like an after-thought" to "handled, and not a factor" to "ok, I get it, stop talking about it". Honestly, I'm not sure what the "right" way is to handle trans characters so I figure it's good to cover this whole spectrum.
Source: [Old World Museum (by Annibale Siconolfi | Inward - ArtStation)](https://www.artstation.com/artwork/GeJq1W): > 3D Art by Annibale Siconolfi ArtStation profile: https://www.artstation.com/annibalesiconolfi RSS Feed: https://www.artstation.com/annibalesiconolfi.ss
youtu.be
An ancient game we’re all waiting on. Going on 15 years in the making. Who knows if thus will ever make it out to see the light of day.
The world-building doesn't quite make sense, the plot doesn't quite make sense, but they are all-in on the visuals. I've recently made a couple "themes over visuals" recommendations so I figured I'd throw in a "visuals over themes" type of movie to see if anyone cares. This is me getting a feel for what type of posts people want to see here. Also, I'm trying to make movie recommendations that are actually available for streaming. There are other movies I want to recommend, but if you can't watch them anywhere I figure it doesn't really help anyone. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIvqkRy5KCQ You can watch it on [RedBox](https://www.redbox.com/ondemand-movies/the-gene-generation)
This is the original short story that coined the word 'cyberpunk', free to read online. I tried finding a pdf of the story rather than embedded in some old static webpage (most of the links on this page are dead now) but everything I find just points me back to this webpage. It's even linked directly in the [wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk_%28novel%29). So I guess this is the best place to read it.
sopuli.xyz
They seem to have cyberpunk influences so I assume this community will enjoy the bulk of its posts.
www.youtube.com
Planned to release in September 2023 on Windows/PlayStation/Xbox. RoboCop is voiced by the original actor, Peter Weller. Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1681430/RoboCop_Rogue_City/
While the show does have a lot of human augmentation and corporations with too much power, there aren't any glowing neon lights here. So from a visual standpoint this is more of a "low cyberpunk" since it doesn't have many of the visuals you expect when you hear the phrase "cyberpunk anime". Aside from the human augmentation, the world just looks like the industrial part of a modern city. This isn't a bad thing, I'm just saying it leans more on the cyberpunk themes than cyberpunk visuals. My only real complaint about the show is that the character is a stoic, gruff, serious person yet there will be these occasional moments where something completely surprises him and it'll jump to this weird chibi-style animation for a reaction shot:  They only do it once or twice per episode and it really is just a half-second reaction shot, but it's pretty jarring since the rest of the show is so serious. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQyWoG43kRI It's streaming on [Hulu](https://www.hulu.com/series/no-guns-life-c320b376-94c8-42e2-a9d3-602d79904e1f) and [Crunchyroll](https://www.crunchyroll.com/series/G8DHV72EJ/no-guns-life)
www.businessinsider.com
Headline screamed high tech low life to me!
Drugs and Wires is a cyberpunk webcomic set in a fictional post-soviet, eastern European country in the 1990s. It primarily follows cyborged members of a now-collapsed scene for VR junkies, and the woman who runs an unlicensed chopshop, and a conspiracy around a worm that's been killing cyborgs. It's on hiatus at the moment, but it still has eight chapters of excellent content worth checking out.
tvline.com
About [a month ago](https://lemmy.villa-straylight.social/post/210019), I made a post about the Amazon series Upload. It turns out a surprising number of you had actually watched the show. So for those people, I want to let you know season 3 will start on October 20. That's right, they cancelled The Peripheral but we're getting more Upload.
On paper, Freejack sounds like the perfect cyberpunk movie. The rich have their consciousness uploaded onto a server when they die. They then pull someone's body from the past into the future so they can download their consciousness into that body and continue living. The corporations are in control, there's a massive rich/poor divide, etc. Yet in execution, I just find the movie boring. It might be due to Emilio Estevez always looking bored throughout the movie. Or maybe it's the costume design that's so bland. The poor areas have people with sufficiently dirty clothing but in the rich area, people are just wearing... clothes. For most of the movie, Emilio just wears a tan jacket. It's weird how the cars are crazy futuristic in the rich part of town yet everyone dresses like it's the early 90s (when the movie was made). The movie almost could've been another Johnny Mnemonic given the plot. And yet, by losing the wacky over-the-top acting and designs of Johnny Mnemonic, Freejack just feels bland to me. But maybe I'm being too harsh on it. It's streaming everywhere, so go see for yourself if you haven't watched it. [Tubi](https://tubitv.com/movies/510564/freejack), [Freevee](https://www.amazon.com/Freejack-Emilio-Estevez/dp/B005KGOTJM), [Roku](https://therokuchannel.roku.com/details/5349ec6201785c519209810f43d63f6b/freejack), [Kanopy](https://www.kanopy.com/en/product/freejack), [Shout-TV](https://shout-tv.com/freejack_feature_1080_2398_en_lt_rt-mp4-2/5e2b798174f8100001bcf89a)
corteximplant.com
I do not think this has already been mentioned. As I guess most of you are also an mastodon (or another fediverse-enabled playform) More info also here: https://github.com/revengeday/blackhand-mastodon-bot
A project I found while exploring git. It looks interesting, maybe Ill give it a shot. https://github.com/toshydev/netRunner
This show was probably the first time i saw the cyberpunk fomula on a greater level. The Protagonist is a punk, the main themes are the duality of rich corpos and the poor workers scraping by and cops use decks to hunt down and implant criminals with tracking chips. The outfits are clearly inspired by Akira and the show has an interesting combination of higher tech and ancient beings. The uncensored original version can get relatively violent for a childrens cartoon. It's close to perfect for my taste and i wish we got a bit more media with the focus on this aspect from konami
I know this isn't your typical cyberpunk artwork, but I personally think it depicts a failed attempt to achieve divinity via cybernetics. And since so many cyberpunk works ask the question "can an android have a soul?", I consider this artwork to be cyberpunk. Do you disagree? Larger version [here](https://www.luisroyo.com/gallery_content/Cover-Luis_Royo-Title_Fallen_Angel-1997-Laberinto_Gris_Art-original_shop_sale-Book_III_Millennium-pag_68_69-science_fiction.jpg).
variety.com
Not too surprising given the writers and actors strikes. Still, that sucks.
www.youtube.com
> A unique, Third- and First-Person Action Role-Playing Game; a deep, cinematic Detective Thriller that takes place in a dark future vision of Berlin. Solve a far-reaching conspiracy on an emotional Cyberpunk Journey about Justice, Friendship, Love, Guilt, Sacrifice and Betrayal. Planned to release next year on Windows/Playstation/Xbox. Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2326200/NEO_BERLIN_2087/
I've been hesitant to recommend this movie because while the first half is all-in on the cyberpunk visuals, the second half of the movie takes place in the desert/wasteland. But, the theme of "what does it mean to be human" is prevalent throughout the entire movie so I'd say the story remains cyberpunk even when the visuals aren't. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyacm2FNSO4 You can stream it on [Hulu](https://www.hulu.com/movie/automata-b3b34658-c527-4d85-9a86-275242a0bab5), [Freevee](https://www.amazon.com/Automata-Antonio-Banderas/dp/B00OCEDVW4/), [Kanopy](https://www.kanopy.com/en/product/automata), [Plex](https://watch.plex.tv/movie/automata-2014), [Roku](https://therokuchannel.roku.com/details/f95b2199c8d0531e874c7d9e7854d00c/automata), [Peacock](https://www.peacocktv.com/watch-online/movies/automata/aa05a6e0-4c9e-3212-b050-706353cac423). Wherever.