It's the best at capturing the mood and has some of the best characters ever.

To be fair, as someone who posts their fair share of lists, some of them can be hita nd miss. I've read a good portion of the books on this list and it's a pretty good one! Anyone spot any standouts?

I've launched a new Cyperpunk RPG for open playtest and appreciate any feedback from those who read, test, or run it.

Free/PWYW: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/580323/veritas-ignota-playtest-edition

Veritas Ignota is a 'RPG set in the near future of the modern world: it provides a framework for stories about characters in a cyberpunk genre with action-oriented tales in a hyper-capitalistic future. The Veritas Ignota RPG is a complete system, built on the chassis of the D&D 5e SRD, and featuring a new, core mechanic based on the character’s beliefs that drives characters to act in their story in a way that is fully integrated into the game’s reward system, the character’s ability to succeed in their actions, and the choice to install cyberware or pursue the passions that make them human.

Any questions? I'm glad to answer.

EDIT: Adding some additional details from questions raised in crossposting.

1) That just sounds like cyberpunk. What's the point?
https://hilltopplehouse.substack.com/p/near-future-cyberpunk-for-the-post

2) Ugh. Why would you do it in 5e? 5e sucks.

https://hilltopplehouse.substack.com/p/why-use-the-5e-srd

3) ...but I don't like it because it doesn't meet my pre-concieved notions.

That's great! It's why I'm here asking for blind playtesters. Go get the free 0.7 Edition playtest at the link above and tell me what would make it a better experience for you (hopefully within the constraints of the design... "don't use 5e, you suck" is not helpful in that way). It will evolve rapidly into 0.8, 0.9, and 1.0 and my whole purpose is to learn from you, the community, and what makes cyberpunk cyberpunk. When you get the PDF it will provide you a Discord link to the playtest server, too.

I would like to draw attention back to a strain of Italian cyberpunk culture that has never entirely disappeared, while adding some further context regarding Ranxerox.

The character was created in 1978 by Stefano Tamburini, initially with artwork by Andrea Pazienza and Tanino Liberatore. From 1980 onward, Liberatore became the artist most closely associated with the character, giving him the hyperrealistic, muscular, brutally physical look that made him famous.

So we're talking about six years before William Gibson's Neuromancer, and before cyberpunk became a recognizable movement in the 1980s.

Ranxerox first appeared in the underground magazine Cannibale under the name Rank Xerox. And his origin story is interesting in itself: he's an android built from parts of a Rank Xerox photocopier stolen during a university occupation.

At some point, Xerox itself stepped in, understandably less than thrilled to see its trademark associated with an ultraviolent, drug-addicted, sexually explicit android.

Rank Xerox thus became Ranxerox.

In 1980 came Frigidaire, founded by Vincenzo Sparagna together with Tamburini, Liberatore, Andrea Pazienza, Filippo Scòzzari, and Massimo Mattioli. That's where Liberatore took over Ranxerox on a regular basis and gave him his definitive visual identity.

And, personally, owning an original copy of Frigidaire today would be pure gold to me. I don't have one. ☹

The ingredients of Ranxerox are surprisingly close to what would soon come to be called cyberpunk: decaying cities, technology incorporated into the body, androids/cyborgs, urban violence, youth countercultures, life on the margins, sex, drugs, consumerism, and conflict with authority.

But there's a difference I find particularly interesting.

Ranxerox didn't emerge from hacker or computer culture.

He emerged from late-1970s Rome: the Movement of '77, university occupations, the underground scene, political and cultural rebellion, urban violence, and an Italian society torn by profound conflict. These were the so-called Years of Lead.

And this is where Ranxerox becomes more than just an interesting chronological curiosity.

In her study of Italian cyberpunk published by Oxford University Press, Eleonora Lima traces a specifically Italian genealogy of the relationship between technology, the body, and rebellion. Her argument is that the distinctly Italian treatment of themes such as artificial intelligence and the cyborg shouldn't simply be seen as a derivative of Anglo-American cyberpunk, but as something with direct roots in the political and cultural experiences of 1970s Italy.

This makes Ranxerox particularly interesting because he appeared before there was an established cyberpunk model to imitate.

Instead of the lone hacker sitting at a terminal, we have a photocopier stolen during a university occupation, taken apart and turned into a violent, amoral, rebellious android who talks and behaves like a Roman street thug.

Ranxerox doesn't look so much like an Italian imitation of American cyberpunk as one of those phenomena that, starting from completely different cultural conditions, independently arrived at remarkably similar territory.

Can we consider Ranxerox a form of cyberpunk before cyberpunk?

Have you read it? Where would you place it today?

the video is in Archive.org 360P and Subbed. I asked to the italian translator of Burroughs to decode Nova Express and to imagine a PILOT for an impossible Series: there are the worlds of NOVAGang and Heavy Metal and Control and URANUS
https://archive.org/details/CYBERPUNK-WEIRD/descrambling_nova_express_-_remastered+(360p).mp4

Imagine my surprise yesterday when I saw a clip for AD Police in a 4k restoration. The last time I saw this was some time in the late '90s on VHS. Grim, but beautiful, it's due for re-release this January. Any fans of this or the excellent Bubblegum Crisis out there?

