Why Cyberpunk?
My fiction’s set in Chicago’s 2037 Underground, and over the weekend a great unintentional interview question came in private mail. "So why'd you go for Cyberpunk Dystopia?"
From a lit standpoint, Cyberpunk Dystopia (opposite of Utopia), is a redundancy. Dystopian setting is among the three key elements of cyberpunk classification. A near-future date and a tech-link between computer/ chips and the brain are the others. Our society is on the verge of being cyberpunk, and there’s a ton of fascinating medical advances.
The Underground began shaping up before I'd ever heard of Jerry Jenkins’ Left Behind books, and I'd intended it to be focused on the Second Coming. Near future high-tech is an exciting natural fit for such a story. In Dystopias, the monolithic controlling power prohibits anything bigger than itself because power-holders fear anything that could offer criteria by which they could be judged. This historically creates the perfect social conditions for the Gospel to flourish, modern China for example. I use such a setting, one that that those of the Christian worldview naturally devours, to make believers wonder about themselves, faith, and the world.
Prophetically speaking, how many of Jesus' contemporary Jews missed their Messiah because they were expecting a king who'd save them from Roman occupation? Even though War of Attrition features the Anti-Christ's fatal head-wound, the Underground series will eventually challenge current pre-mil popular thinking.
Something's always attracted me to Dystopias. 1984 has been my favorite novel since I discovered it in my teens, and re-read it in my thirties. At the Underground's birth, I'd just finished reading some of Schaeffer's key works and just begun reading novels from the Shadowrun series.
At that time, I idealistically aligned myself with the political right, but the Boss brought events into my life that have seasoned me, challenged my paradigms, and matured my Christian worldview. Those changes in my life lessons are visible in Characters of the Underground.
My political view has become very jaded. We’re all fed a culture-of-fear by political pundits, and once one sees through some of our ‘leaders’, Golden-Rule compassion breaks through. I've also seen how the religious right has been recently abandoned politically--to the point that the subculture willingly associates with the likes of an obvious pschycographical chess-piece as Sarah Palin. Pro-Life voters are so desperate for a leader that her place on a ticket carries many votes.
Those who hold the real power in this country are, just like a cyberpunk literary setting, big special interest groups who’ve bought into the system. We must choose from two flavors of patriotism in this dog-and-pony-show. Controversy focuses well-intentioned citizens on a diversionary puppet show while all our domestic problems worsen. Corruption on both sides of the aisle stagnates as we teeter on the brink of another Great Depression. Back in high school econ 101, we were taught a depression is a natural event in any economic cycle, occurring about every eighty years. Black Monday occurred in 1929. Crunch those numbers.
Christians are convinced that in order to be part of the Religious Right, one must have the right beliefs. Somehow our subculture’s bought a bill of goods that includes some Biblically questionable ethics. It’s too expensive to take better care of Eden, don’t help your neighbor when they’re down, and defend a for-profit healthcare system that nobody can afford without bankruptcy.
Cyberpunk is the perfect genre with which to present readers with what-if social scenarios about current problems in our world.
