SOURCE: Lindberg, Kathryne V. “Prosthetic Mnemonics and Prophylactic Politics: William Gibson Among the Subjectivity Mechanisms.” Boundary 2 23, no. 2 (summer 1996): 47–83.

In the following essay, Lindberg discusses Gibson as a postmodern author and examines the roles of authority, time, and memory in his writing.

According to Andrew Ross,

Cyberpunk's idea of a counterpolitics—youthful male heroes with working-class chips on their shoulders and postmodern biochips in their brains—seems to have little to do with the burgeoning power of the great social movements of our day: feminism, ecology, peace, sexual liberation, and civil rights. Curiously enough, there is virtually no trace of these social movements in this genre's “credible” dark future, despite the claim by Sterling that cyberpunk futures are “recognizably and painstakingly drawn from the modern condition.”¹

What's all this hysteria about cyborgs and cyberpunks, anyway? Without turning down the volume on the siren song of cybernetic subjectivity, I will...