Cyberpunk, I'm Sorry. Truly.

For those of you whom I'm about to offend I apologize. Sincerely. I just need to know if there are others like me.

Having started in on sci-fi late in life (I'm pretty sure this is rare in itself; I'm 30 and started in my early 20's, well after high school; but that is beside the point) I'm just now getting around to fully exploring the genre. My first foray into sci-fi was via a friend leaving Ender's Game at my extremely non-productive third shift job. I think I finished it in 2 days. Things slowly developed from there, first by finishing the Ender series. I'm pretty sure by that time I was hooked.

I began to read more and more SF, starting in on the "hard" side of things (discovering Stephen Baxter was a monumental point in my life) and moving into the "classic"(?) side of SF with Bradbury, Clarke, etc... Then in the last year or so, after discovering LT, I have been really introduced into a wide variety of SF authors. I've read some of the grandfathers of the genre, like Heinlein & Silverberg, found a few more obscure authors I've loved (Robert Reed & James Halperin to name a couple) and even tackled a few of the "mega-series" such as K.S. Robinson's Mars, Herbert's Dune, and Asimov's Robot/Foundation.

Then I found out about Cyberpunk. This sounded like a dream come true. Being what I considered well-read/educated in physics, biology, technology, chemistry, etc... and having a firm love of the classic dystopias, how could I go wrong??

I stared off with Stross's Accelerando having picked it up for a buck on clearance. And DAMN, did I struggle through it. Then I moved on to others, convinced I had just picked a dud. Gibson, Stephenson... I read (tried to, in some cases) a lot of the big players.

I seriously now doubt my sanity. These are books I should LOVE. I know this to be true. The very definition of the genre demands it! But I feel LOST every time I try to read one of these. Or bored to tears. Or both at the same time.

So, I apologize, Cyberpunk. I wanted to love you, I really did. Our brief affair, I will never forget (unfortunately).

Which Gibson and Stephenson books did you try? I found Neuromancer to be clunky in style, but I enjoyed some of his later work. As for Stephenson, his work has been described as post-cyberpunk at times. Did you try The Diamond Age?

I notice you didn't mention the father of cyberpunk (even if he didn't know it at the time), Philip K. Dick.

Yeah, it was Neuromancer and Snow Crash, I believe. I have not tried The Diamond Age which I will do, though. I want to like this genre so bad!

These books along with the Stross, just felt so... I don't know... chaotic.

Didn't realize Dick was considered so, nor have I ever read him. I'll give one a shot as well, any reccomendations?

Edit: Please ignore the crappy spelling :-)

You might want to try Altered Carbon. It's largely a murder mystery in a cyberpunk setting, and even though it follows many of the conventions of the genre, it has a different mood.

There's also Noir, which my wife really liked.

Both are technically cyberpunk, but might be different enough for you to like them.

Amtep,

Altered Carbon is actually on my to read list and although I have never heard of Noir or its author, I will definitely give it a try.

Thanks for the letting me rant people! And thanks for the suggestions, too. :-)

I would suggest looking at the Budayeen series by George Alec Effinger. This consists of three novels (When Gravity Fails, A Fire In The Sun, The Exile Kiss) and a book of short stories - Budayeen Nights. It features a slightly disreputable main character in a North African setting.

Also Jon Courtenay Grimwood has written plenty which might fit this sub-genre - but the closest is the Arabesk sequence - Pashazade, Effendi and Felaheen. These are noirish stories set in an alternate Alexandria.

I think starting with Accelerando was a mistake. It really isn't cyberpunk, but post-cyberpunk.

You might also look for Pat Cadigan's early work like Mindplayers, Synners and Fools.

I would obviously like to recommend a lot more especially Mirrorshades by there are a lot of out of print cyberpunk books.

Interesting... I've never heard of any of these at all. I'm kinda embarresed about this.

I'm begining to think you're right with the Accelerando thing... It was a bad clash of being newly-introduced with the idea of cyberpunk and it's authors and cheap book sales. As far a Gibson & Stephenson go, I've heard just so many great things about them... (since they are both in the top ten shared works, here at this group, I'm feeling rather like a heretic now!)

I have a tendency to buy alot of used/out of print books on whims so I will look into the Mirrorshades as well. Thanks andyl!

