SOURCE: “Skating Across Cyberpunk's Brave New Worlds: An Interview with Lewis Shiner” in Critique, Vol. XXXIII, No. 3, Spring, 1992, pp. 177-96.

In the following interview, Shiner and McCaffery discuss cyberpunk, skatepunk, and post-industrialism.

You can't sit around and cry because they cut down some trees and pave everything. Concrete is radical. Concrete is the future. You don't cry about it, you skate on it.

These words are spoken by Bobby, a teenage skatepunk in Lewis Shiner's 1990 novel, Slam. Bobby is commenting about the whining attitude of his dad—and, presumably, of other well-meaning, goodie-goodie 1960s exhippie types—who express concern about the ongoing encroachment of cold, hard concrete (read: technology/artifice) into the green, nurturing world of nature. Bobby's comments perfectly encapsulate cyberpunk philosophy—a view combining a matter-of-fact acceptance that technology has irrevocably transformed our world together with a cocky assurance that individuals possessing enough know-how can ride...