Reading Charles Stross' "Lobsters" and William Gibson's "Burning Chrome" from a twenty-first century perspective is interesting, to say the least. I am connected to the entire world by my fingertips, and I can surf the cybersphere in seconds. It makes me feel, in a way, that I am living in my own Virtual Reality. However, I think that the globally connected world that exists in 2014 is beyond what any cyberpunk writer could've predicted.
In "Burning Chrome," Gibson gives us the archetype for the hacker that we see in movies, books, and comics across genres. The two loner types, sitting on the edge of society, and going against the big, bad corporation. Then, Stross sets up our burning desire for artificial intelligence (A.I.), the interconnectedness of humanity and computers, and the growing legal presence of computers in society. Gibson and Stross give us both sides of the cyber stereotypes: the loner hacker fighting against Big Brother and the shiny scientific innovation becoming part of society.
I would argue that it's in these two stereotypes that we see the major growth that occurred in cyberpunk as the technological age grew into the twenty-first century.
Gibson's characters are separate, loners, and using their skills to fight Chrome and organized crime. In addition, their initial motivation centers around getting money to impress a girl. Throughout, I get the impression that their hacking skills, their interaction with computers, and their involvement in the digital world is all a means to an end.
Contrastingly, Stross' world centers around artificial intelligence, which is as far from "a means to an end" that one can get. The artificial (the technological) is integrated into the mind, and a legal precedent is set for uploaded minds in the story. Manfred, the main character, is integrated in a world that does not view the major integration of technology as something to be fought, and the technologically gifted (hackers and A.I.) aren't loners that exist in the periphery.
In my opinion, these stories grow as the technological age grows, and they are prime examples of how our literature is going to be continually hacked by the increasing presence of technology. However, there is something in these stories that is stagnant, dated, and unappealing: their treatment of women.
In "Burning Chrome," Rikki is actually working for a brothel tied to Chrome, and ends up leaving for Hollywood after integrating technology (a cybernetic eye) into her own body. It paints the picture of Rikki as a betrayer to Jack and Bobby, and as an idealized body being worshipped instead of an actual character.
In "Lobsters," Manfred's fiancée, Pamela, is even more problematically portrayed. She basically rapes Manny in order to get pregnant, so as to insure herself some "right" to his intellectual property and gains. It's diabolical, and there are no other positive female characters or influences in the story.
My question here is why? Why aren't there more women, why aren't they portrayed as fighting alongside Jack and Bobby, or interacting with the spiny lobsters? Why are they subjugated to the sidelines as foils to the main characters or idealized bodies for the loner hacker?
Obviously, the integration of technology into our literature is the focus this week as we consider cyberpunk as a genre; however, I think we cannot lose sight of other problematic issues in these stories simply because this is primarily a technology-centric class. At the end of the day, this is still literature, and it deserves all of our considerations, critiques, and whys.
An excellent, excellent post. As for the issue of women in "Lobsters," I'll note that women take on much larger roles in the later on in the narrative. (While published as a standalone story, "Lobsters" is also the first chapter in the novel *Accelerando*.) While Pamela plays a kind of villain – although, she feels wronged, as do Manifred's parents, so a fascinating retelling might look at the story from her perspective – we do find positive portrayals of women in the novel, least of not which is Manfred and Pamela's daughter Amber. (The novel can be divided into three sections, each focusing on one generation of the Macx family – Manfred in the first, Amber in the second, and Amber's son Sirhan in the third.
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