You might also consider Chris Moriarty's Spin State and Spin Control -- lots of technology and science, and complex politics also.

Accelerando is more of a Singularity novel than cyberpunk. The Singularity is a wall for SF writers because of the difficulty of describing an era where technology and what it creates exceeds the human ability to understand. It has been tried by many authors now with various degrees of success and I think it will continue because nobody can really understand something beyond human abilities to fathom but the ideas of what might happen are endless and bizarre.

The cat in Accelerando is kinda punked out but it's a singularity cat not a cyberpunkcat.

Vinge's Rainbows End takes us to the verge of the Singularity but not to it. Stross went into the Singularity which is a messy chaotic place.

Well, I guess I'm in need of some schoolin' when it come to the term itself. :-) I've not come across the term Singularity (at least applied to fiction) although I can see now what you mean and how you apply it. And the whole post-cyber and what not... leaves me a bit befuddled.

Ahhh, the cats.

Okay, what and who is cyberpunk (in it's base form)?

(I'm not relying on tags and wikipedia for this one. Go straight to the the experts I trust. LT poeple are the best at this stuff.)

Neal Stephenson was in the thick of the cyberpunk movement. Neal himself declared cyberpunk dead around 2001-02. I tend to agree with him. William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Neal Stephenson were some major names writing cyberpunk. None of them are writing it anymore. There are some leftover tropes from the cyberpunk era which I'll call 1982 to 2000 which some might not agree with, but the subgenre is over for the most part IMO. It has evolved from the chip-driven/enhanced human to bio-tech/chip/cognition enhanced humans. The humanist SF writers and the cyberpunks had a war within the genre with Bruce Sterling being the instigator of several conferences on both sides of the issue. Words and accusations flew but the genre moved forward like it always does. Chipping animals and even humans is now common and no longer future oriented. 25,000 Parkinson patients now have wires threaded through their brains with electric current controlers embedded in their chests.

Reading Neuromancer today doesn't have the same impact as it did in the mid-80s. It is still respected because of what it started and because it was leading edge when it came out. It had a huge footprint in the SF genre that shook things up.

thegreattim @ 3 -

"These books along with the Stross, just felt so... I don't know... chaotic."

That chaos is actually a major aspect of the genre - an environment in which technology is used in unexpected or unintended ways, esp. by "the street" (anyone and everyone, but particularly lowlives/underclasses/criminals/others outside the mainstream).

Vernor Vinge, if you haven't tried him yet, may be more your style; his stuff is as hard and geeky as it can get, but probably less 'chaotic'.

I confess that I thought Gibson and Sterling were okay when I first read them; but I re-read a lot of my favorite books, and I haven't done this with theirs. Neal Stephenson I consider great, but Cryptonomicon is more my speed; Zodiac is good too.

I wasn't particularly impressed by the one Pat Cadigan I read: Dervish Is Digital. I can't say exactly what I didn't like, but it seemed very different from the William Gibson style cyberpunk that I love. I think it seemed superficial, and unengaging.
I might have to give her another chance and try Synners since it is on the shelf.

edited to activate touchstones - no go

As far as I'm concerned, the granddaddy of cyberpunk is John Brunner with Shockwave rider. Written in 1975, it doesn't make the technological assumptions used by modern cyberpunk, but it deals with the same concepts -- specifically the culture shock caused by rapidly advancing technology, and society's disintegration in the wake of it.

Yep, certainly different to Gibson which is why I mentioned her. Synners won the Arthur C. Clarke award (as did Fools by the way).

I think too many people associate cyberpunk to closely with Gibson. The cyberpunk movement (which at the time had a number of names) was larger than that and a number of the early influential books are not particularly well known now (like City Come A Walkin' by John Shirley).

Also the strong precursors to cyberpunk like Shockwave Rider and some of James Tiptree's short work are also deemed of lesser importance (incorrectly in my view) than Neuromancer.

Rudy Rucker is an interesting case. He is widely touted as one of the pioneers of cyberpunk mainly for Software but he quickly left it behind for his rather more particular trans-realist style of novels.

