Storming the Reality Studio: A Casebook of Cyberpunk & Postmodern Science Fiction 9780822398226

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Storming the Reality Studio

IA

STORMING Casebook

THE of

REALITY Cyberpunk

STUDIO and

Edited by Larry McCaffery Postmodern

Science

Fiction

Duke University Press Durham & Loudon 1991

Eighth printing in paperback, 2007 © 1991 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper ∞ Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Storming the reality studio: a casebook of cyberpunk and postmodern science fiction / edited by Larry McCaffery. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-8223-1158-5 (cloth).––isbn 0-8223-1168-2 (paper) 1. Science fiction, American––History and criticism. 2. Postmodernism (Literature)––United States. 3. Literature and technology––United States. 4. Science fiction, American. 5. Technology––Fiction. I. McCaffery, Larry, 1946– PS374.S35S76 1991 813’.0876209––dc20 91-14316 cip

For Raymond Federman (for all his vain repetitions) and for Sinda (of course)

Contents

Acknowledgments

Xl

Introduction: The Desert of the Real, Larry McCaffery

1

Cyberpunk 101: A Schematic Guide to Storming the Reality Studio, Richard Kadrey and Larry McCaffery 17

Fiction and Poetry

Beyond the Extinction of Human Life (from Empire of the Senseless), Kathy Acker 33 From Crash,

1. G. Ballard 41

Mother and I Would Like to Know (from The Wild Boys), William S. Burroughs 44 Rock On, Pat Cadigan

48

Among the Blobs, Samuel R. Delany From White Noise, Don DeLillo

56

63

From Neuromancer, William Gibson

65

Fistic Hermaphrodites, Rob Hardin

75

Microbes, Rob Hardin

76

Penetrabit: Slime Temples, Rob Hardin nerve terminals, Rob Hardin

79

Max Headroom, Harold Jaffe

80

From Straight Fiction, Thorn Jurek

85

77

The Toilet Was Full of Nietzsche (from Metrophage), Richard Kadrey 87 Office of the Future (from Dad's Nuke), Marc Laidlaw

98

I Was an Infinitely Hot and Dense Dot (from My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist), Mark Leyner 102

From Plus, Joseph McElroy

109

Wire Movement #9, Misha

112

Wire for Two Tims, Misha

114

From Easy Travel to Other Planets, Ted Mooney Frame 137, Jim O'Barr

118

From The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon From Software, Rudy Rucker

122

125

From Life During Wartime, Lucius Shepard Stoked, Lewis Shiner

116

132

134

Wolves of the Plateau, John Shirley Twenty Evocations, Bruce Sterling

139 154

The Mare Tranquillitatis People's Circumlunar Zaibatsu: 2-1-'16 (from Schismatrix), Bruce Sterling 162 The Indigo Engineers (from The Rainbow Stories), William T. Vollmann 168

Non-Fiction Before the Lights Came On: Observations of a Synergy, Steve Brown 173 The Automation of the Robot (from Simulations), Jean Baudrillard 178 Cyberpunk and Neuromanticism, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr.

From Of Grammatology, Jacques Derrida

194

Yin and Yang Duke It Out, Joan Gordon

196

Cybernetic Deconstructions: Cyberpunk and Postmodernism, Veronica Hollinger 203

viii

Contents

182

From Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Fredric Jameson 219 Television and the Triumph of Culture (from The Postmodern Scene), Arthur Kroker and David Cook 229 Bet On It: Cyber/video/punk/performance, Brooks Landon

239

The Cyberpunk: The Individual as Reality Pilot, Timothy Leary 245 The Postmodern (from The Postmodern Condition), Jean-Franc,;ois Lyotard 259 An Interview with William Gibson, Larry McCaffery

26;~

Cutting Up: Cyberpunk, Punk Music, and Urban Decontextualizations, Larry McCaffery 286 308

POSTcyberMODERNpunkISM, Brian McHale

The Wars of the Coin's Two Halves: Bruce Sterling's Mechanist/Shaper Narratives, Tom Maddox 324 Frothing the Synaptic Bath, David Porush Literary MTV, George Slusser

