Mirrorshades question 4: Cyberpunk style

NeilNjae

In the preface, Sterling says about the book:

The cyberpunks as a group are steeped in the lore and tradition of the SF field.

Many of the cyberpunks write in a quite accomplished and graceful prose; they are in love with style, and are (some say) fashion-conscious to a fault.

Cyberpunk work is marked by is visionary intensity. Its writers prize the bizarre, the surreal, the formerly unthinkable.

It favours "crammed" prose: rapid, dizzying bursts of novel information, sensory overload that submerges the reader in the literary equivalent of the hard-rock "wall of sound".

Do you agree with these sentiments? Is this an accurate description of the work here, and is it distinct from other work of the same time? Has this style remained distinct, or is it now part of the general discourse?

Apocryphal

I do agree that ‘style’ is important in terms of the setting and characters, but here I think Sterling is getting at the prose style. Some of the stories - maybe four or five, clearly fit the bill. Unfortunately style is only cool when you can pull it off, and when you can’t it’s tedious or embarrassing. I think we saw some of both of these effects in this collection. The stories with the densest prose didn’t appeal all that much to me.

RichardAbbott

Hmmm, I don't think I'd agree with Sterling here. I don't remember any of the stories being ones that I enjoyed or would reread for the quality of writing style or prose. They seemed to me to focus more on ideas and settings than style. So there wasn't anyone who was writing here with the elegance or lyrical touches of Ursula Leguin, as one example of an author for whom style is important.

Now, there's nothing intrinsically right or wrong focusing on ideas rather than style, especially in a short story, but it seems to me that Sterling here is trying rather frantically to claim some sort of high ground which the authors themselves are not bothered about.

clash_bowley

I think he's being pretentious after the fact. Probably read Dhalgren and thinks that's what he was doing all along...