Some of our contributors came immediately after CP, while others were struggling to parse the subtleties of Green Eggs and Ham when Mirrorshades first appeared in bookstores. We have tried to confine ourselves to stories published in the last decade or so. Because we have limited ourselves to the short form, we were forced to leave out novelists like Melissa Scott and Richard K. Morgan and Chris Moriarty and — most difficult of all — Neal Stephenson.

But what is the “Post” in “PostCyberpunk”? In the effort to understand just what PCP has to do with CP, let’s take a closer look at some of these obsessions.

obsessions

A major CP obsession was the way emerging technologies will change what it means to be human. Much science fiction has concerned itself with technology and changes in human culture. Indeed, the cautionary tale is a staple of the genre: if this goes on, things will get very bad indeed. But the assumption of the cautionary tale is that we have some control over the changes that technology will bring, so that if we act in a timely way, we can preserve consensus values. The cyberpunks studied the history of how humans have tried to manage change, and were not impressed. Moreover, the technologies of the twenty-first century are invasive and intimate. A key insight of CP, extended still further in PCP, is that we are no longer changing technology; rather it has begun to change us. Not just our homes and schools, our governments and workplaces, but our senses, our memories, and our very consciousness. Ubiquitous computing with access to all recorded knowledge, instantaneous communication across the entire planet, add-ons to the Human Operating System, manipulation of our genome — all are on the horizon. The changes these technologies will bring are qualitatively different than the changes caused by the automobile, or even by science fiction’s longed-for invention of faster-than-light starships. Yes, cars transformed the landscape and gave rise to the malls, McDonald’s and the suburbs. Sure, FTL will get us to the stars. But cars and starships change what we do, not who we are.