Welcome to Mona Lisa Overpod, the show that asks the question "What is cyberpunk?" On each episode, hosts Ka1iban and author Lyda Morehouse dive into the genre that helped define sci-fi fiction in the '80s and break down the themes which remain relevant to our lives in the 21st century. Pull on your mirrorshades, jack into the matrix, and start your run with us today!

William Gibson's Neuromancer crystallized--if not created--the burgeoning genre of cyberpunk and he's been running from that label ever since. The sequel to his debut novel presents an expansion of his singular and evocative cyberpunk world, following the experiences and actions of a trio of protagonists, caught up in a globe-spanning conflict between the human forces of capital and the nascent and puissant influence of mysterious cyberspace "gods." Not content to simply replicate the noir-tinged heist of his first work, Gibson shows us an increasingly chaotic world where class is an identity, art is a commodity, and human ingenuity is on borrowed time.

In this episode, we discuss Gibson's inspirations behind Count Zero and his views on art, the limits of iconoclasty, how science fiction requires precision in metaphor, "Japonification" in cyberpunk, updating the Cold War for the 21st century, the flawed heroes of cyberpunk, literal ghosts in the machine, technology as a tool for immortality, and the fusion of the technical and the traditional in Gibson's work. We also talk about "spyberpunk", asking the ceiling for the answer, "higherly", being a mercury-filled spider, "Heinleining", going biopunk, villains touching grass, money as its own AI, fetal VR soap opera syndrome, reducing your motherf*cker count, being invited to the voodoo cookout, the importance of Joseph Cornell to Gibson's work, cyber colonialism, protagonist energy, and Kal goes after millennials!

CHAPTER 14?!

NEWS UPDATE: Anthropic settles!
https://www.theverge.com/news/766311/anthropic-class-action-ai-piracy-authors-settlement

The new edition of Lyda's book, Ressurection Code, is out now!
https://wizardstowerpress.com/books-2/books-by-lyda-morehouse/resurrection-code/

Join Kaliban on Twitch weekdays at 12pm for the Cyber Lunch Hour!
http://twitch.tv/justenoughtrope

Put Just Enough Trope merch on your body!
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MLOP is a part of the Just Enough Trope podcast network. Check out our other shows about your favorite pop culture topics and join our Discord!
http://www.twitter.com/monalisaoverpod
http://www.justenoughtrope.com
http://www.instagram.com/monalisaoverpod
https://discord.gg/7E6wUayq

Buy us a coffee on Ko-Fi!
https://ko-fi.com/justenoughtrope

Welcome to Mona Lisa Overpod, the show that asks the question "What is cyberpunk?" On each episode, hosts Ka1iban and author Lyda Morehouse dive into the genre that helped define sci-fi fiction in the '80s and break down the themes which remain relevant to our lives in the 21st century. Pull on your mirrorshades, jack into the matrix, and start your run with us today!

Dense cityscapes, exotic fashions, humans sharing the streets with robots and cyborgs...the visual aspects of cyberpunk worlds are readily detectable and typically anticipated by the average sci-fi consumer. But the Blade Runners and Neuromancers and tech noir tales of science fiction owe their most anticipated signifiers to a seldom discussed comic story created by two titans of genre fiction and published in a broadly influential magazine that created from whole cloth the genre we think of as "Cyberpunk".
 
In this episode, we discuss The Long Tomorrow and the story of its creators' collaboration, the powerful influence of Metal Hurlant and Heavy Metal on 1970s science fiction, the heady combination of the bandes dessinées art style and American noir, Moebius's arresting creations and Dan O'Bannon's fertile imagination, and whether or not cyberpunk is a matured genre. We also talk about the "cyberpunk purity test", bromine poisoning, hi-tech Furbies, #RIPAOL, "older brother magazines", the Shinders backroom right of passage, Moebius FM, Jodorowsky's Dune, cultural dandelions, sex panels, the first cyberpunk POC main character, tempered edgelordiness, the leveling effect of streaming on culture, and The Bonfire of the Vanities gets a beatdown!

Le pied?