Re: #11 - And here I thought (up until now anyway) that Cyberpunk was regarded as the next (or at least current) big thing. That'll teach me! My measly 8 year infatuation with sci-fi has apparently left me thinking I knew what was going on. :-)

Re: #12 - I guess that makes more sense now that I think back on what these books were trying to do; in light of what everyone has been saying. The chaos works on deeper levels than just the story. It's emotionally linked to the book itself.

Re: Everyone else - Wow, there is just so much out there that looks interesting and that I want to read from your suggestions. The world of SF is infinitley more involved than I had realized. I wonder now, how my views on this subgenre and others and the movement as a whole would be different if this obsession had started when I was a kid.

So much to read, must go put some books on hold at the library now...

Other books and writers in this vein probably include

K.W. Jeter in particular Dr. Adder who creates amputee whores to cater for the innermost secret desires of men

Richard Kadrey's Metrophage which is available here

Quite a bit of Jack Womack's work Ambient in particular.

Lewis Shiner's Frontera (some of his short work is available on his Fiction Liberation Front website.

Bruce Sterling's The Artifical Kid and early collections.

Walter Jon Williams's Hardwired

#1, back to your original misgivings about the subgenre cyberpunk. Most SF readers have subgenres they don't care for. For me, it's alternate history and time travel. I like Future History, Far Future and Space Opera but SO drives a lot of readers crazy. Cyberpunk might be one of the ones you just don't like.

#1: The problem with Stross (as with a lot of the new wave of British writers) is that his writing presumes that you've read everything for the last twenty or so years, and if you haven't you'll be out to sea.

I'd say try Richard K. Morgan, as I think he's a better novelist. If that doesn't work out for you, well, that's unfortunate but that's the way it goes sometimes.

I certainly second #19. Some topics/subgenres just dont work so well.

Other possabilities along the cyberpunkish kind of border - although they may blend into what's now weird sf - are Michael Marshall Smith starting with Only forward and possably Jeff noon although I've only read Pixel juice. Both are great imaganative writers, not so much technology fixated as to how society has changed as that technology becomes commonplace, like the chipping referenced earlier.

It's done & decided; after perusing some of the books on all of your reccomendations, I've decided not to throw in the towel.

I'm picking up Altered Carbon on my way home from work today. It sounds pretty cool. If that goes well I will hit up the rest of Richard Morgan's series and then I'm looking at maybe some Vinge or maybe someSterling??

After that, I think I will try Snow Crash or The Diamond Age again. I really feel the need to like Stephenson. I'm not sure of the reason for this. I hope it's not just bandwagon, though! :-)

Raphael Carter's The Fortunate Fall was an intriguing cyberpunk political work -- jacked-in journalist. And you really have to read James Tiptree, Jr.'s "The Girl Who Was Plugged In." Joan Vinge's Catspaw gets mentioned but I like her Snow Queen and Summer Queen better. Some folks have labeled those as cyberpunk, which is why I mention them, but I think they're moving more into the bio/nanopunk area.

Melissa Scott you could take a look at, too Trouble and her Friends, Burning Bright, etc.

Accelerando is possibly one of the worst books you could possibly choose if coming new to the whole fast paced posthuman chaos sort of thing - if you are not big on chaotic (as mentioned, this is quite the point in these cases), you might not like Snow Crash, as there are some definite antecedents to Accelerando there, so you may consider leaving that until later.

There is also Walter Jon Williams Hardwired and Voice of the Whirlwind - an ancestor of sorts of Richard Morgan's work. Extremely competent violent types with ambiguous pasts.

Dervish Is Digital,Tea From An Empty Cup etc. are basically cop story/mysteries, as opposed to the more lone rogue/down and outer type that Gibson and Effinger have.

Blue and others,

Sounds like a few more good suggestions. And your points on Accelerando are obvious now, in retro-spect. It was a complete coincidence that I chose that book first. I had heard of Stross and I found a hardcover (which I tend to buy primarily) of it for $1 at one of the discount book places.

I think it's not that I hate the chaos so much as maybe I was unprepared for it?

Yeah, put it this way. Lobsters - then then the rest of Accelerando blew me away when I read it, and I would have been reading SF for around 25 years then. Other people with twice the experience have had the same thing happen with that work. A great deal for $1, no doubt about it.

It could carry a warning, possibly not for beginners. Especially if you had no background in any of the technology or economics etc. that he was extrapolating from, as well as reading related fiction.