331

334

Preface from Mirrorshades, Bruce Sterling On Gibson and Cyberpunk SF, Darko Suvin

343

349

The Japanese Reflection of Mirrorshades, Takayuki Tatsumi Bibliography

375

Contributors

385

366

Contents

ix

Acknowledgments

This volume could never have been assembled without the generous help, support, and suggestions of many different people. Let me trace through some of the main points along the winding path that has led to this book's publication: My thanks, first of all, to Samuel R. Delany, who suggested over lunch one day in 1986 that I take a look at William Gibson's Neuromancer. Thanks, too, goes to Gibson, who agreed to do an interview with me. Frederick Barthelme, the editor of The Mississippi Review, accepted my Gibson interview for his journal, and then asked me if I could assemble an entire issue devoted to cyberpunk. Mega-thanks, next, to all the cyberpunk authors and critics who generously allowed me to publish their work in the Mississippi Review issue that resulted from Barthelme's invitation. In gathering the materials for that MR issue-which was the starting point for this current Storming the Reality Studio casebook-I was given advice at every step of the way by nearly all the members of the cyberpunk movement (who turned out to be much warmer, funnier, and friendlier than their black leather-jacketed press clippings might lead one to believe). This was especially true of Bruce Sterling and John Shirley, both of whom provided invaluable assistance in suggesting names, works, addresses, and phone numbers for that volume. Once I decided to expand the boundaries of the MR issue into something resembling the current volume, Joanne Ferguson of Duke University Press provided invaluable editorial insights, suggestions, and encouragement at every stage of the process of this book's formulation. Once again, the cyberpunk authors themselves-as well as the noncyberpunk authors and critics included in Storming the Reality

Studio-were generous with their suggestions and with their willingness to allow me to reprint their work. Neil Barron, science fiction's bibliographer extraordinaire, was always available to help me track down references, titles, and addresses at a moment's notice. Jim McMenamin helped hold things together during the year I spent in Beijing by handling most of my correspondence, and generally keeping things cool until I returned. My thanks to my son, Mark Urton, whose encouragement and advice I relied upon at various stages of this volume's evolution. Finally, my deepest debt ("of course") goes to my wife and collaborator, Sinda 1. Gregory, who has been with me every step of the way for twenty years on our journeys across these wounded galaxies-and who has, in fact, been the point-person on our own personal efforts to storm the reality studio of postmodern culture. Thanks for being willing to take the white light and white heat when the going got tough, Sinda-and for being there when the reality studio emptied out and it was just us. My thanks, too, to all the authors and their publishers for granting permission to reprint the following materials: "Beyond the Extinction of Human Life," from Empire of the Senseless (31-39), by Kathy Acker. Copyright 1988 by Kathy Acker. Reprinted by permission of the author. Excerpt from Crash (15-17), by 1. G. Ballard. Copyright 1973 by J. G. Ballard. Reprinted by permission of the author. "The Automation of the Robot," from Simulations (92-96), by Jean Baudrillard. Copyright 1983 by Semiotext(e} and Jean Baudrillard. Reprinted by permission of Semiotext(e}. "Mother and I Would Like to Know," from The Wild Boys (502-5), by William S. Burroughs. Copyright 1969, 1970, 1971 by William S. Burroughs. Reprinted by permission of Grove Press, Inc. "Rock On," by Pat Cadigan, originally appeared in Light Years and Dark (Berkeley, 1984 [32-42]). Copyright 1984 by Pat Cadigan. Reprinted by permission of the author. "Cyberpunk and Neuromanticism," by Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr., originally appeared in Mississippi Review 47/48 (1988): 266-78. Reprinted by permission of the author. "Among the Blobs," by Samuel R. Delany, originally appeared in Mississippi Review 47/48 (1988): 86-92. Reprinted by permission of the author.