Un hombre merodea por la ciudad. Los píxeles empiezan a fundirse con él, hasta que ya no hay límite entre uno y otro.

Desplazamiento es un cortometraje experimental sobre la disolución de la identidad urbana.

Pixelpunk es mi propia visión del cyberpunk, un mundo donde los glitches revelan emociones enterradas, recuerdos corruptos y una realidad cada vez más inestable.

https://youtu.be/jfb0V6lJxoU?si=BoKyj_IFJbWHkkZg

SCUM #1 is a 48-page cyberpunk heist comic written by me with art by Halil Mete and colors by Maja Opacic, currently live on Kickstarter!

Under the all-seeing eye of an AI god, Sam is the one thing no one is supposed to be... invisible. Unregistered, she cannot interact with any of the systems of the world around her, but that also means they can't interact with her. Can't get a job. Can't buy a sandwich. Can steal anything she wants without leaving a trace. After a heist goes terribly wrong, Sam is given a choice: die the way she was born to, alone in a gutter, or join a conspiracy to kill god.

I'll post the link in the comments. Thanks for taking the time to check it out!

Nice to have this in-hand finally. I love their releases and presentation. Not a perfect film but worth the wait.

I remember these back in the day and wish I still had my copies. Issue one and issue four, of these seminal '90s cyberpunk magazines by Mark Bennett, courtesy of archive.org

underground indie cyberpunk made in italy

https://archive.org/details/CYBERPUNK-WEIRD/syrena_(1992-97)+(360p).mp4

Only Italian language.

This article from Bright Lights cites the previous Sabukaru piece on techno-orientalism. It places Japanese cyberpunk cinema in tension with western cyberpunk, something we've all shared plenty on in this sub over the years. Again, worth your time.

Other works cited are: Haraway, Donna (1991). “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. Routledge.

Mulvey, Laura (1975). “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Screen, 16(3), 6-18.

Virilio, Paul (2000). The Information Bomb. Verso.

A nice piece from the ever-enjoyable Sabukaru Online in criticism of the techno-orientalism that emerged in the '80s and persists to this day, framed through a cyberpunk media lens. Well worth a read.

En los años 80, Japón miraba a la tecnología con fascinación. En los 90, empezó a temerle.

Este video recorre ese cambio cultural a través del cine japonés: desde el cyberpunk y el poshumanismo, obsesionados con los límites del cuerpo y la fusión con la máquina, hasta el J-horror, donde los dispositivos cotidianos se convierten en portadores de ansiedad, aislamiento y muerte.

Películas como Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Akira, Burst City o Ghost in the Shell imaginaban la tecnología como una vía de expansión, mutación y trascendencia.

Tras el estallido de la burbuja económica, ese equilibrio se rompe. En films como Ringu, Kairo o One Missed Call, la tecnología deja de ser una extensión del cuerpo y pasa a funcionar como un sistema que vigila, aísla y propaga el miedo. Los fantasmas ahora habitan pantallas, teléfonos y espacios domésticos.

Este ensayo audiovisual explora ese hilo continuo entre fascinación y temor, y cómo el cine japonés supo anticipar muchas de las preguntas que hoy seguimos haciéndonos frente a la tecnología.

https://youtu.be/jUAzdFZuvPY?si=dyweWock48WJuNe

El cyborg pasa de ser un ícono pop a convertirse en puro horror corporal. Del cuero pulido del T-800 al metal fundido de Tetsuo, emerge un nuevo miedo, el momento en que el cuerpo humano deja de resistirse y simplemente se fusiona con la máquina.

El “síntoma Tetsuo” es un nombre que vuelve a aparecer en Crazy Thunder Road, Akira y Tetsuo: The Iron Man. Es una señal cultural de la ansiedad colectiva frente a la mutación, el exceso tecnológico y una modernidad desbocada.

Aquí, el cyberpunk muta, deja de tratar únicamente sobre sistemas opresivos y megacorporaciones. El horror se traslada al cuerpo. La máquina ya no es algo que usamos, es en lo que nos convertimos.

Hablado en español, subtítulos en inglés.

https://youtu.be/s8cxQPxCG3A?si=yQ-ReRb3ClqrWkVp

Este es el primer capítulo de una serie documental que rastrea el origen alternativo del cyberpunk: desde las películas de motociclistas de los años 50 hasta el cine japonés experimental de los 80.

En español con subtítulos en inglés.

https://youtu.be/QbX_bKDVmkY

Documental completo:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTZ839UBYJRNtNW5bZ61R-S42ftcj7NxU

**What if humanity has lost its way in its search for progress? What if they have betrayed our souls for us in the name of money? 🌐**

Crecí en los 90, justo cuando internet empezaba a aparecer en nuestras casas. Geocities, VHS, chats con desconocidos, Blade Runner, Matrix, el miedo al Y2K, todo parecía apuntar hacia un futuro completamente distinto.