You just may never like that sort of thing at all, it is quite possible, but there are certainly less dense and frantic introductions to posthuman settings.

Leaving posthuman settings aside, particularly recent 21st century varieties, you could try a few different cyberpunk tracks :

Proto - like The Shockwave Rider, and John Shirley's City Come A Walkin'

Cadigan(Tea From An Empty Cup etc.) -> Tad Williams Mountain of Black Glass if you fancy an epic quest sort of thing, but certainly some similar sort of cop style stories in the latter

Effinger -> Grimwood

Cadigan (Synners) -> Neuromancer/Count Zero/Mona Lisa Overdrive/Burning Chrome -> Melissa Scott

Hardwired -> Altered Carbon

Snowcrash -> Posthuman craziness (none of which people would call core original cyberpunk as such, but a descendant).

and there is the Mirrorshades anthology people have mentioned too, and I believe James Patrick Kelly is involved in a post cyberpunk anthology at the moment that is probably of interest.

Obviously I had no idea how involved it would be, however I really thought I would be prepared for anything SF could throw my way.

I come from a solid background in astronomy, cosmology and physics. What I didn't expect was the deluge of biology & specific technology (only a basic background in that) and the economics (practically no experience in present economic studies let alone v2.0+).

My traditional background left me in love with folks like Stephen Baxter (huge ideas but apparently pretty tame - his enhanced cephalopods could only just mine an asteroid, nothing more) & Robert Sawyer (same big ideas, but again mostly in physics).

I guess I had thought there was not much other "science" out there. Yeah, I know, pretty narrow minded of me. Well, this discussion has shown me up! :-)

Anyway, more good suggestions all, I'm going to try to take a sampling of stuff from everyone's suggestions. This will definitely expand my horizons and hopefully give me an appreciation of the other side of SF.

Hey, P.S. everyone:

I just wanted to thank you for the time you folks spent on giving me suggestions and other thoughts. This is the major reason I keep coming back to LT everyday... the community kicks butt and knows its books!

I love these type of discussions.

thegreattim: In reading Vernor Vinge go with A Deepness in the Sky first.

If you like the hard sf and crazy physics ideas, try Greg Egan :) The best place to start with him is the short story collection Axiomatic. Of his novels, I'd recommend Diaspora and then Schild's ladder.

They're not cyberpunk at all, but they do describe posthuman societies in detail.

#27, the economics subthemes are also an interesting case in SF . Some writers that deal with economics quite a bit. Charles Stross, Kim Stanley Robinson, Ken MacLeod, China Mieville (not quite SF), Vernor Vinge Richard K. Morgan, Neal Stephenson, Alastair Reynolds and Peter F. Hamilton. There are probably others that I am not aware of.

Amtep, (#30)

I certainly DO enjoy the "hard" SF and crazy physics ideas. I think that's where my heart, in so much as SF, really lies. :-)

I really want to get this whole cyber/post/bio/singular/nano-punk thing though, too. I'm going to read a bunch of this stuff and see how it goes.

However, somehow I never got around to reading any Egan although I've heard much good. Will certainly check out at my next chance. Thanks a bunch!

VG, (#31)

I really have not read many of the authors you listed, the most being KSR. He really is an interesting author. I liked the Red/Green/Blue Mars stuff an awful lot but have not run across anything else like it. I enjoyed the near future aspect of it and the in depth study of his characters are great. The gradual technological changes of Mars, it's people, and it's ecomony were fun for me to follow and made a lot of sense.

It's where the "sigularity" of the economic revolution occurs (in other works) when I'm blindsided by new ideas. Should be intersting, however, to see some other takes on where our global economics will lead us.

Just to put in my two cents; I thought that Metropolitan by Walter Jon Williams was great - it has its own brand of virtual reality - which is really hyper reality - but I don't know whether it could be called cyberpunk. It's just a great book.
The Otherworld series by Tad Williams is truly epic in scope, and IMO you have to be in the market for that to really apreciate those books. They have a great deal of virtual reality, in fact most of the series take place in vr. They have some chaotic elements in that their reality, timeline and pov is shifting, but they are very linear in their epic structure.
The Greg Egan mentioned above; Schild's ladder is a fascinating book, very far out in terms of science and the way that science changes societies. It does have some virtual reality, if you can label something that when science is so advanced there are individuals who are considered part of the human race/society whose whole existence has been incorporeal.

