page_title: Science fiction
section_title: Cyberpunk
hierarchical_section_title: Science fiction / Different styles of science fiction / Cyberpunk
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo of the plastic grating on Watson’s book DNA (from another angle, it shows a bee on yellow flowers). It was a great honor to have him sign it at The Future of Life conference. Here’s a photo of Watson now, and as a 24 years old… when his two hour brainstorm with Crick changed the world.
context_page_description: Science fiction is a kind of writing. Science fiction stories can be novels, movies, TV shows, video games, comic books and other literature.
  SF is often about the future. It can be about imaginary new science and inventions such as spaceships, time machines, and robots. Science fiction stories are often in a world that is very different from the real world. They can have science and tools that do not exist in reality. Science fiction stories often take place on other worlds. There are often alien creatures.
  Science fiction is drastically different from fantasy. Fantasy stories often have magic and other things that do not exist and are not science. Isaac Asimov was a famous science fiction writer. He once said that science fiction is possible, but fantasy is not.
  Writers often use SF to explain everyday questions or problems by putting them in the future. Usually they invent a very different world to help people notice important ideas.
context_section_description: Cyberpunk began in the early 1980s. Bruce Bethke used this word as the title for a short story in 1980 by putting together two words: "cybernetics" and "punk". Soon, people used this word to describe William Gibson's book, Neuromancer. Cyberpunk authors can put their stories in different settings. Stories usually take place in the near-future and the settings are often dystopian (characterized by misery). These are often societies with very advanced technology. A few huge corporations usually control the society. Another early cyberpunk novel that has become a classic is Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.
caption: Advanced technology under corporate control
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