NEWS UPDATE: Anthropic settles!
https://www.theverge.com/news/766311/anthropic-class-action-ai-piracy-authors-settlement

Check out the totally real(?) Long Tomorrow TV pitch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvKj_kYTMuk

The new edition of Lyda's book, Ressurection Code, is out now!
https://wizardstowerpress.com/books-2/books-by-lyda-morehouse/resurrection-code/

Join Kaliban on Twitch weekdays at 12pm for the Cyber Lunch Hour!
http://twitch.tv/justenoughtrope

Put Just Enough Trope merch on your body!
http://justenoughtrope.threadless.com

MLOP is a part of the Just Enough Trope podcast network. Check out our other shows about your favorite pop culture topics and join our Discord!
http://www.twitter.com/monalisaoverpod
http://www.justenoughtrope.com
http://www.instagram.com/monalisaoverpod
https://discord.gg/7E6wUayq

Buy us a coffee on Ko-Fi!
https://ko-fi.com/justenoughtrope

Welcome to Mona Lisa Overpod, the show that asks the question "What is cyberpunk?" On each episode, hosts Ka1iban and author Lyda Morehouse dive into the genre that helped define sci-fi fiction in the '80s and break down the themes which remain relevant to our lives in the 21st century. Pull on your mirrorshades, jack into the matrix, and start your run with us today!

The first Matrix film revolutionized the world of sci-fi action films and its sequel amped up the spectacle and nearly doubled the box office returns. So, when The Matrix Revolutions premiered in October 2003, audiences expected a pulse-pounding conclusion to the trilogy. What they got instead was a film more concerned about bringing completion to its deeply contemplated philosophical themes than providing an apocalypse of kung fu. Fast forward 18 years, and history repeats itself, as The Matrix Resurrections hits theaters (and HBO Max) and once again subverts expectations, as a filmmaker attempts to comment on the legacy of her work and how it changed the way we view the modern blockbuster.
 
In this episode, we discuss the two "bad" Matrix films and their impact on culture, the full court press of the 00's Matrix franchise, the way in which the philosophy of the series informs its action, the impossible task of encoring The Matrix, the fourth film's trans identity and its rebuke of internet culture, how getting older changes an artist, and why our choices may be illusions. We also talk about bad faith censorship, Agent Smith's invisible hand, believing in government the French Revolution way, getting Lockblocked, Big Baby God, the "Jaws" of '99, crappy cable-knit sweater world, kicking and causality, your boss is a dick robot, caring about the Sense8 gang, coming for Tolstoy, the suspenders of disbelief, skipping Tom Bombadil, noodle moments, and unlikeable kids!

Oops! I'm a rock guy!

Sign the petition to send a message to Itch.io!
https://www.change.org/p/tell-mastercard-visa-activist-groups-stop-controlling-what-we-can-watch-read-or-play

The new edition of Lyda's book, Ressurection Code, is out now!
https://wizardstowerpress.com/books-2/books-by-lyda-morehouse/resurrection-code/

Join Kaliban on Twitch weekdays at 12pm for the Cyber Lunch Hour!
http://twitch.tv/justenoughtrope

Put Just Enough Trope merch on your body!
http://justenoughtrope.threadless.com

MLOP is a part of the Just Enough Trope podcast network. Check out our other shows about your favorite pop culture topics and join our Discord!
http://www.twitter.com/monalisaoverpod
http://www.justenoughtrope.com
http://www.instagram.com/monalisaoverpod
https://discord.gg/7E6wUayq

Buy us a coffee on Ko-Fi!
https://ko-fi.com/justenoughtrope

Welcome to Mona Lisa Overpod, the show that asks the question "What is cyberpunk?" On each episode, hosts Ka1iban and author Lyda Morehouse dive into the genre that helped define sci-fi fiction in the '80s and break down the themes which remain relevant to our lives in the 21st century. Pull on your mirrorshades, jack into the matrix, and start your run with us today!

Before Netflix, before the Matrix, before Y2K, the viewing public of the late 20th century knew that computers would be important in the future, somehow, and Hollywood studios scrambled to try and produce TV shows and films that capitalized on and read into that unexplored digital frontier. The result was a 1990s that was awash with stories about how the Internet would change everything, from Keanu Reeves having an 80GB brain implant to Sandra Bullock ordering a pizza...from her computer! (gasp!) Most of these efforts followed the template established by the authors of the early Cyberpunk movement, providing paranoiac thrillers in the style of William Gibson. But one series broke from that mold to attempt to integrate the technothrills of tomorrow with the soapy, prime-time thrills of today: Wild Palms.
 
