Fish's Assignment 1: Question 3

Introduction to Locating Online Sources

The sources of this webliogrphy are evaluated through the scholar essays from the web and the reading of this course. The search engines of google.com and yahoo.com have been made use of to be the most useful electronical searching technology. The authority of scholarship has been assessed by several effective methodologies including checking the register information, publisher, scholar wordings, etc. Some of the materials available on the web are found to be overly subjective or casually toned; therefore, all of them are denied being listed for the sources of this webliography in order to ensure the validation in the perspectives and arguments and the appropriate level for the research task.

The reading from Stering (1998) about the cyberpunk in nineties is specifically targeted to the audience who declared that the trend of cyberpunk has passed away. It primarily made use of the editorial published by Mr. Lewis Shiner on Jan 7, 1991 in The New York Times, which further developed that "Cyberpunk" in the nineties was a popular and friendly attitude among common populace aligned with 70s punk music. Cyberpunk has its non-copyrighted organ named Cheap Truth, which is open for public to contribute. The contributors voluntarily and eagerly use fake name or pen name because they deny any emergence of characterization or separation between parties. Hollinger (1990, p. 37) additionally forced that cyberpunk is a growing projects of science fiction which can be defined as ‘anti-humanist’ because it follows the way against normal genre of nature and culture. It is presumed to be postmodernist breaking down the human-centred belief because it opposes the distinguishability between natural and artificial, or humans and machines.

Stering also considered Frankenstein by Mary Shelley as the main example of science fiction in terms of genre. In a cyberpunk analysis, Frankenstein is humanist science fiction because it encompassed the romantic proverb that “there are some things man was not meant to know”. The operation of this highest law is the nature of human’s universe that is far more intelligent than human will. Hubris must meet nemesis; this is simply the nature of our universe. Frankenstein commits a serious offense confronting the human soul and is finally punished by his own creation, the Monster.

Hollinger (p.38) defined science fiction to be a traditionally enchanted form of transcendence in which cyberpunk authentically applied this theory through technological innovation. It is “the belief of the Overman, and the worship of will-to-power.” Stering in this manner emerged a cyberpunk version of Frankenstein, which would be the Monster empowered to start a global damaging destruction. But ultimately, he must be unable to the central operative system and lose. However, the story of Monsters of cyberpunk is usually not yet end that they disguise themselves on the streets and suffuse all over. They will make use of new genetics laws and prepared for the next world-shaking rebellion.

In the Sobchack’s book of The American Science Fiction Film (p.65), it attempted to define that the cyberpunk in science fiction always mentions the contacts or conflicts between rockets from different planets. Vémola (p.12) concluded from Sobchack’s idea that the science fiction film is a genre which concentrates on actual or experimental experience, in which the interaction with social context is less significant. It is the transcendence of magic and religion in order to bring the human together with the unknown. On the contrary, rocketships are not necessary to be science fiction because “one could create a list of science fiction ‘objects’ as the spaceship which do indeed evoke the genre, but which are – specifically and physically – not essential to it: the New Planet, the Robot, the Laboratory, Radioactive Isotopes, and Atomic Device.” These settings show the iconography which is comprehensible genre of every science fiction film because it sends the same message to us. Sobchack attributed this genre to the awareness of history, especially for the Western. It creates the visual boundaries of objects and character settings to what can be observable and demands the film repeating and encompasses these genres.

Hollinger (p.32) quoted from Jaron Lanier that the cyberpunk in science fiction equalizes the body and language to be the universe and physics respectively. Broderick (1995, p.24) constructed that science can no longer be separated with “artificial literature” while fiction cannot be omitted from the fantastical literature. The combination of science and fiction is the “linguistic play and innovation”. It constitutes the body of “novel signifiers lacking actual signifieds outside their intertextual ‘absent paradigms’. The science fiction is the formulae of “imaginary science, superhuman abilities, extraterrestrial or apocalyptic time travels or robots.” He quoted from John Kessel’s ordinary view that everyone wants to escape from human nature, including science fiction readers. Science fiction is the alternative to comfort the real world. The real example is when reading the science fiction story about some abuse incapable beings, the reader can predict that the secret power unavailable to those distressing him would be discovered soon afterwards, and the end of the story would be the hero saving the universe.

