Exploring the principles of cyberpunk, part 2

This is the second part of a mini-series of articles where I am examining the principles of the cyberpunk genre as outlined by Jared Shurin in his introduction to The Big Book of Cyberpunk. For part one, head to the link below.

For Shurin’s second principle, he posits that: Cyberpunk has clear origins in both the “genre” and “literary” worlds.

He goes on to write that:

From its start cyberpunk stories and cyberpunk authors were weaving and bobbing between both literary and genre outlets, as well as commercial and academic presses, traditional and experimental presses, and formal and informal modes of publishing.

Shurin notes that this tension between genre and literary is a false one, but one that is worth mentioning, as cyberpunk now sits well within the genre of science fiction.

Traditionally, anything with fantastical elements was usually seen as less literary than anything realist. “Literature” as seen by the literary establishment (which in my mind includes publishers and their direct markets like awards and reviewers) needs to contain some, often very clear, resonance with our real life, and comment on our lives and humanity in some deep and meaningful way. There’s even a genre called “literary fiction” in today’s book marketing world, and it is opposed to “commercial” fiction. You may often hear the two defined along the lines of literary fiction being character driven, concerned with prose, and deeply thematic, while commercial fiction is mostly about the plot.

The definitions get messy as soon as you try and create them, which speaks to the futility in trying to define these genres. Yet as Shurin notes, cyberpunk does exist in both of these worlds, so for the sake of this article, we will assume there is a difference, however slight, between the two.

Science fiction in general has always played within these two realms. Especially as New Wave writers began to infuse deep themes and scrutinous looks at humanity in their “genre” works, science fiction became more about humanity and less about the plot or the maths. As writers like Ursula K. Le Guin and Philip K. Dick forged their paths forward, it became harder and harder to say that these works of science fiction were more similar to the pulp science fiction that came before, than to the literature that was winning prizes. The publishing space still isn’t comfortable with this distinction, though I would argue that modern readers are. You will still see authors like David Mitchell and Kazuo Ishiguro categorized in the “Literature” section of bookstores despite the fact that many of their works can be nothing other than science fiction or fantasy. Their reputation earns them a space on that bookshelf, and God forbid a work with speculative elements wins the Pulitzer or Booker prize. There are reputations to uphold after all.

But none of this answers the question as to why cyberpunk, and more broadly science fiction, fit into this blend. I argue that science fiction is often considered more literary for a specific reason, even more so than its close cousin of fantasy. That reason is called the “novum.”

According to the Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction the novum is:

A scientific (rather than supernatural or fantastic) element in a work that demonstrates that the work takes place in a world different from our own, thus establishing that the work should be regarded as science fiction

The term in this context was introduced in the 70s by science fiction scholar Darko Suvin. The novum is the thing that differentiates science fiction from fantasy. It is also an extremely important piece of why I believe cyberpunk is often considered literary. Cyberpunk is usually set in our world, or at least what we would recognize as our world, combining realist elements with science fiction. The novum in a cyberpunk work is the technology that we do not have in our world, but is superimposed upon a representation of our world that we can understand. The best cyberpunk usually extrapolates on budding or seeds of technology in our world, therefore creating a very familiar novum or one that we may feel our world is heading toward.

This is different than fantasy, or even some second-world science fiction, where the similarities to our world are surface level. The novum is also implied to be somewhat plausible—magic isn’t a novum, but aliens are because, in theory, aliens could exist out there in the galaxy.

If we take my earlier definition of “literature” as works that must comment on our world and our humanity, then I think it is easy to see why science fiction in general is often considered literary. It plays more comfortably in that space where our world and this novum meet. In cyberpunk, the novum (the technology) is largely the vehicle for the critique of our society and the current happenings in it. For all of its future looking, cyberpunk is truly a critique of the present.

A lot of works in any genre provide literary merit, but I think this is often why science fiction feels more literary to a lot of people. I’ve heard many readers talk about the fact that science fiction feels more philosophical or deep than other genres, and the novum is why. The world is our world, our reflection, the technology or the speculative elements the vehicle for exploration.

A lot of early cyberpunk was quite realist. If you go back and read many of the works from the 80s, sure there is a style to them, but they are a far cry from the current trend of an almost unrecognizable world. In many of these works, technology is subtle, invasive, not flashy implants or street samurai. Right now, I am working through Bruce Sterling’s iconic anthology Mirrorshades, published in 1986, and there are many stories that do not scream cyberpunk as we might think of it today. Perhaps that is because cyberpunk resists clean definition.

Shurin also points to many of the real world “punk” elements of the early sci-fi writers: that they found alternative ways to publish, or published in both genre and literary spaces. I think this is even more true to today. With the rise of self-publishing, serializations on places like Substack, indie presses, traditional publishers, etc., there are more ways to get one’s work out there then ever. What I would argue though, is that “cyberpunk” is no longer a singular movement. It has spread out and bled into many different genres and styles, and unlike the origin days, there isn’t really a core group of writers who make up a modern cyberpunk movement.

But perhaps that is for the best. It is a genre that has always resisted labels and been about opposition rather than definition. It is both genre and literary, but mostly, its just pretty damn good.

In the next article, we’ll look at Shurin’s next principle: Cyberpunk is inextricably linked with the real experience of technology.