SOURCE: "William S. Burroughs and the Language of Cyberpunk," in Science-Fiction Studies, Vol. 23, No. 1, March, 1996, pp. 11-26.

[In the following essay, Wood explains the connection between Burroughs's works and cyberpunk writing.]

The work of William S. Burroughs has often been credited as a primary influence on cyberpunk writing. The connection between the two, however, is more often cited than explained. Burroughs' "science-fiction" work (Nova Express, The Soft Machine, and The Ticket That Exploded, 1964–1967) was more experimental poetry than conventional science fiction, and had already come in and out of style by the time science fiction became theory-worthy. Times have changed. Today, theorists not only feel sf to be worthy of theory, but theory to be worthy of sf. To this end, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr. has invited Jean Baudrillard and Donna Haraway into the sf fold; Scott Bukatman has extended a similar invitation to Gilles Deleuze and Félix...