An Essay On Cyberpunk Science Fiction Of William Gibson

Emerged during the1980s in the United States, cyberpunk has been a significantsub-genre of science fiction. Since the publication of the genre’s representative work,Matrix trilogy by William Gibson, it has drawn a lot of focus and pioneered a series ofcultural phenomenon in the following decades. Some critics named this genre“post-modern science fiction” for their research. This sub-genre of fiction integratedthe science and technology background of the modern era. Set in a near-future societybackground in which computer science and bio-technology are highly developed, itfocuses on the discussion of the identity issue of human race and artificial intelligence,caused by the advanced development of technology. This genre poses questions withsignificant contemporary relevance; however, there has been a lack of domesticresearch for this sub-genre of science fiction. This article attempts to fill in the blanks,with a main discussion of Neuromancer, a major work of William Gibson,supplemented with other works of this genre, combined with the development ofscience fiction along the times, to analyze the debate regarding to human race andartificial intelligence reflected in the works of Gibson.Cyberpunk fiction as a new sub-genre emerged in the later part of twentiethcentury has not gathered much domestic research; and it is a rarer discussion from theangle of the relations between human and artificial intelligence. This essay aims totake this angle to achieve a research breakthrough regarding to the works of the genre,with the help of scientific research methodologies complementary to the study of thetexts. In the area of research methodologies, this essay mainly implements detailedtext-reading, cultural studies and comparative studies in the research of Gibson’sworks. Detailed text-reading includes reading the works of William Gibsonthoroughly, researching and gathering foreign language materials for a broader scope, performing detailed analysis with a clear directive in this essay, and summarize withindependent critical thinking. In the aspect of cultural studies, this essay explores thetime background of the1960s when anti-establishment movements and thedevelopment of computer technology gaining steam in the United States, anddevelops a profound analysis of the birth of cyberpunk fiction. The comparativestudies are divided between diachronic comparison and synchronic research.Diachronic research puts the works of William Gibson into comparative study withthe fictional works of other cyberpunk authors, such as Pat Cadigan (1953-), NealStephenson (1959-), and Ken Liu (1976-), etc, so that it can be examined for theunique viewpoint in the works of William Gibson and the same characteristics ofcyberpunk fictions shown in his and others’ works. Synchronic comparison examinesthe change of relations between human and artificial intelligence displayed in theworks of William Gibson, comparing with the works of Isaac Asimov (1920-1992),etc, so that it can be developed further for the vindication of the main theme of thefictions of William Gibson, and the analysis of the cultural and chronologicalcharacteristics his works reflect.This essay divides into introduction, main article and conclusion; among themthe main article includes four chapters. Introduction gives a general presentation ofthe current status of the research of cyberpunk genre and the significance of itsresearch conducted by this article. The first part, Chapter1, briefly introduces thebackground of the birth of cyberpunk literature, and the life and works of one of itsmajor author, William Gibson; the second part, Chapter2, discusses his work’s theme,narrative style and his unique theory of cyberspace; the third part, Chapter3and4,mainly analyses the main content of his works, a “post-modern checkup with regardsto human and machine”, where in Chapter3and4argumentation is made from bothsides, human and machine respectively; conclusion summarizes his works’significance and includes personal opinions regarding to them.