In some ways the big physics of Baxter even when it is at its most exotic is much easier to read and accept than cyberpunk because it is more remote from us. Cyberpunk talks of disempowerment of the common man, of people getting screwed by big corporations, of drugs and music and the seedy side of life. The culture shock and changes in the societies that cyberpunk depicts are magnifications of what can be seen in the real world today. That the cyberpunk worlds aren't nice orderly places with straightforward stories and usually aren't wrapped up in a nice neat conclusion by a hero that puts the world to rights doesn't really help our sense of unease.

As for Charlie Stross reading Singularity Sky might be a better starting point. Although it is set post-singularity and features a posthuman entity it is far more traditional in feel (or at least that is how I found it).

A second bug nod for Alistair reynolds by no means cyberpunk but hard sf definetly. technology and the impacts in a wonderfully splinter human society and some really alien aliens.

Also the influence of Sterling's Shaper/Mechanist stories can be seen quite clearly on Reynolds Conjoiner/Demarchist stories so it isn't as off-topic as one might originally think.

There is the also the fact that Reynolds is really good, too. :) So a Future History well worth a look. It seems you certainly may be inclined to like that sort of thinig.

Egan is a must, but you could put it off for some gentler introduction to that sort of work if you wanted. (There are a bunch of stories on his website, too).

Sean Williams would be one. John C. Wright another.

Aristoi by Walter Jon Williams, think you mentioned Robert Reed already, whether you had got to Sister Alice etc. yet.

Looking towards perhaps the other end of the cyberpunk spectrum, you should check out the graphic novel series Transmetropolitan - basically Hunter S. Thompson meets the future. Warren Ellis writes a lot of good cyberpunk, and a lot of good mainstream sf that maintains the cynicism of the cyberpunk genre.

re: #34 -amberwitch

Good suggestions, they sound very cool. I already read City of the Golden Shadow by Tad Williams and your not kidding about the epic-ness of it. The next three are sitting on my shelf, staring me down. I think they are plotting my doom, if I don't read them soon. The first one was pretty great. And I'm picking up some Egan soon, can't wait to start him.

re: #35/6 - I can see what you mean by Baxter being more of a clean world. His world builing is so more more organized that my foray into CP. And Singularity Sky is for sure on my read very soon list.

re: #37-40

I actaully just picked up two Alistair Reynolds books this weekend. I think they were Absolution Gap & Redemption Ark at a discount sale. I realize that they are the 3rd and 4th books in a series so I'll have to pick up the other two first, but they sure do look interesting. Robert Reed is quite cool, I've read his Beyond the Veil of Stars/Gated Sky combo, and also Marrow and Exaltation which was my favorite by far. No Sister Alice though. It seems light I read some John Wright a few years back, he did the Golden Age, yes? That was pretty interesting, too. I'll look into Ellis & Sean Williams also.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who posted here, I've got about a years worth of suggestions to read and alot of them sound really cool. I think I may have given up too early on the CP thing. It's completely different from what I'm used to, but I think it has a lot to offer.

You guys (and gals) rock. Thanks again.

Actually you really only need to pick up Revelation Space by Reynolds, Chasm City although part of the series (in a loose sense) doesn't really contribute to the story that spans from Revelation Space to Absolution Gap.

Unfortunately Revelation Space is by far the weakest of his books. Chasm City or his more recent Century Rain are far better starting points.

Actually, I like Revelation Space a lot more than Century Rain or Pushing Ice.

Can't argue with Chasm City though if you want to take a shot at him.

Century Rain has that whole 50s detective thing going on that might bore people looking for your future history space opera thing.

Can I also suggest adding Hot Head by Simon Ings to your (already ridiculously long) cyberpunk reading list. It's definitely cyberpunk (or post-cyberpunk) but it has a strong human element, which I think is what's missing from Gibson, et al...

I'll also second the emotion for Greg Egan, but that could be some patriotism coming through -- he's from my home town!

Cool!! You probably have no problem getting his books then :-) It seems they are a little scarce in libraries and stores in the US. Will have to buy them I guess.

