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August 18, 2005
New view on cyberpunk literature
You may not give a hoot about RPG's but this is a game that is well worth its money anyhow. Ex Machina from Guardians of Order contains one of the best literary essays I've read in a long while. I have long seen cyberpunk as a cranky modernist view of a future where the modernist conventions have broken down. But Ex Machina shows a much more dynamic and varied literary genre, that starts from the important change in science fiction premises- not to change just one single thing as the plot device, but the whole of society. Perhaps it was precisely that variation that tricked me in the first place as we have been wheened in Sweden to see all literary currents as very programmatic in nature.
Science fiction at present seems to stand strong, also selling quite well from what I gather, and that comes from a great deal from cyberpunk (and what has been awkwardly called post-cyberpunk). But as all literature it needs to be supported by good, innovative criticism and thinking, and Ex Machina delivers just that.
As a plus, I was completely fascinated by Rebecca Borgstrom's imagination of IOSHI, a post-spatial, post-knowledge society. It is refreshing from time to time to get your mind boggled with new impressions.
Posted by Waldemar at August 18, 2005 04:09 AM