Neuromancer Afterward

I should be able to cut and paste this from the Neuromancer ebook¹ I have on my freaking iPhone but I can’t. So here is the hand transcribed passage that reminded me of edupunk and surrounding nonsense. Not sure if the parallels qualify as irony but it’s at least interesting.

…but others (including many who’d never gone near a a science fiction novel before in their lives, nor should they have) took what came quickly, to be called cyberpunk far more seriously that they should have. Nasty remarks pelted like rain on the hard, bony heads of the more oafish supporters and detractors alike, but there was no inconsiderable fun in that. Everyone loves a fight when no one loves the fighters.

The speedy commodification of cyberpunk™ within and beyond the genre, however, was what peeved far many more, notably Gibson, who remembers seeing “Cyberpunk Trousers” advertised in a store window during his first trip to Japan, a decade ago. Countless incompetents and ghastly old hacks keen to cash in on the main chance wasted no time churning out hot jack-in product, ephemeral as toilet tissue, memorable as restaurant flyer. A number of innocents and miscreants gainfully employed in other metiers were inspired as well, God help them, to produce creative work of similar worth in the spirit of the subgenre they perceived to exist.”

Jack Womack
from the Afterward of the 2000 edition of Neuromancer

I thought Jim Groom and a few others might appreciate this.