Looks like they are all being rereleased early next year, so you should be able to find those more easily if you want new ones.

Certainly a couple of them are fairly scarce.

Felt compelled to post after reading your plea, thegreattim. I too have felt somewhat dissatisfied with the cyberpunk books I have been recommended yet the genre itself *should* be right up my street.

I'd like to recommend the Ghost in the Shell series by Masamune Shirow. There are a couple of graphic novels, both translated to English, 3 films and 2 TV series. I have had most enjoyment from the TV series (called GitS: Stand Alone Complex). It is incredibly hard sci-fi considering it's graphic form but comes with all the action you'd expect from anime and manga.

>46 bluetyson:: blue
Sounds good about the re-releasing of Egan's books. Normally I'm kinda snoody about trying to buy 1st eds or reprinted hardcovers failing that; but I don't think I'd object to buying some new paperbacks just so I can get a feel for his work.

>47 pnorth:: pnorth
Swweeeet! Someone who comiserates! THANKS!~ I'm not normally all that thrilled by the idea of graphic novels/anime/magna, but I might give it a shot though if I spot one at the library (there a shelf of them next to the SFF). Thanks for the suggestion!

#48

If you were really serious about being snooty you would be aiming for first edition, first printing. His second novel (and his first SF novel) Quarantine will set you back £400 for a very good copy, or £612 for a fine copy (according to Abe Books prices). I'm glad I've got one on my shelves.

Re:#49

Yeah you're right. I guess I just want something that will look nice on my shelves. If someone were to reprint an entire collection of work by a specific author in hardcover with a cool looking art and style I would have no problem buying/owning them as opppesed to 1st/1st. I mean sure, I'd love to have the latter, but I have to be realistic on prices.

I've felt more snoody than I am in real life, lately, because I've just recentley joined BookMooch. I've requested books from a bunch of people because they listed as hardcover and then tell me via email it's an old beat up paperback. And then they act put off when I cancel the request! So I've felt like just looking for hardcovers lately has made me unreasonable!

Here's one then if you are keen :-

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/ListingDetails?bi=956236991&AID=9885538&...

A Greg Egan Collection An Unusual Angle (hardback and paperback) Quarantine, Permutation City, Axiomatic, Our Lady of Chernobyl, Distress, Diaspora, Luminous, Teranesia, Schild's Ladder
Egan, Greg


30 Day Returns Policy
Bookseller:
Grisly Wife Bookshop (ANZAAB/ILAB)
(Eaglemont, VIC, Australia)
Bookseller Rating: Book Price:
US$ 6102.37
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Quantity: 1

Description: A superb collection of twelve first editions of this prominent Australian writer's works all in superb and fine condition unless otherwise noted. They include: An Unusual Angle Carlton, Victoria, Norstrilia Press, 1983 in both the simultaneously issued hardback and paperback printings (the hardback has slight spotting to the top edge and the paperback has slight wear to to the top of the spine with a small closed tear); Quarantine, London, Legend, 1992, the paperback issue in Very Good condition; Permutation City, London, Millennium, 1994; Axiomatic, London, Millennium, 1995, very good in like dustwrapper; Our Lady of Chernobyl, Parramatta, NSW, MirrorDanse Books, 1995 in the limited edition of 500 copies; Distress, London, Millennium, 1995; Diaspora, London, Millennium, 1997; Diaspora, New York, HarperPrism, 1998; Luminous, Millennium, 1998; Teranesia, London, Gollancz, 1999; Schild's Ladder, London, Gollancz, 2002. Dustwrappers, as with all our books, are protected in archival quality and removable covers. Both copies of An Unusual Angle and Quarantine are signed by Egan on the half-title page. The author is not at all keen to sign his works and this is a rare collector's opportunity. Also included is a typed and signed letter from Egan written in 1992. The author has attached to the letter a typed biographical note and a bibliography of his works. Also included is an email from the author discussing the few occasions he remembers agreeing to sign his books. Egan was born in Perth, Western Australia in 1961 and has won many awards including an Aurealis award and a number of Ditmar awards for best Australian science fiction novel and for best Australian short science fiction. Please enquire with us about shipping options and costs. Bookseller Inventory # 25639XH

I am going to come back to this thread to read all of these great suggestions, but I had to comment on this:

>> Re: Everyone else - Wow, there is just so much out there that looks interesting and that I want to read from your suggestions. The world of SF is infinitley more involved than I had realized. I wonder now, how my views on this subgenre and others and the movement as a whole would be different if this obsession had started when I was a kid.

