Cyberpunks write about the ecstasy and hazard of flyingcyberspace and Verne wrote about the ecstasy and hazard of FIVEWEEKS IN A BALLOON, but if you take even half a step outside themire of historical circumstance, you can see that these both serve thesame basic social function.

Of course, Verne, a great master, is still in print, while theverdict is out on cyberpunk. And, of course, Verne got the future allwrong, except for a few lucky guesses; but so will cyberpunk. JulesVerne ended up as some kind of beloved rich crank celebrity in thecity government of Amiens. Worse things have happened, I suppose.

As cyberpunk's practitioners bask in unsought legitimacy, itbecomes harder to pretend that cyberpunk was something freakish oraberrant; it's easier today to see where it came from, and how it gotwhere it is. Still, it might be thought that allegiance to Jules Verne is abizarre declaration for a cyberpunk. It might, for instance, be arguedthat Jules Verne was a nice guy who loved his Mom, while the brutishantihuman cyberpunks advocate drugs, anarchy, brain-plugs and thedestruction of everything sacred.

This objection is bogus. Captain Nemo was a technical anarcho-terrorist. Jules Verne passed out radical pamphlets in 1848 when thestreets of Paris were strewn with dead. And yet Jules Verne isconsidered a Victorian optimist (those who have read him must doubtthis) while the cyberpunks are often declared nihilists (by those whopick and choose in the canon). Why? It is the tenor of the times, Ithink.

There is much bleakness in cyberpunk, but it is an honestbleakness. There is ecstasy, but there is also dread. As I sit here, oneear tuned to TV news, I hear the US Senate debating war. And behindthose words are cities aflame and crowds lacerated with airborneshrapnel, soldiers convulsed with mustard-gas and Sarin.

This generation will have to watch a century of manic waste andcarelessness hit home, and we know it. We will be lucky not to suffergreatly from ecological blunders already committed; we will beextremely lucky not to see tens of millions of fellow human beingsdying horribly on television as we Westerners sit in our living roomsmunching our cheeseburgers. And this is not some wacky Bohemianjeremiad; this is an objective statement about the condition of theworld, easily confirmed by anyone with the courage to look at thefacts.

These prospects must and should effect our thoughts andexpressions and, yes, our actions; and if writers close their eyes to this,they may be entertainers, but they are not fit to call themselvesscience fiction writers. And cyberpunks are science fiction writers --not a "subgenre" or a "cult," but the thing itself. We deserve this titleand we should not be deprived of it.

But the Nineties will not belong to the cyberpunks. We will bethere working, but we are not the Movement, we are not even "us" anymore. The Nineties will belong to the coming generation, those whogrew up in the Eighties. All power, and the best of luck to the Ninetiesunderground. I don't know you, but I do know you're out there. Geton your feet, seize the day. Dance on tables. Make it happen, it can bedone. I know. I've been there.