In association with my reading of Bernard Wolfe’s post-apocalyptic, proto-cyberpunk, Limbo, I’ve run across a few fun links:
Cyberpunk and Cyberculture: Science Fiction and the Work of William Gibson by Dani Cavallaro (PDF):
In contemporary western and westernized cultures, people are sur- rounded by an increasingly wide range of tangible products that seem to impart a sense of solidity to their lives. Objects such as mobile phones, computers, portable physiotherapy units, personal stereos, microwave ovens, video recorders and fax machines (to mention but a few examples) are integral components of many people’s everyday existence. Often, they are regarded not merely as useful tools for the accomplishment of practical tasks but actually as defining aspects of people’s identities, lifestyles and value systems. They thus become comparable to prostheses, the artificial supports used by medical technology to complete otherwise lacking physical organisms.
“Cyberpunk 101”, Richard Kadrey and Larry McCaffery (PDF)
“From Hyphen to Splice: Cybernetic Syntax in Limbo”
In Bernard Wolfe’s Limbo, the 1952 novel that has become an underground classic, anxiety about boundaries becomes acute. Like Wiener, by whom he was deeply influenced, Wolfe recognized the revolutionary potential of cybernetics to reconfigure bodies. Also like Wiener, he tried unsuccessfully to contain that potential, fearing that if it went too far it may threaten the autonomy of the (male) liberal subject. Abrasive, outrageous, transgressive, frustratingly misogynistic and occasionally brilliant, Limbo rarely leaves its readers feeling neutral. David Samuelson ranks it with Brave New World and 1984 as one of the three great dystopian novels of the century. [1] At the other end of the spectrum are readers (including some of my students) who see it as remarkable mostly for its egregious sexism and tendentious argument. Whatever one’s view of Limbo’s literary value, it is clear that the text is powerfully marked by the turn to a post-World War II cybernetic economy of information and simulacra.
A review of Limbo from the Box of Paperbacks Book Club – the paperbacks in the box are vintage sci-fi, so you’ll want to do some digging around the site.

It took me a while to get through Limbo and it’s going to take me a while to forget it. First published in 1952, it’s been out of print since the ’80s and now seems to be one of those novels that only five people or so read a year but all five of them declare it brilliant. I’m not going to go that far, yet. But it’s sticking with me in ways I had not anticipated. (Then again, the Fergie song “Clumsy” is also sticking with me, but that doesn’t make it good.)
The Finch and Pea 