Oh jeez, not Keanu R-- oh, it's a book too.

Johnny Mnemonic.

So as the title of the article might lead you to believe, when I google searched "Johnny Mnemonic", the first result was a movie. This lead me to a movie trailer and, eventually, Keanu Reeves. This... did not make me very enthusiastic about delving into the tale. I was saved, though, by a youtube comment that wondered how the movie had ruined the book for him. "A book, you say?" I wondered to myself. "I'll take it." Thus began my short trip into the world of William Gibson and the Sprawl.

First impressions walking away from it: I definitely enjoyed what I saw, and am looking forward to reading more into "The Sprawl Trilogy" at a later date. Cyberpunk isn't a genre that I frequently get into, but I'm not really sure why that is. I normally enjoy what I see, and it's quite often a refreshing change from my normal regimen of contemporary fantasy and space operas. One of my favorite shows, actually, is arguably of the Cyberpunk genre, and its similarity to Gibson's universe is certainly one of the primary reasons that I enjoyed it so much.

The show, Batman Beyond, was something that I regularly looked forward to when I came home from school as a child. And while the protagonist wasn't a traditional Cyberpunk heroine, being a troubled teenaged boy with Batman's arsenal at his disposal, I think that you could pretty easily qualify it as a work of the genre in question. The first similarity that I noticed was the commonality of body modification amongst the public. Also, the story took place in a future that felt more like a warped, gritty, and immediate future like that of "Johnny Mnemonic", as opposed to a distant and fantastic future like that of Star Trek. And strong female characters? Sheesh, I can't actually think of a female character in Batman Beyond that wasn't strong-willed and just as important (much more so in some cases) as any male character. Hell, there's even a woman with a monomolecular sword in Batman Beyond; paired with the fact that its wielder is a woman, I could argue that said monomolecular blade is even more Cyberpunk-y than Gibson's yakuza assassin.

Anyway, all in all this story turned out to be an eye opener for me. Not in the sense that I had an epiphany on what I should do with my life, but just an interesting realization about what I appreciate in the world of fiction. It was thought-provoking to imagine that just days ago I couldn't tell you Cyberpunk from Space Opera, but now I see I've been appreciating the world of Cyberpunk from afar for far longer than I'd ever thought!

--William Avery