 William Gibson's opinion of Shadowrun, ...ouch... |
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 May 9 2004, 11:14 AM
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#26
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Target  Group: Members Posts: 61 Joined: 8-December 03 Member No.: 5,887  |
Shadowrun is a concept that is very hard for people to like at first glance. It seems kitchy and illconcieved to most casual observers. You have to get into it a bit before the intellect of this particular merge of genres is evident. I don't think Gibson got into it. He's opinion reminds of several of my friend's first reactions, all of witch love Shadowrun today.
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May 9 2004, 01:58 PM
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#27
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Chicago Survivor Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 5,079 Joined: 28-January 04 From: Canton, GA Member No.: 6,033 |
That's a good point Aesir. A buddy of mine had tried SR, at my insistence I admit, and didn't much care for the mixing of fantasy with cyber-punk.
Admitedly, I didn't give hima compelling story, I didn't give him a god immersion, I was just running something on the fly. Fast forward a year and a half, I have a good story, using the legal party concepts as opposed to criminal, and he's liking the game, looking forward to each session |
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May 9 2004, 03:02 PM
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#28
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Target Group: Members Posts: 94 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Loughborough, UK Member No.: 1,321 |
Nitpicking slightly, I think the biggest mistake in linking Gibson and Shadowrun is in using his earlier books (Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive and the Burning Chrome collection). I tend to feel the Bridge Trilogy is much closer to the same feel as SR, or at least the SR I tend towards. Gibson's earlier works were still a little too close to pure sci-fi for my tastes.
As to combining the gritty near-future dystopia of cyberpunk with the magic of fantasy, I don't have a problem at all. For me, that's what defines Shadowrun against other 'cyberpunk' games- remove the magic and I tend to find the whole genre sliding more into anime- and for that I have Heavy Gear and Jovian Chronicles. :D -JH. |
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May 9 2004, 03:10 PM
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#29
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,013 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Dogfight was an amazing story.
Then again, it was co-written with Michael Swanwick, so of course it was. I hereby command you all to read The Iron Dragon's Daughter, if you haven't already. Heck, even if you have. ~J |
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May 9 2004, 05:09 PM
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#30
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,028 Joined: 9-November 02 From: The Republic of Vermont Member No.: 3,581 |
Thing about Shadowrun is that it all depends on how you spin it. Gibson sees it as diluting cyberpunk with fantasy elves and wizards. Given that he's looking at it from the perspective of one of the pioneering cyberpunk authors, I can see how that'd be his viewpoint. And the metaplot drek trying to turn it into a big high-fantasy epic doesn't help.
But I don't play it that way. I run it with the elves and magic ground down and strung out by the dystopian cyberpunk future. Tolkien would hate it just as much... my elves'd have him spinning in his grave. They're a whole lot more like Gibson's characters than like Tolkien's, with the added spice of violation of expectations. Genre fusion. It's a wonderful thing. Gets all the purists' panties in a wad. Oh, and Mr. Voodoo Spirits In The 'Net doesn't have much room to talk, anyway. |
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May 9 2004, 06:00 PM
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#31
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 132 Joined: 4-May 03 Member No.: 4,535 |
for the record, they were only pretending to be voodoo spirits.
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May 9 2004, 06:42 PM
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#32
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 424 Joined: 11-May 02 From: Marauding the mighty North Saskatchewan Member No.: 2,720 |
You mean someone else read that book too? It was particaularly bizarre - I liked that part about the Gargoyles' mating habits. The part about the children in the factory and their troll foreman made me laugh - it had some strong images of distaste for work. Personally I love Gibson's stuff. Burning Chrome I particularly liked, and Molly Millions kicks ass. The part of Gibsons work I like the most is his meathods of descriptions of tech - he gives it a realistic feel likke its something you might buy at futureshop or something, or the latest offering from Honda or something. I want to see a Neuromancer movie with Carrie-Anne Moss as Molly. ...Which brings me to who says Cyberpunk is dead in the last ten years? Did you not see the Matrix movies? What about the plethora of anime that's become somewhat mainstream that regularly plunders the subject. Have you not read the latest Shirow installments of Man and Machine Interface? |
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May 9 2004, 07:52 PM
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#33
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panda! Group: Members Posts: 10,331 Joined: 8-March 02 From: north of central europe Member No.: 2,242 |
cyberpunk as a freestanding genre have gone missing, now you find traces of it all over the place where you find sci-fi with a negative angle and people living in legal grayzones (the renegade humans of matrix, the streetpunks of akira?).
as for shadowrun turning anime, well i guess people have seen akira and gits one to many times. i dont find sr as presented by the sourcebooks have changed mutch (sure if you toss in stuff like surge it can become silly fast but thats up to the reactions of the gm and players, not the rules themself). i think its more to do with the playing styles of newcomers that have theyre heads filled with stuff from other sources and then apply that to the sr framework and thereby giving the whole game a new color (kinda like looking at the real world with colored glasses or something like that). |
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May 9 2004, 08:25 PM
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#34
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 260 Joined: 20-March 04 From: That really good state. Yeah, you know the one... Member No.: 6,177 |
You mean SR isnt the real world...? |
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May 9 2004, 08:32 PM
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#35
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,013 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Don't bother them. They're deluded by the megacorporate lies.
