philip k. dick, a cyberpunk? he who introduced the concept of an information-based deity (VALIS) to the world, revolutionize the sci-fi form and continues to be a font of inspiration for hollywood hacks still trying to get around his dimension-jumping plotlines and concepts?

NAHHHH...

dood, it's ALL about the bronte sisters and freud for cyberpunk. after all, what would "the difference engine" be without queen victoria?

i don't really think so, but it's debatable. i just don't feel like debating it.

Cyberpunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, and draws its ideas, motivation and its spirit from its mother. I don't consider Philip K. Dick to be a cyberpunk writer. They draw a lot from him, and from the movie Bladerunner, but ultimately I think its an influence rather than Dick being part of a sub-genre, which although he helped to create it he nevertheless was not a part of it.

how could you doubt it!?

some of what he writes is undoubtable cyberpunk (my friend wrote her masters thesis on the exact definition of the genre and somehow i had the patience to read and absorb it)

however i think that books like the man in the high castle just arent well, cybery, enough. Beautifully written description of human emotion, but all too human.

i can see where you might get 'fused.

From Bruce Sterling's intro To Mirrorshades :

"The Cyberpunks as a group are steeped in the lore and tradition of the SF field. Their precursors are legion. Individual cyberpunk writers differ in their literary debts; but some older writers, ancestral cyberpunks perhaps, show a clear and striking influence.

From the New Wave: the streetwise edginess of Harlan Ellison. The visionary shimmer of Samual Delaney. The freewheeling zaniness of Norman Spinrad and the rock esthetic of Michael Moorcock; the intellectuual daring of Brian Aldiss; and as always, J.G. Ballard.

From the harder tradition: the cosmic outlook of Olaf Stapledon; the science/politics of H.G. Wells; the steely extrapolation of Larry Niven, Poul Anderson, and Robert Heinlein.

And the cyberpunks treasure a special fondness of SF's native visionaries; the bubbling inventiveness of Philip Jose Farmer; the brio of John Varley, the reality games of Philip K. Dick; the soaring skipping beatnik tech of Alfred Bester. With a special admiration for a writer whose integration of technology and literature stands unsurpassed: Thomas Pynchon."

So yeah, I would consider Dick Proto-Cyberpunk. But he wasn't really active in the '80s scene, which is the historical starting date of the Movement.

I would most definitely consider him an influence on the genre, but not necessarily a cyberpunk author. The majority of his works would not fall into the CP category (my opinion here). Of course Bladerunner probably helped set a visual to what most people consider to be the "Look" of CP.

While I am not sure whether you can honestly class him as cyberpunk I don't think cyberpunk could have happened with out him.

Valis, Maze of death and a couple of others would be classed Cyberpunk if you read them with out knowledge of the Author.

i agree with eeek, he was definately a major influence, one of the reasons CP exists, but i'm not sure i could classify him as a CP author.

I'd have to say The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner would be my candidate for first cyberpunk novel (1975). AFAIK this introcuced the term "The Net" and the idea of self-replicating computer programs which he named "tapeworms" whence "worms" of today. I must be tired when I read worms there I automagically parsed it as "Write Only Read Memory System" lol. Like when I was a consultant at University of Michgian in the 80's and we served "hi res" rootbeer (Hires, but we all read it as hi-res LOL) I also highly reccomend Brunner's "Stand on Zanzibar" which although it I believe was intended as a parody and dystopian fable of vietnam-era Amerika, has proven to be about the most true to how fucked up the world has turned out in the period it is about, which is now. Also lots of stuff by Stanislaw Lem could be considered in this category, such as "The Futurological Congress" and "The Cyberiad" (both 1974). And "Agent of Chaos" by Norman Spinrad (1967) although it isn't "cyber" per se is worth a look as a progenitor.

Not to take anything away from Dick, the poor sad bastard.

[Edited on Jun 10, 2004]

Oh and not to forget "The Prisoner" which first aired in 1967.

Be seeing you!

And... you should go find Norburt Weiner's (nonfiction) book "Cybernetics" (1947) from which alot of the cyberpunk ideas derive. If Weiner hadn't coined the term cybernetic, there wouldn't be a "cyber-anything" today. Also to pursue a different tack, if it wasn't for the influence of Weiner and his students at MIT, the ARPANET might not have been built or funded and we wouldn't have an Internet today. Also worth reading from that time is the "As We May Think" essay by Vannevar Bush. There guys were thinking this stuff 40 years before people started writing about it in the 80's and calling it new.

[Edited on Jun 10, 2004]

[Edited on Jun 10, 2004]

this is very confusing.

is the argument regarding whether his writing is classifiable as cyberpunk, or that he's not a member of the group b/c of his role in it's creation?

i'm not clear on what quality it is presumed of cyberpunk authors that could deny pkd membership...

re. the second possibility... was picasso a cubist? were the beatles rock+roll?

what a wierd argument.

ok, whatever,
cyberpunk or not,
what's the deal with linklater's version of scanner darkly?
does anyone have any info?
i'm dying over here.

also,
he is.
(unless you want to debate the def. of "is")
i had to weigh in.

I'm going to have to side with the "he's an influence" people. Most cyber punk has a certain esthetic to it that Dick didn't have, even if some of his plots were cyberpunkish. Maybe he's the cyber without the punk? Or maybe that was just a stupid sentence.