Whatever happened to cyberpunk?

The literary genre defined by William Gibsons Neuromancer had a massive influence on pop culture. But the cultural future it described is now both daily reality, and a distant digital past
John Mullan rereads Neuromancer, 30 years on

The girl in the black vinyl minidress, shit-kicker boots and neon hair braids told me she was a cyberpunk. Wow, I answered, shouting over the clubs thumping techno-trance beat, I love William Gibson. I may as well have namechecked Samuel Taylor Coleridge at a Metallica gig. She stared at me for a while, then shouted back Im not into the Bee Gees.

Pop culture rarely recognises its influences, especially when they are literary. But its a testament to just how closely attuned Williams Gibsons work was to the zeitgeist, that in 1992 cyberpunk was manifesting in the cultural interface where 80s goth met 90s techno.

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