FROM VOODOO GODS TO SUMERIAN CODES: CYBERNETIC DEITIES AND POSTMODERN SPECTACLE IN GIBSON'S COUNT ZERO AND STEPHENSON'S SNOW CRASH

This paper explores how William Gibson’s Count Zero (1986) and Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash (1992) reinterpret myth within the digital landscapes of cyberpunk fiction. Gibson reimagines African diasporic spirituality through the presence of voodoo loa in the matrix, portraying artificial intelligences that assume the guise of deities. Stephenson, by contrast, grounds his narrative in Sumerian myth, suggesting that language functions as a viral code capable of shaping consciousness and controlling societies. Both novels demonstrate that myth is not displaced by technology but reconfigured as a system of meaning within cyberspace. By analyzing these works alongside theoretical insights from Jean Baudrillard, Fredric Jameson, and N. Katherine Hayles, this paper argues that cyberpunk transforms myth into cybernetic deities that embody postmodern anxieties about hyperreality, identity, and power. The voodoo loa in Count Zero reflect the persistence of cultural memory in digital systems, while the linguistic virus in Snow Crash illustrates how ancient codes underpin the vulnerabilities of contemporary information networks. Through close reading and critical engagement, the study shows that both novels reveal myth’s adaptability in the digital age. Far from being obsolete, myth survives as spectacle, commodity, and simulation, demonstrating the ways in which postmodern culture negotiates belief and spirituality within technological environments.