Mona Lisa Overpod – Details, episodes & analysis

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

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/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 '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, culturally, is as much about style as it is about theme, and every good scene needs a soundtrack. But what exactly constitutes cyberpunk music? What BPM correctly communicates "down with the corpos"? Can you make cyberpunk music with analog instruments? And how does Michael Sembello fit into all of this?
 
In this episode, we discuss the evolution of electronic music and the "cyberpunk sound", its roots in the punk movement and early electronica, the balance between composition and theme, the importance of "feel", defining an art form through constraints, and we ask whether or not "cyberpunk music" is a living genre. We also talk about dead Aibos, Dexy's = not cyberpunk, tapepunk, the trans history of synthesized music, Krautrock, how Blade Runner DIDN'T influence cyberpunk music, cyber-meetings with Timothy Leary, the Suck Fairy, synthwave and the Desert of the Real, the non-cyberpunk Matrik soundtrack, and how cyberpunk music looks back to look forward.

"If you have exceptions, you do have a rule." - Lyda Morehouse

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/49bzqdpBpx

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 '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 meets space opera (and soap opera) in the 1995 anime OVA Macross Plus, a continuation of the original 1983 Macross series! Isamu and Guld are childhood friends turned professional rivals who are who are pushing their bodies and their Veritechs to the limit for an experimental aircraft competition. When they are abruptly reunited with their mutual former flame Myung, the trio will be drawn into a deadly game of killer AIs, insane virtual idols, and deadly resentments!
 
In this episode, we discuss the tortured history of the Macross franchise both domestically and abroad, the subtle complexity of anime storytelling, the reality of virtual entertainers and generative AI in the arts, the dubious connection between art and trauma, the strengths of anime as a storytelling medium, and the real-world application of machine learning in war. We also talk about furries and cyberpunk, machines hacking us, kicking the robot dog, humans failing the Turing test, the "Itano Circus", being a wysiwyg guy, red oni vs. blue oni, ending a war with a song, being fluent in Zentraedi, John Henry B/23, art about art, and the "curious" parallels between Macross Plus and Top Gun: Maverick!

The Star Wars Trilogy is an OVA!

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/49bzqdpBpx

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 '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!

Just in time for Halloween *cough* we're talking about a selection of spooky short stories of the cyberpunk persuasion. As a sub-genre of science fiction, cyberpunk generally lacks the ghouls and ghosts of fantasy and horror storytelling. But does that mean it can't be scary and if it is, what are the unique sorced of fear in dread in cyberpunk fiction?

In this episode, we discuss the short stories 400 Boys by Marc Laidlaw, Talk to Your Children About Two-Tongued Jeremy by Theodore McCombs, Glass Reptile Breakout by Russell Blackford, and Personal Trainer by Meg Ellison. We also talk about Troll vs. Alien vs. Predator, liking that people like things, how writing is like gardening, the creeping dread of technological advancement, being under-read in cyberpunk, the importance of atmosphere to horror, the way Junji Ito juggles horror and the absurd, going after Christopher Nolan and Stephen King, call center Alien, the Duolingo Owl with a chainsaw, kids in cyberpunk, XChange, and being worried about fish music!

The horror is implied!

CW: self-harm, bullying

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/49bzqdpBpx

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 '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!

Mary Shelley's classic tale of scientific hubris and inhuman misery has inspired countless tales of sci-fi and fantasy since its publication in 1818. But does its long list of scions include cyberpunk? At the age of 19, Shelley shared a tale with the world that evinced her era's fear of the powers of technology, while simultaneously highlighting the unfair privilege of class in England and abroad, creating a narrative that nearly every work of genre fiction can trace its roots to. If Frankenstein's not cyber punk, what else can be?

In this episode, we discuss Shelley's original novel and its 1831 revision, the novel's remarks on class and the contemporary science that inspired it, Shelley's tragic upbringing, the intersection of gothic and romance, the novel's unreliable epistolic narration, the themes of evolution and de-evolution, Shelley's trans friend and LGBTQ subtext, the thematic consistency of the story's many adaptations, and the role of community and empathy in developing new life. We also talk about how the Frankenstein films altered our perception of the monster, loving every word in the English language, going five epistolary levels down, getting alchemy-pilled, not being a doctor, an 8 ft. tall undead incel, Regency Minecraft, going Dewey Cox, Team Victor vs. Team Monster, Mary Shelley's creepypasta, 3 and 1/2 breakdowns, AI play dates, Frankie with the good hair, less mummies more Draculas, fainting monsters, Batman = Frankenstein, and if Mary Shelly would like Ghost in the Shell!

#RIP to Teri Garr

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/49bzqdpBpx

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 '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!

RoboCop, Judge Dredd, Rick Deckard, Motoko Kusanagi...for a genre nominally about the "lowlife" of future society, cyberpunk sure has a lot of cop protagonists. Law enforcement officers, detectives, and soldiers populate the TV and film fare of major distributors, and even counter-cultural authors like Philip K. Dick produced story after story of characters working for The Man.  What's behind the plethora of cyberpunk cop protagonists and what effect is produced from looking at a dystopia from the top down?

