THX-1138

It's hard to say really when anyone's first experience is. You are in a way exposed to it long before you read any "cyberpunk" literature.. because so many people have been inspired by it and have made so many different products (?) in a variety of medium. My first cyberpunk book I ever read was Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, but I had been exposed to cyberpunk quite a while before I read the book.

staring at greenish glowing (giger) alien skull resulting in lifelong insomnia [@ age 5]
LOAD "$",8 [@ age 8]
"twenty minutes into the future" [brit. @ age 9]


... pretty much hooked by that point on

Philip K. Dick did it for me.

TWO, did you pre-order your THX-1138 DVD?

I read Nueromancer when I was in High School and couldn' beleive that writing could be that good.

I saw 'Blade Running' for the first time in like '91 and was facinated by it.

I guess mine would have to have been "Green Days in Brunei" by Bruce Sterling published in Issac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. I went to the local library to find more of his stuff and was pointed to Gibson at that point as well.

Hmmm...not sure why it double posted. Anyway, edited because even I didn't want to read it twice.

[Edited on Jun 06, 2004]

I read a review of Neuromancer when it came out, and a few weeks later I bunked off college and wandered into the library nearby. Saw it, picked it up, read it in one sitting.
But I was already geed up for this sort of stuff, because I've been an M John Harrison fan since 1980, and his 'The Centauri Device' is sure as hell cyberpunk. 1974, I think.

Im not sure what my first cyberpunk experience was, but I do remember reading neuromancer when I was around 11 years old. I didnt really get it back then, I dont think. I re-read neuromancer a few years ago and then all of the books in the series- mona, burning, ect. That was a nice little set of stories ot occupy my time with, the problem was that all of the books are less than 300o ages, i was reading one a day. Susequently, i have read every word that Gibson has written. All of his novels are decent, I did not , however, like "Difference Engine" but I think that was a gibson co0authorship.

[Edited on Apr 06, 2005]

not to be forgotten: cory doctorow: brilliant idea author and pundit...

drm doesn't work..

There was a Cyberpunk night at the goth club where they played Bladerunner scenes to EBM. That was a long time ago, and i've only grown more accustomed to the subculture.

I read Do Androids Dream of Elecric Sheep in like 79(I was in grade 8) and was hook by the feel,eventhen I could see how close we are to that.I didn't read any other CP autor until Heavy weather came out and then I found the others.

Neuromancer.
After that I read both the rest of the Sprawl Series, and the Bridge Series.
Pattern Recognition, a very different and not so cyberpunk book, was amazing.
Though I'm pissed that Weir and Hollywood are doing the movie, and Gibson is not involved in the screenwrite whatsoever.
They should of found some indie director fresh out of filmschool, in my opinion.
I am also into Stephenson, Sterling, Egan, and will check out Rudy Rucker after reading this thread.

By the way, I don't consider cyberpunk needing to have to do with robots at all, as this group implies. I haven't read a cyberpunk book yet that robots were very necessary in the plot. AI's yes, but thats different. And I guess I am wrong if including K Dick.

love gavin.
x fuckin' o.

I think Mona Lisa Overdrive was my first. That, or Vurt.

Cyberpunk the RPG was my introduction to the term, and the subculture. I'm not sure what my first "cyberpunk" book was. Probably Neuromancer, which I read around 18. My first cyberpunk movie was Blade Runner (at 15), but I didn't start reading Phillip K. Dick novels until I was 19.

My writing prof in high school said something along the lines of "You're writing cyberpunk." And I said "Who?" And he said...well, you get the idea. I was too young to be any good, and now that I'm good it's pretty much past. Anyway...the sprawl series changed the way I think, top to bottom, and for that I'm grateful.

I got into cyberpunk when I picked up Psykosonik's first self titled album. The group really lived their music. They talked cyberpunk, they dressed it, they were it. That whole "thing" just became something I recognized after that and sortof found myself gravitating towards....even after psykosonik themselves abandoned the imagery.

Would 'Wipe Out' count?

i read valis at 15. god only knows what made me read another pkd. but i ended up reading them all...

or all that were in publication at the time - an almost entirely different set of books than are being pushed since his mainstream revivial,,,

my parents taught me to operate a vcr at 18 months so i stopped getting them up at four in the morning to watch star wars started there....

....then much later read vurt by jeff noon, give me a black feather, then gibson and beyond

The first encounter I had with Cyberpunk was Neuromancer, like many other people, and it was a cascade effect from there. First anything by Gibson I could get my hands on, then Blade Runner, Neal Stephenson, and back to the genre's earlier roots with Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" Last year my university had a course in Cyborgs in Science Fiction which I took, and that introduced me to a whole slew of new Cyberpunk and other sci fi novels that I would have missed otherwise.

I was first introduced to the genre when I saw Johnny Mnemonic in the theatre at 12 years old. The movie helped turn me into a big sci-fi fan before I knew or understood what cyberpunk was.