~J |
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May 9 2004, 10:18 PM
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#36
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 973 Joined: 3-October 03 Member No.: 5,677 |
[propaganda]
Please ignore the insidious Red Faction lies! Chancellor Sopot is NOT dead! He is merely in another castle! Thank you! Remain at your desk! [/propaganda] ...God, I love that game... :P |
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May 9 2004, 11:22 PM
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#37
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 117 Joined: 29-April 04 Member No.: 6,291 |
As has been said before, Gibson and the rest of the Cyberpunk progenitors are purists. They had a take on sci-fi that was gritty and serious, and experienced frustration when it was passed off as "Cheap, Pulpy Sci-Fi" when they were really going for the realism angle on the future. The chilling thing about a lot of Gibson's work is how close it feels, how easily you could see people with these drugs and driving those cars, and hacking those computers. It was a distinguishing moment in Sci-Fi.
So when his and others' cyberpunk baby starts getting mixed in with high fantasy (which NO one literarily EVER takes seriously) you can bet he'll be upset. From an outsider's perspective, "Gimli with robotic arms" sounds silly as hell. So I think he's justified to have his opinion on that. But Shadowrun can do exactly what Gibson did and turn a silly genre, a mixed genre at that, into something knee-deep, gritty, and serious. Shadowrun's vehicle is politics and the nature of humanity, in the same way Cyberpunk's vehicle was realism and the nature of inhumanity. So, Gibson, I feel ya, but you're being a little shortsighted. |
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May 9 2004, 11:30 PM
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#38
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,616 Joined: 15-March 04 Member No.: 6,158 |
Wow. I always just saw most cyberpunk writing as little more than the paranoid delusions of well-spoken crackpots from the 80's. "Ooooh, the Japanese are buy up everything and taking over the world!" "Ooooh, AIDS is scary!" "Oooooh, computers are evil!" "Ooooh, the government is experiment with dolphin bomb-delivery systems, so let's make one a supersmart hacker!" (Sorry, I just can't get over the lameness of that one.) That's pretty much how I've always seen the genre. The one thing I've never been able to associate with cyberpunk is realism, let alone believability. |
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May 9 2004, 11:33 PM
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#39
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 6,748 Joined: 5-July 02 Member No.: 2,935 |
The dolphin was never a supersmart hacker. It was a crack-addicted mine sweeper.
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May 9 2004, 11:36 PM
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#40
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,013 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Smack-addicted, not crack.
~J |
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May 9 2004, 11:37 PM
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#41
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,616 Joined: 15-March 04 Member No.: 6,158 |
Oh, I'm sorry. That's makes the fact that it lived with a gang in the remnants of the Brooklyn Bridge alllll okay.
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May 9 2004, 11:46 PM
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#42
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,759 Joined: 11-December 02 From: France Member No.: 3,723 |
He lived in a theme park, or something similar, in the original Johnny Mnemmonic short story. The Brocklyn Bridge thing is only in the movie. You can still blame it on Gibson, but then he's not the first nor the last to turn his work into crap for the lights of Hollywood. |
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May 10 2004, 12:21 AM
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#43
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 973 Joined: 3-October 03 Member No.: 5,677 |
Same here, sorta. Ghost in the Shell seems believable, though, if you consider it cyberpunk. It's like Rainbow Six with cyberware and full 'borgs. Akira, on the other hand, is ridiculously pessimistic. Neuromancer was just gritty, and I don't know enough about other cyberpunk to comment, other than Snow Crash was IMO a psychotically insane book (nuke for a motorcycle sidecar, anyone?), whereas Diamond Age was more normal and a good tad more believable. Just my 0.02 :nuyen:. :wobble: |
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May 10 2004, 12:34 AM
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#44
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,013 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Akira's perfectly believable once you take the premise of World War III doing some good levelling beforehand.
~J |
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May 10 2004, 01:47 AM
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#45
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 973 Joined: 3-October 03 Member No.: 5,677 |
WWIII was yet another product-idea of the '80s, if you ask me. Not that it's impossible...But the general war-to-end-all-wars concept...Eh...Bleh. You get the idea. Hopefully. *shrugs* |
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May 10 2004, 02:33 AM
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#46
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,013 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Well, we had it twice already…
~J |
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May 10 2004, 03:58 AM
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#47
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 214 Joined: 7-January 03 From: Wilton NH Member No.: 3,872 |
It was alot easier to believe when the Berlin Wall hadn't fallen yet, and NATO and the Warsaw Pact were still aiming large arsenels of nuclear weapons at each other... |
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May 10 2004, 04:13 AM
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#48
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 117 Joined: 29-April 04 Member No.: 6,291 |
Realism as a style of literature doesn't necessarily apply to the believability of history. It's a way of writing, down-to-earth and up-close, providing much more "livingbreathing" character images than pulp styles. And as far as the histories portrayed in a lot of the Bridge Series and others, back in the 80's and early 90's, it LOOKED like Japan was on a frightening upswing, and that it was only a natural disaster or war (for the rest of us) away from stepping up to the US's table economically. It was a fear a lot of people had. And, for the record, AIDS still is scary. And not just in a cutesy "Ooooooh!" kinda way. The "computers are evil" comment is a broad generalization of a genre-spanning concept of the dehumanization of machines, which from a postmodernist perspective is pretty dead on. It's a much more complex metaphor than you're making it out to be. It'd be like looking at LotR and saying, "ooooh, loooook, evil is baaad, friendship is keeeen" or Kurt Vonnegut's books and saying, "Oooh, humanity's stupid but gooooood!" IOW, you can make any intelligent metaphor and complex literary style seem stupid, so congratulate yourself on an easy job well done. |
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May 10 2004, 06:08 AM
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#49
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Target Group: Members Posts: 44 Joined: 19-July 03 Member No.: 4,984 |
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May 10 2004, 10:38 AM
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#50
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 973 Joined: 3-October 03 Member No.: 5,677 |
Ahhhhhhhhh! Yes, true, true...Been so long since the Cold War that I nearly forgot about it. Or maybe I'm just tired. :| :dead: |
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