In this episode, we discuss the reason behind the popularity of cop heroes in modern SF, the rise in crime that inspired the trend and creation of the cyberpunk genre as a reaction, the way that Hollywood shapes our view of the police, cop characters being caught between two worlds, the "future" versions of our surveillance society and predictive policing, the way that book marketing affects book publishing and creation, how much fascism an audience will take, the mutable rules of justice, how cyberpunk pulls back the curtain of our society, and whether fiction is ready to evolve to meet our brave new world. We also talk about saving Jesse Ventura's web page, drones in your neighborhood, steampunk cops, "Is Judge Dredd the bad guy?", gull-wing doors, not being on Reddit all day, smuggling bread flour, boring anarchists, Hillary Clinton's Sci-Fi Dystopia, trying to fix things with a gun, jet boots, friendjitsu, The Wire, and...Captain America?!

TRON is a cop!

Here's a link to the WIRED story in the ep
https://www.wired.com/story/the-age-of-the-drone-police-is-here/

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/49bzqdpBpx

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 '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!

Western literature and film don't possess a monopoly on cyberpunk fiction and, indeed, Japanese writers, filmmakers, and animators have been producing seminal cyberpunk works since the movement's beginning. Chief among them perhaps is Psycho-Pass: an anime series that depicts a future world that is part police-procedural and part Orwellian panoptic dystopia. The criminality of citizens is determined by their psycho-pass...and becoming too criminal, too insane, or too unhappy marks you for punishment or death via the state's licensed enforcers. a fiction that is chillingly real for many in our own society.

In this episode, we discuss the sharp criticism of policing that Psycho-Pass presents, the common nuances between Western and Japanese dystopias, the "on-paper" benefits of their world, state-sanctioned murder, the way the series reflects our real-life attitudes towards the mentally ill, how the system radicalizes criminals, and the way the media manipulates us to support the status quo. We also talk about otaku vs. anoraks, kawaii vs. kowaii, ending every case with a mop and bucket, mood ring guns, Orwell vs. Huxley, stop and vibecheck, supermurder, Ball strings, edging the apocalypse, George Orwell's Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and a weird Warhammer 40K tangent!

Gutenberg made us all cyborgs!

Pre-order the new edition of Lyda's book, Ressurection Code, available Oct. 3rd!
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/49bzqdpBpx

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 '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!

Dystopias seem like the most distinctly recognizable settings in sci-fi, but more than a few utopias possess some suspiciously dystopic elements. Conversely, there are more than a few worlds traditionally labelled as dystopias that have seemingly succeeded in achieving the elusive goal of effective equality and social harmony. What does it take to make a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven? And how do you know when to stop fighting and love Big Brother just a little bit?

In this episode, we discuss the often razor-thin line between utopias and dystopias in sci-fi literature, the core of satire in utopic and dystopic fiction, the role of class in cyberpunk and sci-fi fiction, the "noble lie" at the heart of utopias, the fiction of the "moral poor", individualism's impediment to social harmony, technology as a social tool and its inequal distribution, the importance of the outsider viewpoint, and whether cyberpunk is dystopia by default. We also talk about putting astronauts on Earth, days our future passed, time-travelling through sleep, turning your treatise into a novel, dystopic intent, digital bread and circuses, Evil McEvilson, whether fire ruined cavemen, the wavy arc of Justice, and why Star Trek isn't a utopia but a Nora Ephron movie is!

Everybody gets a Ferrari!

Pre-order the new edition of Lyda's book, Ressurection Code, available Oct. 3rd!
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/49bzqdpBpx

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 '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!

After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the future was looking pretty bright for straight, white, cisgender, middle-class Americans. The threat of unending nuclear cold war had disappeared and only trivial issues like street crime, unruly Middle East dictators, and rampant political correctness stood between us and the digital, frosted-tipped utopia of the 21st century. Into this pre-millenial Abraham's Bosom came Demolition Man, a Sylvester Stallone action flick-cum-NERF dystopia film about an unfrozen Dennis Rodman trying to snuff out our thousand points of light until Rocky punches his head off. But can any future REALLY be a happy one without cilantro and swearing?

In this episode, we discuss the subtle (and not so subtle) subversions of Stallone's 1993 sci-fi comedy actioner, its position among '90s cinematic dystopias, the banality of a lack of evil, the film's silence on class, its commentary on overpolicing, the current reluctance to look forward, assimilating cynicism, and accepting our new weird world. We also talk about IKEA drones, whether dystopias need an artistic agenda, good Morlocks, President Arnie and Cyber Sly, Californication 2032, hidden Jesse Ventura, sex hats, totacotarianism, the Captain Kirk Test, Chekov's Hollywood sign, Stallone ice butt, Black Joker, Ryan Gosling healing us, and Pizza Hut gets it in the back of the head!

Is money joy joy?

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/49bzqdpBpx

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