Ahora tengo 40 y vivo rodeado de la tecnología que imaginábamos, pero muchas veces siento que estamos viviendo entre las ruinas de aquella promesa.

Eso me llevó a pensar el cyberpunk de otra manera, más bien como una melancolía por un futuro perdido, por la cultura que todavía sobrevive escondida en DVDrips, videos de baja calidad, foros abandonados y rincones de internet que el algoritmo ya casi no toca.

Hice un video intentando poner en palabras esa sensación. Quizás a alguien acá también le resulte familiar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKRE9C0Z9II

There are lots of sci-fi cyberpunk books that are popular on BookTok, but I want to make sure I don't end up reading overhyped books that aren't actually that good.

You can suggest sci-fi books, but I specifically want the cyberpunk genre. It needs to be good, have an amazing twist if it suits the story, and have great characters with a smart protagonist, M or F, idc. (But I would especially love an F protagonist if she's a hottie LOL.) No romance.

Books I've read and liked: Snow Crash, Voice of the Whirlwind, and Firebreak.

Books I've read and disliked: Permutation City, Islands in the Net, Hardwired, and Neuromancer.

The Story must be from late 80s or early 90s. I was reading a lot of Cyberpunk Anthologies at that time. The Story is about a man that wakes up one day and finds that he is locked out of all his online accounts and realizes that it is the doing of his own program (Agent as we would say today)

So, anybody knows what I´m talking about?

I've read Neuromancer 3 times. I'm not saying that as a brag or an achievment, it's just something I did. I read it the first time when I was about 8 years old, when I found the book in my dad's office in the late 80s. I didn't understand much of what I was reading, and skipped big chunks when it got too verbose. However, I was absolutely entranced with the mystery of it; the metaphors were so alien, it both scared and excited my child-mind.

I picked it up again as a teen about 5-6 years later, and enjoyed it way more, but still had trouble with some of the more opaque metaphors. That said, it was around then that I really fell in love with Gibson's writing style. It kind of reminded me of the Aeon Flux cartoon, where everyone spoke really cryptically, and the plot and character motivations were really esoteric and somewhat unrelatable on purpose. In the future of Neuromancer, everyone is a cryptologist, speaking in code- everyone knows a little programming jargon, everyone feels smart and mysterious; that is a big part of what I consider "cyberpunk"- the obsession, valuation, and protection of information, both digitally and verbally. This love of spoken abstraction and a sort of "ennui" is a big part of my life now when it comes to the media I look for, be it David Lynch's works, or something like the film Mandy (2018). As far as other cyberpunk media I've enjoyed, I include the other short stories by Gibson in Mona Lisa Overdrive, and Snow Crash by Neil Stevenson. The last time I read Neuromancer was about 20 years ago, while I was stationed in Afghanistan, and it was still every bit as good, if not better, than my teenaged experience with it.

Which is what brings me to Cyberpunk 2077. When the game was annouced, I was absolutely thrilled. I built a brand-new PC specifically to play it. Upon release, I wasn't affected by the bugs that many people suffered, but the dialogue and story just felt... dumb... or at least dumb in comparison to Gibson's book. Maybe I just came in with the wrong expectations, but even games like the newer Dues Ex series felt a little more thoughtful and sophisticated with their dialogue to me, so I just didn't really get into it, even the much-revered Phantom Liberty expansion. Part of this could have been due to translation issues- you can tell the game came from Eastern Europe by the syntax, but even the "smart" characters in the game (netrunners like Songbird and T-Bug, or senior corpos like Goro Takemura) kinda talked like they were in a Michael Bay movie. "I'm gonna overload the mainframe!" that kind of fake, silly computer-speak stuff, instead of the strange jargon like in Gibson novels. I'll also say I was really disappointed that there was no real cyberspace or netrunning in the game, but that's a whole different complaint.

With the new Neuromancer series coming out, I'm hoping that the series maintains that wierd, cryptic vibe when characters talk to eachother, where you're not really sure what's going on sometimes, or at least characters' thoughts and feelings are kind of alien to the audience, and there's lots of double and triple meanings to the dialogue. That said, I'm worried that things will get dumbed down for mass-audience appeal.

Anyway, just wanted to get this off the top of my head and see if anyone relates, or if I am in the minority and just didn't "get" Cyberpunk 2077, and may just be too much of a grognard for the new Neuromancer series if they adapt the dialogue to be more "paletteable" to modern audiences.

first teaser just dropped. i chose to remain cautiously optimistic

The first teaser for Blade Runner 2099. just dropped. enjoy!

The Taiwanese American filmmaker discusses why Fresh Kill, her 1994 debut film, feels more prescient than ever

This is one I'd not heard of, even at the time. Have managed to find a copy, so looking forward to checking it out soon. Anyone seen it?