Protocyberpunk recommendation: The Space Merchants
Protocyberpunk recommendation: The Space Merchants
In this classic send-up of American commercialism, a near-future earth is resource-depleted but callously ruled by advertising, splitting society between all-powerful ad agencies & exploited consumers. Mitchell Courtenay is a glib ad-exec who has just landed the assignment of a lifetime: enticin...
I have a kind of specific fascination for proto-cyberpunk, generally stories that preceded the cyberpunk genre's start and have most of the elements but aren't quite there for one reason or another. I think it's fascinating to see how these things form, to try to find strands of DNA through fiction. Writers, sometimes decades earlier, voicing the same complaints, identifying the same problems I associate specifically with cyberpunk.
The first one I thought I'd mention is a pretty safe bet: Frederik Pohl and C M. Kornbluth's The Space Merchants
Written in 1952, this book has everything but the 1980s feel of a cyberpunk story: Megacities, corporate-states, corporate espionage, addiction-based-marketing, subscription-based-police, corporate citizenship in layers right down to indentured servitude, ecological collapse and a society that doesn't care. Even the visuals of layered, overcrowded, continent-spanning cities.
But it feels like a 1950s science fiction story. It's great; very slick and steeped in the language of marketing. That works really well for it. But it doesn't feel like a cyberpunk story.
I think that's part of the reason I find looking at these precursor stories so fascinating. Cyberpunk discussions often fold in on 'is this even cyberpunk?' and it can be really interesting to see something that has so many of the elements but is still something else.
Obviously these are all just my opinions, and I'd love to hear anyone else's on this book.
Oh, one last opinion: If you're going to get a paperback, get the 1976 version, it looks great.
Picked it up from the library! Thanks for the recommend. I needed a new read
Awesome! Looking forward to hearing what you think of it.
Just finished it, overall thought it was a fun read.
I liked how it felt like someone just let loose 1950s America to grow without restrictions and that’s what you get. Sort of like fallout without the world ending if you played those games.
Seeing the big concerns of the time pop up in scifi is also really neat and you can really feel it throughout the book.