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 '80s and they break down its 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!
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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 '80s and they break down its 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
MLOP 23: Pluto (2023)
jeudi 15 mai 2025 • Durée 01:34:07
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 '80s and they break down its 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/monalisaoverpodhttp://www.justenoughtrope.comhttp://www.instagram.com/monalisaoverpodhttps://discord.gg/7E6wUayqBuy us a coffee on Ko-Fi!https://ko-fi.com/justenoughtrope
MLOP 22: Hackers (1995)
mercredi 30 avril 2025 • Durée 01:53:40
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 '80s and they break down its 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/monalisaoverpodhttp://www.justenoughtrope.comhttp://www.instagram.com/monalisaoverpodhttps://discord.gg/7E6wUayqBuy us a coffee on Ko-Fi!https://ko-fi.com/justenoughtrope
MLOP 21: BLAME!
mercredi 16 avril 2025 • Durée 01:54:19
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 '80s and they break down its 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!
Does cyberpunk storytelling require dialogue and exposition? Even more than mainstream sci-fi, the cyberpunk genre has complicated concepts and themes it needs to communicate to the reader. But Tsutomu Nihei's BLAME! defies convention with a taciturn protagonist and a silent world. An architect by training and a mangaka by trade, Nihei lets his intricate and somber illustrations drive the story of a lone wanderer in an impossibly gargantuan and hostile space.
In this episode, we discuss how the influences that shaped Nihei's work, the somber mood created by his detailed landscapes, the manga's liminal spaces, the story's unconscious criticism of conspicuous consumption, what defines a neo-cyberpunk tale, and the permeable boundaries of transhumanism. We also talk about gettin' Biblical, "worm-infected birds", the horse snack gap, Making BLAME! Great Again, adding more shoe leather, nemotopia, OMG poststructuralism, projected negativity, original flavor DNA, Wesley and the Drug Planet, coelacanths, treks and silence, and taking a trippy-trip through a strange land!
YOU GOT BLAMED!
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
MLOP 20: Snow Crash
jeudi 3 avril 2025 • Durée 01:54:12
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 '80s and they break down its 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!
Was Snow Crash the annunciation of a new era of the cyberpunk genre or its epitaph? Upon its release in 1992, Neal Stephenson's third novel entered a literary world that had grown tired of the pessimistic speculations of tech noir fiction. The public was ready for tales of a future that promised hope and adventure, a little "high life" to go with the "high tech". Snow Crash has been lauded by contemporary critics (and tech CEOs) as a visionary, biting satire of consumerism and cyberpunk tropes in equal measure. But is Stephenson's tale of pizza-delivering hackers a postcyberpunk, postmodernist masterpiece, or is it just a bunch of babble?
In this episode, we discuss the environment into which Snow Crash was born, its comic origins, the contiguity of cyberpunk and satire, Stephenson's evolving career, postcyberpunk, the book's eerie prescience, civilization as a virus, the book's influence on our current world, and a "culture medium for a medium culture." We also talk about the Seattle of the Midwest, missing the "meme", baby luaus, doing your own research, repeating bad information, A Irony, Ed Meece bucks, commentainment, status symbol books, boomer hackers and zoomer slackers, hipster sword fights, loving a crapsack world, subverting the "punk", notes of libertarianism, "Sushi K, Tran, and the Rat Things: The Spinoff", AskJeeves+, Wikipedia OMEGA, "skipping the memo", and only reading the second part of Snow Crash?!
I love Y.T.! uh...like a little sister...
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.comhttp://www.instagram.com/monalisaoverpodhttps://discord.gg/7E6wUayqBuy us a coffee on Ko-Fi!https://ko-fi.com/justenoughtrope
MLOP 19: Bubblegum Crisis
mercredi 19 mars 2025 • Durée 01:34:59
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 '80s and they break down its 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!
Cyberpunk is not solely an American phenomenon, and even as Western works like Blade Runner and Neuromancer were releasing in the 1980s, Japan was already well on its way to becoming a wellspring of high-tech-low-life science fiction. Part Charlie's Angels, part Iron Man, and all attitude, Bubblegum Crisis exploded onto Japanese screens in 1987 to smash the glass ceiling of female representation in bad ass anime. Squealing tires and squealing guitars provide the soundtrack to this techno-thriller that prefigures the direction anime and Western animation would take for the next two decades.
In this episode, we discuss how Bubblegum Crisis came to be and why it may never be again, the cross-pollination that informed the development of cyberpunk on both sides of the Pacific, the economic conditions in Showa Japan that created the OVA boom and modern anime, putting female characters front-and-center, and the unique Japanese flavor of cyberpunk media. We also talk about ChatGPT drinking all our water, Top Gun maps, Chris Nolan: Anime Fan, getting your ball back, Lupin the Murderer, distilling liquid 1987, feminism blankets, missing the yaoi, an exoskeleton for your exoskeleton, Grimace Hulk, and it's not anime...it's HBO!
THE BABY SITUATION IS BAD!
