Cyberpunk was a voice of Bohemia -- Bohemia in the 1980s.The technosocial changes loose in contemporary society were bound toaffect its counterculture. Cyberpunk was the literary incarnation ofthis phenomenon. And the phenomenon is still growing.Communication technologies in particular are becoming much lessrespectable, much more volatile, and increasingly in the hands ofpeople you might not introduce to your grandma.

But today, it must be admitted that the cyberpunks -- SFveterans in or near their forties, patiently refining their craft andcashing their royalty checks -- are no longer a Bohemian underground.This too is an old story in Bohemia; it is the standard punishment forsuccess. An underground in the light of day is a contradiction in terms.Respectability does not merely beckon; it actively envelops. And inthis sense, "cyberpunk" is even deader than Shiner admits.

Time and chance have been kind to the cyberpunks, but theythemselves have changed with the years. A core doctrine inMovement theory was "visionary intensity." But it has been some timesince any cyberpunk wrote a truly mind-blowing story, something thatwrithed, heaved, howled, hallucinated and shattered the furniture. Inthe latest work of these veterans, we see tighter plotting, bettercharacters, finer prose, much "serious and insightful futurism." But wealso see much less in the way of spontaneous back-flips and crazeddancing on tables. The settings come closer and closer to the presentday, losing the baroque curlicues of unleashed fantasy: the issues atstake become something horribly akin to the standard concerns ofmiddle-aged responsibility. And this may be splendid, but it is notwar. This vital aspect of science fiction has been abdicated, and is openfor the taking. Cyberpunk is simply not there any more.

But science fiction is still alive, still open and developing. And