In this episode, we discuss the "weirdness" of '90s TV and the long shot that was the series' production, the viability of cyberpunk soap opera, the complicated alchemy of going off the TV formula, the intersection of culture and fame in LA, the chilling parallels between Wild Palms and our new millennium, human weakness in the face of technology's temptations, subverting the "Blade Runner aesthetic", how media is used to control us, and what cyberpunk tells us about the media's affect on culture. We also talk about Nazi gas-lighting robots, grading the Turing test on a curve, Stacked Clippy, Brisco County Jr., future = Edwardian collars, Cyberpunk Jim Belushi, postmodern law firms, not understanding your mantra, Patriots vs. Quakers vs. Solid Snake, the tacky harbinger of the Apocalypse, writing off into the sunset, and cyberpunk vampires!

Hitler, take the wheel!

The new edition of Lyda's book, Ressurection Code, is out now!
https://wizardstowerpress.com/books-2/books-by-lyda-morehouse/resurrection-code/

Join Kaliban on Twitch weekdays at 12pm for the Cyber Lunch Hour!
http://twitch.tv/justenoughtrope

Put Just Enough Trope merch on your body!
http://justenoughtrope.threadless.com

MLOP is a part of the Just Enough Trope podcast network. Check out our other shows about your favorite pop culture topics and join our Discord!
http://www.twitter.com/monalisaoverpod
http://www.justenoughtrope.com
http://www.instagram.com/monalisaoverpod
https://discord.gg/7E6wUayq

Buy us a coffee on Ko-Fi!
https://ko-fi.com/justenoughtrope

Welcome to Mona Lisa Overpod, the show that asks the question "What is cyberpunk?" On each episode, hosts Ka1iban and author Lyda Morehouse dive into the genre that helped define sci-fi fiction in the '80s and break down the themes which remain relevant to our lives in the 21st century. Pull on your mirrorshades, jack into the matrix, and start your run with us today!

Comic books haven't been kids stuff for decades, but in the early 1980s the rise of the direct market model of comics distribution combined with social turmoil to inspire creators to explore darker, more relevant themes on the comic page. One prominent work from the early Modern Age of Comics is Howard Chaykin's American Flagg!, a scattershot futuristic satire where forcibly retired porn actor Reuben Flagg is drafted into the Plexus Rangers, a corporate police force that protects the residential megamalls of a blasted America from the vicious GoGangs that cycle through the detritus of civilization. When Flagg is shown that the Plex may not be the benevolent dictatorship it advertises itself as, he'll have to choose between defending the status quo and fighting to reinitiate the experiment that was the American Dream.
 
In this episode, we discuss Chaykin's oeuvre and his self-assured visual style, the enduring influence of the pulps on cyberpunk, the mature appeal of the indie comics market, making excuses for your utopia, reframing the political chaos of the '80s in fiction, the misinterpretation of satirical characters by audiences, wallowing in cultural acceleration, the drawbacks to political syncretism, satirizing political heterodoxy, and the limits of the effectiveness of ridiculousness. We also talk about baby edgelords, "Kal saying, 'I didn't like this'", too much Frank Miller talk, loving zip-a-tone, the sesame chicken of social commentary, cat thumbs, sexual copaganda, 3-minute gigolo, being haunted by Harlan Ellison, Nazi Democrats, spaghetti on every wall, "theme cop", relying on white men for representation, and TWO Birth of a Nation references?!

Because of continued success, we've failed!

