Submitted by Bluest_waters t3_ybku06 in television

William Gibson literally invented the cyber punk genre. This show is based on one of his later novels. Its about people who are paid to assume the game play avatars of rich folks to get them to higher levels of game play.

Our hero takes on a contract and plays a game about kidnapping and organ theft that seems like it is hyper real, way too real. Drama and chaos ensues.

Its really not bad! There are two hour long eps available now, and it takes about 30 minuets to get going but once it does its involving. It get bogged down here and there but the underlying premise is inventive and kept my interest.

I don't know why Amazon has such lackluster acting in so many of hits originals but this one is the same. Not bad acting, just kind of okay. But if you like the cyber punk genre I think you will like this show. NOt great but certainly good enough.

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Bluest_waters OP t1_itgv3iv wrote

>William Ford Gibson (born March 17, 1948) is an American-Canadian speculative fiction writer and essayist widely credited with pioneering the science fiction subgenre known as cyberpunk. Beginning his writing career in the late 1970s, his early works were noir, near-future stories that explored the effects of technology, cybernetics, and computer networks on humans—a "combination of lowlife and high tech"[4]—and helped to create an iconography for the information age before the ubiquity of the Internet in the 1990s.[5] Gibson coined the term "cyberspace" for "widespread, interconnected digital technology" in his short story "Burning Chrome" (1982), and later popularized the concept in his acclaimed debut novel Neuromancer (1984). These early works of Gibson's have been credited with "renovating" science fiction literature in the 1980s.

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jogoso2014 t1_itgvzz3 wrote

I liked it quite a bit.

Future London looks awesome if a bit sparse.

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airchinapilot t1_ith93rm wrote

My wife and I quite like it so far. I haven't read the books (though I was a fan of his early novels) and there were bits I couldn't follow, but it is moving along nicely and I'm willing to see where it goes.

If you are fans lf Westworld, Lisa Joy is one of the makers and it certainly feels like Westworld. The director of the first two eps is Vincenzo Natali who made Cube and has had a decent career doing scifi in TV.

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samuraislider t1_ithfy5l wrote

I would say the only mediocre acting came from some of the lesser side characters. But the brother and sister seemed solid. And they need to carry this. The brothers only “problem” is his face is so generic Hollywood good looking. I feel like he looks like 20 other dudes in Hollywood right now.

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Ithrewitawayforanime t1_itiufz1 wrote

"Literally invented" is debatable, but definitely popularized it (any further debate would be entirely pedantic, imo). Regardless, I'm looking forward to watching it, I love cyberpunk.

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xhrit t1_itk7jce wrote

He invented cyberspace, not cyberpunk. The term cyberpunk comes from the title of a short story written by Bruce Bethke, in 1980, one year before William Gibson published his first work.

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crashfrog t1_itp4y8m wrote

> William Gibson literally invented the cyber punk genre.

I love William Gibson; I’ve read Neuromancer probably once a year for the past 25 years. The Peripheral is a truly tremendous work.

But Gibson didn’t “literally invent the cyberpunk genre”; Akira and Blade Runner both beat him by two years, and the word was coined by Bruce Bethke in a short story two years before those. Walter Jon Williams’ Hardwired is more responsible for the tropes of the genre (drug use, crime, cybernetic modification, hacking) and Mike Pondsmith’s Cyberpunk TTRPG, largely responsible for cyberpunk in its most popular conception, is almost a direct line-by-line data dump of things that feature in Hardwired, as much as everyone wants to act like it’s the playable version of Neuromancer.

Gibson is a hugely influential author but he’s actually kind of the edge of cyberpunk, rather than its barycenter. (On the other hand, he really is double-handedly responsible for the steampunk genre, having written The Difference Engine with Bruce Sterling.)

The Peripheral is a good, Gibsonian show for real, though.

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symitwo t1_itti4v5 wrote

I love a heavy exposition and world building opening, but sheesh.

I find myself already bored. I love Westworld, rpo, gaming in general... I love mysteries, time travel, alt future. Shit, I love Chloe in pretty much every role she plays

Can't figure out why this isn't gripping me.

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