xii

Acknowledgments

Excerpt from White Noise (12-13), by Don DeLillo. Copyright 1984, 1985 by Don DeLillo. Reprinted by permission of Viking Penguin, Inc. Excerpt from OJ Grammatology (9), by Jacques Derrida. English translation Copyright 1976 by Jacques Derrida and Johns Hopkins University Press. Reprinted by permission of Johns Hopkins University Press. Excerpt from Neuromancer (3-8, 76-79, 238-40), by William Gibson. Copyright 1984 by William Gibson. Reprinted by permission of the author. "Yin and Yang Duke It Out," by Joan Gordon, originally appeared in Science Fiction Eye 2, no. 1 (February 1990): 37-40. Reprinted by permission of the author. "Cybernetic Deconstructions: Cyberpunk and Postmodernism," by Veronica Hollinger, originally appeared in Mosaic 23, no. 2 (Spring 1990): 29-44. Reprinted by permission of the author. "Fistic Hermaphrodites," "Microbes," and "nerve terminals," by Rob Hardin, originally appeared in Mississippi Review 47/48 (1988): 156-58. Reprinted by permission of the author. "Max Headroom," by Harold Jaffe, originally appeared in Mississippi Review 47/48 (1988): 130-:35. Copyright 1988 by Harold Jaffe. Reprinted by permission of the author. Excerpts from "Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism" (53-54, 64, 65-66, 67, 72-73, 75-76, 78-80, 89-90, 92), by Fredric Jameson, originally appeared in New Left Review 146 (July-August 1984): 53-92. Reprinted by permission of the author. "The Toilet Was Full of Nietzsche," by Richard Kadrey, originally appeared in Mississippi Review 47/48 (1988): 159-69. Reprinted by permission of the author. "Television and the Triumph of Culture," from The Postmodern Scene: Excremental Culture and Hyper-Aesthetics (St. Martin's Press, 1986 [270-79]), by Arthur Kroker and David Cook. Reprinted by permission of St. Martin's Press, Inc. "Office of the Future," from Dad's Nuke (194-97), by Marc Laidlaw. Copyright 1984 by Mare Laidlaw. Reprinted by permission of the author. "Bet On It: Cyber/video/punk/performance," by Brooks Landon, originally appeared in Mississippi Review 47/48 (1988): 245-51. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Acknowledgments

xiii

"Cyberpunk: The Individual as Reality Pilot," by Timothy Leary, originally appeared in Mississippi Review 47/48 (1988): 252-65. Reprinted by permission of the author. "I Was an Infinitely Hot and Dense Dot," from My Cousin" My Gastroenterologist (3-8), by Mark Leyner. Copyright 1990 by Mark Leyner. Reprinted by permission of Harmony Books, a division of Crown Publishers, Inc. "The Postmodern," from The Poslmodern Condition (79-82), by Jean-Frangois Lyotard. English translation Copyright 1984 by the University of Minnesota Press. Reprinted by permission of the University of Minnesota Press. "The Wars of the Coin's Two Halves: Bruce Sterling's Mechanist/ Shaper Narratives," by Tom Maddox, originally appeared in Mississippi Review 47/48 (1988): 237-44. Reprinted by permission of the author. Excerpt from Plus (9-12), by Joseph McElroy. Copyright 1976 by Joseph McElroy. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. "Wire Movement #9" and "Wire for Two Tims," from Prayers of Steel (29-32), by Misha. Copyright 1983 by Misha. Reprinted by permission of the author. Excerpts from Easy Travel to Other Planets (18, 24), by Ted Mooney. Copyright 1981 by Ted Mooney. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Strauss & Giroux. Excerpt from The Crying of Lot 49 (24-25), by Thomas Pynchon. Copyright 1965, 1966 by Thomas Pynchon. Reprinted by permission of Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. Excerpts from Software (15-19, :30-34), by Rudy Rucker. Copyright 1982 by Rudy Rucker. Reprinted by permission of the author. Excerpt from Life During Wartime (131-32), by Lucius Shepard. Copyright 1987 by Lucius Shepard. Reprinted by permission of Bantam Books. "Wolves of the Plateau," by John Shirley, originally appeared in Mississippi Review 47/48 (1988): 136-50. Reprinted by permission of the author. "Stoked," by Lewis Shiner, originally appeared inRe: Artes Liberales (Spring/Fall 1988): 198-202. Reprinted by permission of the author. "Literary MTV," by George Slusser, originally appeared in Mississippi Review 47/48 (1988): 279-88. Reprinted by permission of the author. xiv

