| Tonight Ling and I are heading to Spook Country …. actually we are heading to Cody’s bookstore in Berkeley to see/hear William Gibson talk about and I am sure read from his new book Spook Country… Clearly Gibson is one of the pioneers of Cyberpunk and either Ling or I will have a report back to you on the experience. |
All The World’s Indeed a Stage …
Well, “Spook Country” I hear has a rock star protagonist. Rock stars have appeared in a few cyberpunk stories, one of them actually on my list of “Book I’ve Never Finished.”
But a modern day concert a cyberpunk bloggable event? Oh hell ya! Especially if it’s RUSH.
CONCERT SPOILERS BELOW I should note, just in case, they’re on tour for awhile and don’t read if you don’t want to know.
A Fistful of Steampunk!
Interesting site, A Fistful of Games, has a write-up of playing a steampunk board game, or a modified rule set of another game to encompass steampunk elements. Or something. OK. I didn’t really read it all the way through, but I intend to. So I’m bloggin it here to remind me!
Anywho — we’ve really enjoyed playing the full-fledged WoW boardgame, though I don’t recall ever really finishing a game. We just don’t have the full weekend to play like we did in our youth with D&D. But I like the “quick” start up time of these very advanced and complicated board games and am facinated by them. Not sure my kids are up for playing them, but in a few more years, perhaps, perhaps.
Blogging from Firefox
Just found this great Firefox addon called ScribeFire (actually Ling told me about it). It allows you to blog directly from within Firefox. Very cool you should check it out.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Shadowrun the series Part 2
So what makes the Shadowrun Novels so special? Glad you asked. As I said in my previous post I was really a fantasy book reader prior to reading the first book in the Shadowrun series Never Deal with a Dragon
Shadowrun the series Part 1
I mentioned earlier that this site’s name is an homage to the Shadowrun Novels and thought I would expand on the series a little bit and tell you why I enjoy it so much. First of all Shadowrun started out as a RPG ( role playing game ). I have to admit I have never really played the RPG though I was definitely raised on Role Playing Games like Dungeons and Dragons, Arduin Grimore, Car Wars, Boothill and the like. I think up until I started reading the Shadowrun books my interest in Science Fiction was fairly low. Up until that time I spent most of my reading hours on Fantasy. William Gibson’s Neuromancer
More to come…
Bloggers start your Engines..
Just a note that I will be joined by Ling in blogging on shadowrunning.com. Ling and I go way back (30 years or so) and have to say that of the two of us he is better “read” than I and far more articulate. While I stumble along with my posts, Ling will be churning well thought out and well written posts, hopefully on a frequent basis ( I hope ). He is also quite the writer so I am hoping that he will post some short stories as well. Just an FYI both Ling and I have 60 + years of science fiction reading under our belts (now much bigger than they were when we were kids) so hopefully we will have something me to say on this blog. We be going to a signing of William Gibson for his new book Spook Country shortly and will report to you on how that went.
What is Cyberpunk?
Well, far be it from me to offer a definitive definition, but I know it when I read it. It’s usually near-future distopian literature with some cybernetics and some punks (ie hackers). Virtual Reality, the net, feature large in most cyberpunk.
To put it in movie terms, Blade Runner, not Star Wars. Brasil, in which I’d contend DeNiro plays one of the first cool hackers ever featured. Even 5th Element has some cyberpunk elements. Star Trek does not.
The wikipedia article has a lot of great background and author shout-outs, but even though Bruce Sterling is mentioned, one of my perennial favorties is glossed over, Mirrorshades. Everytime I’ve got spare time in a bookstore, I search out a copy of this 1988 classic to remind myself who that first wave of cyberpunks was: Sterling, Gibson, Bear, Cadigan, Rucker, Shiner and others. Then I start tracking down their recent work.
My favorite cyberpunk novel? Oh please, how can I not say Neuromancer. But really I enjoyed Idora and All Tomorrow’s Party just as much. Sterling’s Heavy Weather, Bear’s Slant. I’ll have to sit longer than a few minutes at lunch to post that!
My next potential post: Can Space Opera be Cyberpunk? There’s a lot of distopian sf out there and, to me, cyberpunk is usually more immediate or just-around-the-corner than most space opera is. I agree with Enok’s first post, it’s usually “earthly.” But elements are definitely showing up in the larger scifi genre.
But for now I’ll have to work on beefing up this post!
iPhone? You Phone?
Well along with my interest in Cyberpunk is an unhealthy interest in “gadgets” (just an extension of cyberpunk lust). In particular I am a appleophile ( all you MS lovers run for the hills ) and I guess in gadgets in general. I was not one of those people that ran out and bought an iPod ( ok everyone in my family has one ) but I did wait in line for an hour with my 7 year old son to get an iPhone when it was released to the world last month. Up until that time I had been using a Treo 650 and fairly happy with it. I will have to say that the iPhone really is a huge leap from my Treo in what it does and how it functions. At this point the only thing that is frustrating to me, is that they need to release more iPhone based applications and open up the iPhone to developers. The concept of having all iPhone applications delivered via the Web is too limiting. There are plenty of times when I would like to play a game for instance and I am either out of wifi/cell range (like on BART). If I had to say what do I miss from my Treo I would say scrabble and yahtzee. Nothing else 😀
What is Shadowrunning?
I shouldn’t have to explain myself here but Shadowrunning might just be obscure enough of a term to warrant a little defining. ” A Shadowrun, by definition, is an illegal covert operation performed by independent operators (Shadowrunners) at the behest of a third party. ” So what the hell does it have to do with the site. I was not trying to think incredibly deep when I came up with the name for this blog but what I like about the concept of blogs and shadowrunning is that they are in their very essence covert and essentially separate from anything corporate (ok maybe I am selling ad space but hey if I can make a little money thats a good thing right?). It is opportunity as an individual to perhaps stake your own ground and to have your voice heard but with the masking of your true identity. I don’t know where this blog will go but I am sure looking forward to the ride.
Enough Said…