THE CYBERPUNK AESTHETIC IN NEAL ASHER’S LITERARY UNIVERSE: AN ANALYTICAL EXPLORATION OF THE POLITY CHRONICLES
Keywords:
Neal Asher, cyberpunk aesthetics, science fiction literature, Polity chronicles, posthuman theory, human-machine dialectics, generic hybridity.Abstract
This study investigates how cyberpunk’s unique stylistic language appears in Neal Asher’s Polity series analyzing the writer’s adaptation of cyberpunk’s core components and their transformation within the storytelling frameworks of space opera. Utilizing qualitative, textual, and interpretative methods in combination with perspectives sourced from genre analysis, this research identifies three principal cyberpunk aspects: the extensive fusion of human bodies with technological networks controlling political regimes governed by artificial intelligence and the disruption of personal identity, via technological change. The analysis reveals that Asher’s interaction with cyberpunk goes beyond stylistic imitation, serving instead as an intricate critical tool for exploring posthuman identity and the progression of techno-culture. The results highlight how Asher’s blending of genres creates a literary form that both conjures cosmic grandeur and captures cyberpunk’s typical unease, about the omnipresence of technology, thus broadening the scope of modern speculative fiction.
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