Cyberpunk

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What is Cyberpunk?

Cyberpunk is a science-fiction sub-genre dealing with the integration of society and technology in dystopian settings. Often referred to as “low-life and high tech,” Cyberpunk stories deal with outsiders (punks) who fight against the oppressors in society (usually mega corporations that control everything) via technological means (cyber). If the punks aren’t actively fighting against a megacorp, they’re still dealing with living in a world completely dependent on high technology.

Cyberpunk characteristics include:

Dystopian city setting where mega-corporations rule
Full integration of technology into society, featuring cybernetic implants
Outsider protagonists (punks) who often are very familiar with the technology around them
Hard boiled detective and film noir vibes and influence
Themes dabbling in trans-humanism, existentialism, and what it means to be human.

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Hammerjack

[Book] Foundryside is a cyberpunk adventure wrapped in an epic fantasy novel (www.theverge.com)

submitted 9 months ago by Hammerjack to c/cyberpunk

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This is an old article but it explains Foundryside better than I could. It's a fairly standard fantasy setting with its own unique form of magic, and yet the story includes multiple cyberpunk tropes.

The article was written before the rest of the trilogy was released. I've read the trilogy and unfortunately, I'd only consider the first book to be cyberpunk. The series goes pretty far off the deep end to the point that the third book is about (I'm trying to use spoiler tags here):

spoiler

two hive-minds battling for control of humanity. All the protagonists are part of one hive-mind and are trying to stop the evil hive-mind. The two hive-minds aren't even present in book 2 so this was a pretty drastic departure from the rest of the series.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Highly recommended, one of my favorite magic systems in any universe . Especially as a programmer

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

I've read two of them (got them when a friend cleaned out their bookshelf) and loved them. 100% cyberpunk themes and structures in a fantasy Age of Sail setting where the magic is basically using snippets of code to hack reality. And that setting is a pretty good fit tbh - as far as I know, IRL modern megacorporations still haven't attained the scope and power the British and Dutch East India companies had in their prime. And it was a very deliberate writing choice to have the illegal human experimentation taking place away from the corporate strongholds in the city, far out on a distant slave plantation. The first book especially is rad and though I wouldn't have thought to bring it up here, I'd definitely recommend it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That's super cool! Are the rest of the books still worth reading in your opinion? Failing that, does the first book have a good enough ending that I can stop there?

[–] Hammerjack 2 points 9 months ago

I thought the first book was phenomenal and couldn't wait to read the sequels. The second one went more into fantasy than cyberpunk (totally understandable) but I still enjoyed it. The third book though, it was just so out there that I didn't really enjoy it anymore. I wouldn't say the third book was bad, it just went in a direction I didn't care for. It felt like too far of a departure from the rules established in the first two books (as far as the magic system is concerned).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I really liked The Divine Cities. I struggled a ton with this trilogy.