due alacrity? Um, OK... I’m not sure about all the question marks? Either the author couldn’t tell the question mark key from the exclamation point key on his laptop, he is trying to perfect a unique, and quite frankly, annoying style, or there were some serious editing issues. Here’s another example, there you are, old bean? Cringe-worthy dialogue and stylistic issues aside, it’s always slightly weird reading fiction set in a specified, actual location, especially a place you visited as a small and impressionable child. It usually makes things more interesting. Unfortunately, not in this case. Some parts are well written, but I found what little plot there was all-too predictable, and all in all Dark Waters really offers nothing new. By C.M. Saunders Interview with Bruce Bethke by C.M. Saunders November 2011 Most people know you as creator of the term “Cyberpunk”. Once and for all, could you begin by telling us the story? I’ve had this albatross hanging around my neck for nearly 30 years now. I’m finally getting used to wearing it. To really understand the story of “Cyberpunk”, you need to go back a few more years, and know that I did not set out to be a writer at all. I spent most of the 1970s living in this weird space somewhere between rock and serious art. Along with the music, I was doing a little short-story writing because not every idea I had could be readily translated into a score, a program, a patch, or a tape track. I spent the 1970s simply bubbling over with creativity and always going on off in six directions simultaneously, completely unfocused. Then, in the Spring of 1980, while working a crappy day job, I had one of those sorts of low-budget epiphanies I’m prone to having. The epiphany was all about the sudden realization that we adults who were creating all this incredible new microcomputer technology had absolutely no
frickin’ clue how the next generation would use it. Teenagers would no doubt use this new technology in the same way teenagers always use everything new: to rebel against authority, make a loud noise, scare the old ladies, and make the essential teenage statement: “I’M HERE! I’M UNHAPPY! I DON’T KNOW WHY! PAY ATTENTION TO ME, DAMMIT!” But, having grown up “speaking computer”, they would also have a facility with this new technology that their parents and other adult authority figures could only begin to guess at. Once I had that set of core ideas in place, and the determination to give my story a snappy one-word title that would get it noticed in the slush pile, it was simply a matter of trying out different root-word combinations until one just plain sounded right. If it doesn’t sound right, it’s not right. That is the essential truth of the creation of the c-word. It was originally coined as a marketing term, in order to sell one specific story to one specific editor. Everything that came after that was an unintended consequence. What was the original meaning behind the term? “High-tech and low-life” really does seem to get it, although I didn’t think of that at the time. I was thinking more along the lines of “Joe Strummer with a computer instead of a guitar”, although there was also a certain “rebel without a clue” aspect to it. Presumably the story was an instant success? Absolutely not. I wrote it in the Spring of 1980, and sent it off first to George Scithers at Asimov’s. He sent it back with a nice letter saying he liked it a lot but Asimov’s readers would never go for a story that ended with the punk winning, so would I please rewrite the ending? In 1980 the power to buy this story was in George Scithers’ hands, and so the question became, what sort of ending would Lt. Col.