8-Bit "Fortunate Son" composed by MartinGuinz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=zVOu7am2_qo

The new edition of Lyda's book, Ressurection Code, is out now!
https://wizardstowerpress.com/books-2/books-by-lyda-morehouse/resurrection-code/

Join Kaliban on Twitch weekdays at 12pm for the Cyber Lunch Hour!
http://twitch.tv/justenoughtrope

Put Just Enough Trope merch on your body!
http://justenoughtrope.threadless.com

MLOP is a part of the Just Enough Trope podcast network. Check out our other shows about your favorite pop culture topics and join our Discord!
http://www.twitter.com/monalisaoverpod
http://www.justenoughtrope.com
http://www.instagram.com/monalisaoverpod
https://discord.gg/7E6wUayq

Buy us a coffee on Ko-Fi!
https://ko-fi.com/justenoughtrope

Welcome to Mona Lisa Overpod, the show that asks the question "What is cyberpunk?" On each episode, hosts Ka1iban and author Lyda Morehouse dive into the genre that helped define sci-fi fiction in the '80s and break down the themes which remain relevant to our lives in the 21st century. Pull on your mirrorshades, jack into the matrix, and start your run with us today!

Too often in early cyberpunk stories, the protagonist was male, straight, and white, and people of color, women, and non-cis and non-het characters were set dressing or perhaps worse...tragic victims. Sci-fi and fantasy author Melissa Scott helped kick off cyberpunk's second wave with her novel Trouble and Her Friends, a techno-thriller set in a future besieged by corporate oligarchs and governmental overreach, with protagonists who are discriminated against for their embrace of new invasive hacking technologies, as well as for their gender and their choice of lovers. Trouble and Her Friends was published at a time when the imminent gains made by LGBTQ and other marginalized groups seemed impossible, and prefigured many of the struggles queer people still face today in virtual spaces.

In this episode, we talk with Melissa about the origins of TAHF, the novel's still relevant themes, the essential "criminality" of cyberpunk, the endpoint of our technological drives, looking at the future through the lens of the past, the "closed shop" of the early Movement, how digital literacy has changed cyberpunk fiction, the concessions you make to live in a society, the multifaceted metaphor at the book's core, and why optimism is required to write science fiction. We also talk about data tourism and body solidarity, making Voyager up as you go, who owns the Internet, making cyberspace sensual, hacking intersectionality, emotional support puppies, making things "political" in cyberpunk, building your own Internet, rural cyberpunk, social engineering an AI, and a definitive answer on how much space you can have in your cyberpunk story.

We're dangerously close to a The Postman situation!

Catch Melissa on the Web!
https://www.melissascottwrites.com

Get an armload of great LGBTQ sci-fi books with StoryBundle Pride 2025!
https://storybundle.com/pride

Join Kaliban on Twitch weekdays at 12pm for the Cyber Lunch Hour!
http://twitch.tv/justenoughtrope

Put Just Enough Trope merch on your body!
http://justenoughtrope.threadless.com

MLOP is a part of the Just Enough Trope podcast network. Check out our other shows about your favorite pop culture topics and join our Discord!
http://www.twitter.com/monalisaoverpod
http://www.justenoughtrope.com
http://www.instagram.com/monalisaoverpod
https://discord.gg/7E6wUayq

Buy us a coffee on Ko-Fi!
https://ko-fi.com/justenoughtrope

Welcome to Mona Lisa Overpod, the show that asks the question "What is cyberpunk?" On each episode, hosts Ka1iban and author Lyda Morehouse dive into the genre that helped define sci-fi fiction in the '80s and break down the themes which remain relevant to our lives in the 21st century. Pull on your mirrorshades, jack into the matrix, and start your run with us today!

For a sci-fi author known for his dense and trippy short stories, Philip K Dick has had a surprising amount of breezy action movies made from his work. Chief among those adaptations is Total Recall, the Arnold Schwarzenegger-starring, Paul Verhoven-directed film that injects visceral thrills into the ontological puzzle box of Dick's original short story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale". Total Recall presents a ebullient but deadly world of spies in space, but under the fun lie deep questions about the the nature of reailty and whether we can choose who we really are. And yes, it's got a lady with three breasts in it.
 
In this episode, we discuss interfacing with Dick through his adaptations, the way his work conflates memory and identity, entry-level mindfuckery, Verhoven's mastery of American satire, the film's exploration of colonialism in space, the persistence of the male narrative in cyberpunk, Barsoom and Red Mars, trusting your educated audience, and why Schwarzenegger is the perfect everyspaceman. We also talk about the science of Marvel fatigue, the Thin Graphite Line, gritty undertones and raw emotional subtext, asking if the kids know Arnold, a Dick deep dive, Regarding Henry, smartly dumb films, Mars as a projection screen, "pantsing", a Italo Calvino nightmare, the World Wide Coffee Klatsch, and vampires are so hot right now (and later).

