DoctorNick said:
Hiro Protagonist of Snow Crash.
I mean, how can you go wrong with a name like that?
My vote also.
It's also actual Cyberpunk, as opposed to simply "Dark Future". In most cases some of the stuff referanced here neither has any kind of actual cybernetics involved, or any connection conceptually or otherwise to the 1980s punk movement.
I'm not sure if I'd consider Phillip K. Dick's work remotely Cyberpunk. Sure he writes about dystopian futures, but again I can't think of any actual cyborgs being involved, or any dudes walking around in leopard print tights with purple mohawks (or whatever).
Now William Gibson, and George Alec Effinger, they are Cyberpunk.
Despite being set in an Arabic Ghetto, Effinger's "Marid" books like "When Gravity Fails" feature some definate 80s stylings among the various dancers and such mentioned, as well as cybernetics being the point of the entire storyline with the protaganist and bad guy both having digital computers in their heads into which they implant synthetic personalities, oftentimes based on fictional characters. So basically you have a killer running around running a program that makes him Jack The Ripper, and the hero might say slot a chip that turns him into James Bond and similar things... it gets fairly trippy. The repercussions of technology like this is arguably what the story is about as much as the actual detective vs. murderer plotline.
William Gibson doesn't need much introduction I wouldn't think. ;P
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It's a pet peeve of mine, but as I was a little kid in the 1980s and sort of looked up to punk since it's what all the "Rebels" were doing at the time, I kind of prefer it if people restrain the impulse (especially in the mass media) to tack "Punk" onto the end of anything that want to make seem cool. It referances something very specific. Just because your dealing with 1890s retro futurism does not make something "Steampunk", just because your dealing with a depressing, dystopian future, does not make something "Cyberpunk".
Ironically I'd doubt most people who toss around the word "cyberpunk" have even seen the handfull of "Max Headroom" episodes that were produced. Edison Carter's buddy from "Big Time TV" that occasionally saves his butt? Characters like that combined with the idea of the hero competing with a VI (Virtual Intelligence) based on himself are what make that Cyberpunk. It occasionally appears for free on various internet sites, if you want to learn about Cyberpunk for real start there.
Incidently Edison Carter would have probably been my second choice.