Acknowledgments

Excerpt from Schismatrix (39-44), by Bruce Sterling. Copyright 1985 by Bruce Sterling. "Preface," in Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology. Copyright by Bruce Sterling. "20 evocations," by Bruce Sterling, originally appeared in Interzone and in Mississippi Review 47/48 (1988): 122-29. All reprinted by permission of the author. "On Gibson and Cyberpunk," by Darko Suvin, originally appeared in Foundation 46 (Autumn 1989): 40-51. Reprinted by permission of the author. Excerpts from "The Indigo Engineers," (443-44, 457-59), in The Rainbow Stories, by William T. Vollmann. Copyright 1979 by William T. Vollmann. Reprinted by permission of Atheneum Publishers, an imprint of Macmillan Publishing Company.

Acknowledgments

xv

Storm The Reality Studio. And retake the universe. -William S. Burroughs, Nova Express

Larry McCaffery Introduction: The Desert

of the

Real

But how could we know when I was young All the changes that were to come? All the photos in the wallets on the battlefield And now the terror of the scientific sun? -The Clash, "Something About England"

It is the real, and not the map, whose vestiges subsist here and there, in the deserts which are no longer those of the Empire, but our own. The desert of the real itself. -Jean Baudrillard, "The Precession of the Simulacra"

wi the past but i've wi the future.

i haven't fucked much fucked plenty

-Patti Smith, "babelogue"

In gathering together the materials contained in Storming the Reality Studio, I hope to create a context that will illuminate and broaden our understanding of two enormously exciting topics that have broad significance for postmodern culture generally. The first of these has to do with the recent evolution of what I will call "postmodern science fiction." This evolution was spurred on within genre SF by the "cyberpunk controversy" during the 1980s. Sparked initially by the publication of William Gibson's Neuromancer in 1984, this controversy spawned numerous critical debates in SF fanzines and at SF conferences and ultimately had the effect of opening up a dialogue within the field that encouraged even cyberpunk's most hardened opponents to examine the nature and roles of the genre, especially as these have been changing in response to postmodern culture. Equally significant

in SF's recent transformations has been the development of experimental, quasi-sF works created by a number of major "mainstream" literary innovators (Pynchon, Burroughs, Ballard, Mooney, DeLillo and many others) that featured themes, motifs, and other elements that would previously have been associated with SF. The nature and background of these parallel developments are discussed by a number of the critical essays included here as well as being schematically introduced in the Kadrey/McCaffery "Cyberpunk 101" text that follows this introduction. I have also aimed at presenting a range of stories, novel excerpts, poems, and other materials that can suggest something of the richness of theme and variety of stylistic innovation that characterizes contemporary SF and its many hybrid forms. A number of recurrent issues that emerge from the interaction of primary and secondary sources here-particularly those having to do with the meaning of artistic "realism" in our postfuturist age, the concepts ofliterary "authenticity" and "originality," and the paradoxes involved in artistic rebellion when "rebellion" is now a commodifiable image that is regularly employed as a "counterculture" marketing strategy-can all be shown to reflect and relate to similar issues being debated by nearly all artists and critics associated with postmodernIsm. Indeed, the central topic addressed by this casebook is the way in which cyberpunk and other innovative forms of SF are functioning within the realm of postmodern culture generally: that is, the broader significance of SF'S relationship to the complex set of radical ruptures-both within a dominant culture and aesthetic and also within the new social and economic media system (or "postindustrial society") in which we live. These are the ruptures and dislocations associated with postmodernism, as that term is used in this volume by critics such as Jean-Fran,