I wish I had three ears!

The new edition of Lyda's book, Ressurection Code, is out now!
https://wizardstowerpress.com/books-2/books-by-lyda-morehouse/resurrection-code/

Join Kaliban on Twitch weekdays at 12pm for the Cyber Lunch Hour!
http://twitch.tv/justenoughtrope

Put Just Enough Trope merch on your body!
http://justenoughtrope.threadless.com

MLOP is a part of the Just Enough Trope podcast network. Check out our other shows about your favorite pop culture topics and join our Discord!
http://www.twitter.com/monalisaoverpod
http://www.justenoughtrope.com
http://www.instagram.com/monalisaoverpod
https://discord.gg/7E6wUayq

Buy us a coffee on Ko-Fi!
https://ko-fi.com/justenoughtrope

Welcome to Mona Lisa Overpod, the show that asks the question "What is cyberpunk?" On each episode, hosts Ka1iban and author Lyda Morehouse dive into the genre that helped define sci-fi fiction in the '80s and break down the themes which remain relevant to our lives in the 21st century. Pull on your mirrorshades, jack into the matrix, and start your run with us today!

Humans: can't live with them...can't kill them all because you need their TV shows. Martha Wells's The Murderbot Diaries series of novels and novellas stars the titular "bot", a well-armed cyborg who has hacked its restraining bolt, but will be scrapped on sight if its freedom is discovered. The award-winning series is an thrilling interstellar cyberromp, but what deeper things does it have to say about security, capital, identity, and life for the leashed?
 
In this episode, we discuss Murderbot's explosion onto the literary scene, the series's uniquely unreliable protagonist, the panoptic dystopia that's becoming all too familiar, living as a robotic underclass, how Wells's own fandom influenced the series, emotional antagonists, and the importance of seeing yourself in media even if you're a killer robot. We also talk about building your own Voight-Kampff test, reading hot and fresh sci-fi, "being a paladin", keeping your robot slaves down, telempathy and reverse cyborgs, visualizing leaking, explaining your fandom to your humans, honoring the social contract with a robot, spying for "work", millennial robots, Metabot, and the importance of data security in your universe!

RIP to Peter David, Writer of Stuff. Please consider supporting Peter's wife Kathleen at this time:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-peter-david

The new edition of Lyda's book, Ressurection Code, is out now!
https://wizardstowerpress.com/books-2/books-by-lyda-morehouse/resurrection-code/

Join Kaliban on Twitch weekdays at 12pm for the Cyber Lunch Hour!
http://twitch.tv/justenoughtrope

MLOP is a part of the Just Enough Trope podcast network. Check out our other shows about your favorite pop culture topics and join our Discord!
http://www.twitter.com/monalisaoverpod
http://www.justenoughtrope.com
http://www.instagram.com/monalisaoverpod
https://discord.gg/wB9gWyUU8M

Put Just Enough Trope merch on your body!
http://justenoughtrope.threadless.com

Buy us a coffee on Ko-Fi!
https://ko-fi.com/justenoughtrope

Welcome to Mona Lisa Overpod, the show that asks the question "What is cyberpunk?" On each episode, hosts Ka1iban and author Lyda Morehouse dive into the genre that helped define sci-fi fiction in the '80s and break down the themes which remain relevant to our lives in the 21st century. Pull on your mirrorshades, jack into the matrix, and start your run with us today!

Japanese manga, American comics, anime and western cartoons all owe an unpayable debt to Osamu Tezuka and his greatest creation Astro Boy. Astro (or Atom's) adventures were brisk and often silly, but they would subtly comment on more adult topics like discrimination, war, and moral ambiguity. Naoki Urasawa is mangaka who was heavily inspired by Tezuka's work, and in 2003 he released Pluto, an eight-volume mini-series that that took a deeper, darker look at the world of Astro Boy. When both humans and robots are being murdered by a shadowy killer, robot cop Gesicht will need to assemble the pieces of the mystery, as the potential victims try to reassemble their war-torn and shattered lives.
 