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
MLOP 18: "Reality" in Cyberpunk
mercredi 5 mars 2025 • Durée 01:43:43
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 '80s and they break down its 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!
In our modern world of digital landscapes and virtual reality, the concept of the "real" can be as tenuous as ever. Is the Internet a real place? What does it mean that fictional characters and augmented worlds seem as real as what's outside your door? And what do we do when reality as we know it becomes optional?
In this episode, we discuss how the digital revolution put reality on trial and how "reality" as a concept is explored in cyberpunk fiction. We also talk about the abacus vs. Excel, the fall of Google, being a human AI detector, the mystery of memory and identity, editing yourself, '90s movies about reality, the way that popular media lags behind science fiction, the worlds of Philip K Dick, poopooing the woowooing, the other side of the dream, trying to get rich as a sci-fi author, horrible virtual grocery stores, how data manipulation shapes reality, getting Kojima on you, incentivizing meanness, and Making America Real Again!
Help AI help you!
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
MLOP 17: Two Truths and a Lie with Cory O'Brien
jeudi 20 février 2025 • Durée 01:34:45
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 '80s and they break down its 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!
Cyberpunk is alive and well in the 21st century and today we're talking with the author of the latest addition to the cyberpunk canon: author Cory O'Brien! In the watery streets of future LA, data is the only currency, and Infodrip fact-checker Orr Vue will find himself at the center of a twisted murder mystery that could cost him his mind, his freedom, and his life!
In this episode, we talk with Cory about the origins of the novel's premise, the connections between cyberpunk and noir fiction, the difference between 20th century and 21st century cyberpunk, the literal information economy presented in the book, the gross incompetence of our techno-overlords, how humans contextualize knowledge better than AI, the limits of current AI models, why corporations "let" you be gay, and when the aesthetic overwhelms the genre. We also talk about rogue AI, losing the "punk", stacking your demos, jealously guarding your cat pictures, monetizing fun, digital beastmastering, messing around with Eliza, the home Voight-Kampff test, William Gibson poems, making cyberpunk literally juicy, and an interruption from Alexa!
Telepathy would never work!
Pre-order Two Truths and a Lie, available March 4th! https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/741701/two-truths-and-a-lie-by-cory-obrien/
See Cory on the web! http://bettermyths.com
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.comhttp://www.instagram.com/monalisaoverpodhttps://discord.gg/7E6wUayqBuy us a coffee on Ko-Fi!https://ko-fi.com/justenoughtrope
MLOP 16: The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded
jeudi 6 février 2025 • Durée 01:54:40
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 '80s and they break down its 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!
There is movies before 1999's The Matrix, and there is movies after The Matrix and those two worlds are not the same. Into a cinematic landscape of TV adaptations, potbolier thrillers, and Oscar-bait dramas came a film that kicked open the screen doors of the public's perception and changed movie-making forever. The Matrix is so ingrained into our idea of technology and culture that it's hard to imagine its absence, but we're here to try and pick apart its contribution to culture, misunderstanding the red pill, and the film's status as the ultimate cyberpunk artifact.
In this episode, we discuss the inspirations behind the universe of the Matrix, its forebears in sci-fi and Hong Kong cinema, the trend of reality-questioning media in the 1990s, the power of the series's practical effects, the intentions of the creators, our fan theories and headcanon, and how it's ultimately a spiritual film. We also talk about "Who shot JR?", cool European AIs, high-caliber flipping, digital goulash, being more Dicky than Gibsonian, the Google Agent Smith AI, 'punkin in the '90s, Happy Meal levels of cultural penetration, Kate Moss kicking ass, fascinating straight people, killing a car with a sword, and a heist PLUS a rave cave?!
Matthew Lillard is the One!
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
MLOP 15: Brazil (1985)
mercredi 25 décembre 2024 • Durée 01:36:01
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 '80s and they break down its 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!
Christmas is a time of good cheer and goodwill to all, while cyberpunk presents a world of grimness and the brutality of institutions towards the individual. So, clearly, there's no such thing as a cyberpunk Christmas story, right? Enter Brazil, the terrifyingly funny film by Terry Gilliam that takes 1984 and places it squarely in the middle of British fascist Christmas. Gilliam milks humor from the absurd degradations of an oppressive society, all while highlighting the techno-fetishism and enforced consumption that substitute for human connection in the world of the film and often our own.
In this episode, we discuss the origins of Brazil as a film, the story's parallels with other Christmas tales, the enforced consumption of a cyberpunk society, the influence of Brave New World and 1984 on the film, the radical act of giving away labor, Tom Cruise?, fascism's banal ideologies, commoditizing art, and becoming immune to satire. We also talk about being charged for your own interrogation, being iffy on Gilliam, weird baby people, medium ball questions, dumb frogs, Robert de Niro fixing your pipes, the implication of corn, getting distracted by the hamster, and skeeting in the right way!
Consumers for Christ!
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/v8NC3JMR
Buy us a coffee on Ko-Fi! https://ko-fi.com/justenoughtrope
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