Jonathan Roseland (@jroseland)

The current year is a renaissance for the #Cyberpunk genre for the worst reason: Cyberpunk dystopia is no longer fiction; it's... Tuesday. Being chauffeured through a decaying urban center in a self-driving taxi is no longer an unsettling novelty. Your smartwatch vibrates as you doomscroll videos of soldiers fleeing drones across a forlorn battlefield, warning you that your heart rate variability is non-optimal. You take Nootropic cognitive enhancers for the edge you desperately need at work; hopefully the soulless megacorporation you work for won't replace you with AI agents. An ad pops up for the exact thing you mentioned to your girlfriend, in bed last night, while you thought your phone was off. It's not just you; it's getting weirder out there—we're just a few holidays away from your socially awkward cousin bringing a robot girlfriend home. (Yes, I just em-dashed—UNAPOLOGETICALLY—I em-dashed before AI did and will continue to dose my hyphens with Viagra whenever I damn well please). For decades, #ScienceFiction and the cyberpunk genre have issued us a warning: Don't succumb completely to the siren song of technology. A warning we've collectively failed to heed. Despite authors' best efforts to be countercultural, cryptically nerdy, and subversive, the cyberpunk genre is nearly mainstream because it's become a prophecy of the world we'll swipe right into tomorrow... Read on #Substack: Make Cyberpunk Fiction Again! 🔗 https://jonathanroseland.substack.com/p/make-cyberpunk-fiction-again? #Fiction #Books