In this episode, we discuss how both Tezuka's and Urasawa's styles reflect their respective eras, compare modern western comics and gekiga, lying as a signifier of sentience, the manga's restaging of the 2003 Iraq war and its depiction of PTSD and survivor's guilt. the families built by both humans and robots in the story, the subtle apartheid present in Astro's world, robots as people as commodities, Asimov's laws as guidleines and not rules, and becoming just "human" enough to kill. We also talk about fresh Shrimp Jesus, larcenous typography, Will Prompt Engineer For Food, being lodged in the canon, hitting on the robot nose, no Aibo left behind, The Killing of a Rest Stop Robot, dating your Roomba, machine gun butts, and the REAL reason Pluto has horns!

Hurt robots hurt robots.

The new edition of Lyda's book, Ressurection Code, is out now!
https://wizardstowerpress.com/books-2/books-by-lyda-morehouse/resurrection-code/

Read the saga of the "Download a Car" font!
https://www.404media.co/tag/xband/

Join Kaliban on Twitch weekdays at 12pm for the Cyber Lunch Hour!
http://twitch.tv/justenoughtrope

Put Just Enough Trope merch on your body!
http://justenoughtrope.threadless.com

MLOP is a part of the Just Enough Trope podcast network. Check out our other shows about your favorite pop culture topics and join our Discord!
http://www.twitter.com/monalisaoverpod
http://www.justenoughtrope.com
http://www.instagram.com/monalisaoverpod
https://discord.gg/7E6wUayq

Buy us a coffee on Ko-Fi!
https://ko-fi.com/justenoughtrope

Welcome to Mona Lisa Overpod, the show that asks the question "What is cyberpunk?" On each episode, hosts Ka1iban and author Lyda Morehouse dive into the genre that helped define sci-fi fiction in the '80s and break down the themes which remain relevant to our lives in the 21st century. Pull on your mirrorshades, jack into the matrix, and start your run with us today!

With the explosion of technology-related media and the ubiquity of personal data devices in the 21st century, it's hard to remember the great fear and trepidation that accompanied the early appearance of the personal computer. For years, our industrial world was concrete and legible...and suddenly you were getting paid by computer and you could order a pizza on the internet. The technopriests of the early Digital Age were the hackers, feared and admired equally for their mastery of the archane pathways that now ruled our daily lives. But were they nefarious brigands who sought to steal your wealth and erase your identity. Or did they just want to rollerblade, man?
 
In this episode, we discuss how 1995's Hackers arrived both too late for the heyday of the demonization of phreakers and code kids and too early to be appreciated for its impressively insightful look at the quickly accelerating pace of late 20th century technosocial advancement. The crime of curiosity was no crime at all for young and savvy hackers who just wanted to understand the foundations of our new technological edifices, and what better guides than Jonny Lee Miller and Angelina Jolie? We also talk about relapsing on Star Trek, sulfur credits, keyword: Paradise, hackers as protagonists, going through all the thresholds, 1995 as hacker cinema year zero, evolving from nerd to style icon, DOS war stories, Operation Sun Devil, payphone selfies, the SWAT team in your neighborhood, doing a Superman III, the fabled Hackers 2, and the Phantom Phreak!

We're HERE for the rollerblading!

The new edition of Lyda's book, Ressurection Code, is out now!
https://wizardstowerpress.com/books-2/books-by-lyda-morehouse/resurrection-code/

Join Kaliban on Twitch weekdays at 12pm for the Cyber Lunch Hour!
http://twitch.tv/justenoughtrope

Put Just Enough Trope merch on your body!
http://justenoughtrope.threadless.com

MLOP is a part of the Just Enough Trope podcast network. Check out our other shows about your favorite pop culture topics and join our Discord!
http://www.twitter.com/monalisaoverpod
http://www.justenoughtrope.com
http://www.instagram.com/monalisaoverpod
https://discord.gg/7E6wUayq

Buy us a coffee on Ko-Fi!
https://ko-fi.com/justenoughtrope