Neil wrote:
Perhaps if you were h/c oriented and came into fandom to find it dominated by cyberpunk fiction, then perhaps your curiosity would be likewise piqued. Maybe, maybe not.
My curiosity wouldn't have been piqued. I came into a fandom dominated by Avon fanfic. I didn't ask why or care why. I just went out and did my own thing: write Tarrant fanfic.
What I'm really asking, when I analyse h/c, is, "What makes me the odd one out?"
This is possible insight into why *I* don't understand the curiosity of those who aren't into h/c. I've been the odd one out so often that I'm quite comfortable there. It's where I expect to be.
Carol Mc
From: Mac4781@aol.com
What I'm really asking, when I analyse h/c, is, "What makes me the odd
one
out?"
This is possible insight into why *I* don't understand the curiosity of
those
who aren't into h/c. I've been the odd one out so often that I'm quite comfortable there. It's where I expect to be.
I too tend to be odd one out, on many things, but unlike you I am not terribly comfortable about it, it's something I've had to struggle hard to come to terms with. I find it very isolating and a barrier to communication. Maybe that's why I'm curious.
Rather than ask, "Why h/c?", let me turn it around and try to explain "Why cyberpunk?" (though only one of my stories properly qualifies as cyberpunk, I think, but most of the others are leaning vaguely in that direction).
Firstly there's the simple aesthetic. I love the gleaming steel and chrome and neon juxtaposed against the forces of entropy and decay. I like the mechanistic view of society, the dominance of technology, the loss of individuality, the brutality, the dehumanisation and the violence.
Okay, that's the superficial line. Dig deeper. Why do I like these things? Perhaps because they reflect my view of the world, my direct personal experience of it. More so for some factors than others (my personal experience of violence is negligible, for instance, and I have no wish to expand on it. The world, nevertheless, seems horribly violent and I can hardly deny that). My science-oriented education inclines me towards a mechanistic perspective. My recurring position as oddball and outsider (though that's overstating it by quite a margin) means that I can relate to a mechanistic model of society. As the odd one out, I feel disconnected from the social mainstream, so I try to see how all the different pieces of that multi-dimensional machine slot together.
Fanfic is the means through which I try to articulate that view of the world and communicate it to others. It represents a fourfold vision: of what I see, what I expect to see, what I'm afraid of seeing and what I might wish to see in its place, all at the same time.
I presume the same can be true for h/c, unless someone persuades me otherwise, though the relative importance of the four different visions (and their constituent elements) might be wildly different. I could construct a model for h/c that depicts it as a hope or wish for the triumph of humanity and reconciliation in the face of a brutal and alienating society, that devotees of h/c might endorse or reject. If the former, then it is in fact pretty much in line with the way I see my cybered fiction. If the latter, perhaps they could if they wish suggest a different model, one that rings true for them.
What does h/c represent to those who enjoy reading and/or writing it?
Neil
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Mac4781＠aol.com -
Neil Faulkner