Copy of 401.1 - "I think we're moving rapidly towards a world where identity is being redefined" - Gibson

CIM 401 Week 1

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The seminal cyberpunk books, the "sprawl" trilogy by William Gibson are visionary at world building, and depicting cyberspace, AI and cybernetics, long before they existed. More than influencing fiction, i believe that these works influenced culture, and helped bring these things into existence. Even at the age of 13 or so, I was sketching out crude sketches of just how Bobby's (AKA Count Zero) skateboard could be made, with telescopic spindles and refined shape.

"Bobby's skateboard was a thing of beauty, a fusion of sleek design and raw power. The deck, a slab of super-black polycarbon, housed a miniature engine that purred like a contented cat. The wheels, scavenged from a high-end inline skater, gripped the pavement with a fierce tenacity. Riding it was like surfing a wave of pure speed, a sensation that made the chaos of the sprawl fade into the background."

And then a few years later, getting to live out this future, and my introduction to TTRPGs (At the time, just called RPGs) Previously I had played in someone elses AD&D game, which never made it past about 4 or 5 sessions.

Armed with a tattered book, handed down through generations of geeks - Cyberpunk, set in the near future of 2013 - which in 1998 to a 15 year old, felt like a life time away. For my 16th Birthday, I got the 2nd edition - Set in the "far distance future" of 2020, and I was able to run my own campaigns.

Prior to these - perhaps 11 or 12 yeas old, after reading lord of the rings one vacation, I was introduced to Game Books. I would trawl through garage sales and scour libraries to find them. These would eventually disappear from shelves, being overtaken by more "linear" books, but they simply evolved into the OG visual novel which then became the new romance obsession. To have multiple storylines in 150 pages and keep readers attention into their 20's and 30's is a hard ask. And when I look back at them, they werent particularly well written