Roberts (p.142) affirmed that the effect of science fiction in Frankenstein retells the legends aboard a spaceship with “robots playing the roles of knights”. A piece of futuristic technology can be the crucial elements that distinguish a story as science fiction in the first priority. It is more than a decorative intention to its narrative. This is to emphasize that a piece of science fiction technology provides the imaginative spaces of alterity. The ray-gun, time-machine or the matter-transporter can emerge a spectacular contrast with the almost miraculous technology around us such as mobile phones and computers. Also, technology has long played an influential part in daily life. It is not clear for us to know what the scientists invent next. That means that the technology urge us to focus on seeking for differences. In light of this, the creatures of technology will have the most metaphorical potential in a science fiction text.

Broderick (p.52) stated that the poststructuralist and postmodernist are assaulted by the reason that the trends and theory of science fiction does not induce the audience to see things more critically. The most recent critics are that the science fiction may result in a dulling of the audience’s ability to distinguish virtual and real sense, in only the visually shocking acceptance but not critical analysis. The science fiction may only encourage the escapist fantasies. Whether fantasy makes us more critical or urges the human more self-centred depends finally on whether it is accountable to something that is not fantasy. Science fiction can be possessed in two factors making “unstable equilibrium and dynamic compromise”. The first one is its populace cognition which grows out of the destructively lower-class form of ‘new world’ within the limited knowledge. The second one is the powerful upper and middle class making use of their power and repression with their majority of text to blacken others in the lower class as the “truly other relationship”. Nevertheless, as Hollinger (p.42) confirmed, the postmodern situation has claimed to demand us to reveal science fiction’s original metaphor of technological anxiety. A demeaned humanity shall not be simply controlled by technology. We must seek for the ways to produce the mutual benefits and developments between us and our technologies “interface” and prevent the mutual hostility between human and machine.

Bibliography

Broderick, Damien. “Reading by Starlight: Postmodern Science Fiction.” books.google.com. 1995: 24-52. 21^st Mar 2007: http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=WOEFUJGp9qEC&oi=fnd&pg=RA1-PR16&sig=l9v2I6a9yvF9HPI4NMkQ7ONPWEE&dq=john+varley+science+fiction

Hollinger, Veronica. “Cybernetic Deconstructions: Cyberpunk and Postmodernism.” Mosaic 23.2. 1990: 29-42

Kuhn, Annette. “Alien Zone: Cultural Theory and Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema.” books.google.com. 1990. 20^th Mar 2007: http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=zwny4lWjYDkC&oi=fnd&pg=PP7&sig=3344ZIy31Vv9V5ClTRpSZCreMvQ&dq=science+fiction

Roberts, Adam. “Science Fiction.” books.google.com. 22^nd Mar 2007: 146-150: http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=IRw_MIPjnXwC&oi=fnd&pg=PP9&sig=EVKDiJfnNR0IHj9rpTrDAuCO6zQ&dq=john+kessel+science+fiction+readers+want+to+

Sobchack, Vivian. “Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film.” books.google.com. 19^th Mar 2007: 64-67: http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=8PPm-qt_YLkC&oi=fnd&pg=PA9&sig=yL2ZBGdbokh87YcvafW_fIgOXTA&dq=science+fiction#PPA64,M1

Sterling, Bruce. “Cyberpunk in the Nineties.” Streettech. 1998. 19^th Mar 2007:

http://www.streettech.com/bcp/BCPtext/Manifestos/CPInThe90s.html

Vémola, Jakub. “The “Popular Renaissance” of the American Science-Fiction Film and its Independent Counterbalance.” is.muni.cz. June 2006. 20^th Mar 2007: http://is.muni.cz/th/109783/ff_b_b1/Popular_Renaissance_Of_American_SF_Film.pdf