Cyberpunk in the Nineties

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This is my sixth and last column for INTERZONE, as I promised a year ago when I began this series. I've enjoyed doing these pieces, and would like to thank the energetic editor and indulgent readership of INTERZONE. A special thanks to those who contributed terms and comments for "The SF Workshop Lexicon," which remains an ongoing project, and will show up again someday, probably in embarrassing company. Those readers who had enough smarts and gumption to buy the SIGNAL catalog (see column one in issue 37) have been well rewarded, I trust.

In this final column, I would like to talk frankly about "cyberpunk" -- not cyberpunk the synonym for computer criminal, but Cyberpunk the literary movement.

Years ago, in the chilly winter of 1985 -- (we used to have chilly winters then, back before the ozone gave out) -- an article appeared in INTERZONE #14, called "The New Science Fiction." "The New Science Fiction" was the first manifesto of "the cyberpunk movement." The article was an analysis of the SF genre's history and principles; the word "cyberpunk" did not appear in it at all. "The New SF" appeared pseudonymously in a British SF quarterly whose tiny circulation did not restrain its vaulting ambitions. To the joy of dozens, it had recently graduated to full-colour covers. A lovely spot for a manifesto.

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