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# 2025-05-07 - Mirrorshades |
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Margaret Bucci Wearing Mirrorshades (1943) |
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Mirrorshades is a cyberpunk anthology published in 1986 and posted |
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free on the web in 2022. Three years later, i finally got around |
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to reading it. I thoroughly enjoyed some of the stories, especially |
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The Gernsback Continuum by William Gibson and Tales of Houdini by |
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Rudy Rucker. Many of the stories had a retro-anachronistic flair |
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despite having cutting edge writing styles. This gives a wonderful |
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contrast of function over form. |
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I loved the point in The Gernsback Continuum about the glamor of |
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technology, the hype being a surface-level stage prop for people to |
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pretend that they are living in the future, but hidden just below |
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the surface are Victorian mechanisms, such as the noisy floppy drive |
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motor in the author's then cutting edge personal computer. The |
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author alludes to the eugenist tendencies of technocracy and the |
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cold comfort of really knowing that as bad as this timeline is, it's |
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just a hair's breadth away from being so very much worse. |
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Tales of Houdini was just rip-roaring fun. But behind all the |
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special effects lies some serious sleight of hand. The story is |
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deeper than it first appears. |
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Speaking of retro references, i found an interesting blog post |
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about that 1943 photo at the beginning of this log entry. |
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The Eye Wear of the Beholder |
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The title of this book also brings to mind the Information Society |
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song Mirrorshades. The lyrics are totally cyberpunk material, and are |
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probably a reference to Molly Millions, a character by William Gibson. |
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Mirrorshades by Information Society (1990) (requires javascript) |
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Molly Millions |
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Molly Millions is a "razorgirl" or "street samurai". I found an |
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excellent spoof of this cyberpunk archetype. |
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Cyberpunk Parody (aussies.space) |
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Cyberpunk Parody (local copy) |
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Last but not least, i'd like to give a nod to Ralf Wause's phlog post |
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titled The Real Cyberpunk. You, dear gopher reader, are The Real |
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Cyberpunk, the living dream that art has been intimating at. By |
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investing your attention into the smol Internet, you are nursing the |
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embers of open culture against the stark backdrop of corporate |
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domination. |
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The Real Cyberpunk |
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author: Sterling, Bruce |
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detail: gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Mirrorshades |
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LOC: PS648.S3 |
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source: https://www.rudyrucker.com/mirrorshades/ |
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tags: ebook,sci-fi |
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# Tags |
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ebook |
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sci-fi |