Ack, all of my commenting disappeared! I said, if I can remember it all, that I have been reading science fiction since high school, maybe younger, and I still feel like I have missed a lot. I considered myself pretty well-read in the genre before I came here and saw all of the great suggestions from LT members. It makes me wish I could quit my job and read all the time, especially since I don't only read science fiction. I read more sf than anything else, but there are lots of other things I want to read as well. It is hard to keep up.

Seriously! I agree. There are about a thousand and one book out there that are on my reading list (sf and others) and I just know that if I went to a library and just wandered the shelves, I could find about a thousand more!

50-100 books a year is clearly not enough to read everything I want to read... :-(

I'm posting the core reading syllabus from my literary criticism - cyberpunk class, because I think it will be helpful to see a list of the 'definitive' writings for the genre (from the point of view of the critic.) I know some of these books have already been mentioned, but I think the specifications and sub-categories help give placement in the genre. I have tons of notes from my class in case anyone wants to know more. (I'm breaking the list up into specific sections/sub-categories so that touchstones won't go crazy.)

The listed readings: (six sections total)
"Core Readings"
William Gibson (Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive, Virtual Light, Idoru, All Tomorrow's Parties)
Bruce Sterling (The Artificial Kid, Schismatrix Plus)

(part 2 of 6)
"The Cyberpunk Movement"
Greg Bear (Blood Music)
Pat Cadigan (Mindplayers, Synners, Fools, Tea From an Empty Cup)
Marc Laidlaw (Dad's Nuke)
Tom Maddox (Halo)
Rudy Rucker (Software, Wetware, Freeware, Realware)
Lewis Shiner (Frontera)
John Shirley (City Come A-Walkin')

(part 3 of 6)
"Post-Cyberpunk"
Wilhelmina Baird (CrashCourse, ClipJoint, PsyKosis)
Bruce Bethke (Cyberpunk - where the term came from - short story, Headcrash)
Simon Ings (Hot Head, Hotwire, Headlong)
Richard Kadrey (Metrophage)
Kim Newman (The Night Mayor)
Marge Piercy (He, She, and It/ Body of Glass)
Justina Robson (Silver Screen)
Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash, Interface, The Diamond Age)

(part 4 of 6)
"Cyberpunk Flavoured"
Jeff Noon (Vurt, Pollen, Nymphomation)
Greg Egan (Quarantine, Permutation City)
Jon Courtenay Grimwood (neoAddix, Lucifer's Dragon, reMix, redRobe)
Gwyneth Jones (Escape Plans, Kairos)
Shariann Lewitt (Memento Mori)
Tricia Sullivan (Someone To Watch Over Me, Dreaming In Smoke)
Jack Womack (Dryco)

(part 5 of 6)
The listed movies: (I know these are movies - but they're in the genre)
Blade Runner
Videodrome
The Terminator
Akira
Tetsuo: The Iron Man (only if you have a strong stomach.)
Armitage III: Poly-Matrix
Johnny Mnemonic
Ghost in the Shell
Strange Days
Dark City
Lola Rennt
eXistenZ
The Matrix

(part 6 of 6)
The listed influences:
William S. Burroughs (The Naked Lunch, book and movie; book - only if you have a REALLY strong stomach.)
Philip K Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Ubik, Vulcan's Hammer, many others serving as inspiration.)

Those are all of the books and movies that we read during the literary critique, and I have to say that the 'core readings' were my *least* favourite of all the breadth of works.

I'm not a fan of gibson or sterling, in any novel either have written. I do however, have an understanding as to why their two novels (Neuromancer and Schismatrix, respectively,) were considered the core readings.

I too find myself in an odd place in that I love the concepts, but I'm not a fan of *most* of the key works/authors.

Of the books I have liked, my tastes run to Wilhelmina Baird, Neal Stephenson, Jeff Noon, some of Pat Cadigan, Rudy Rucker and Jon Courtenay Grimwood. Greg Bear and Simon Ings both have an honourable mention. :)

While I like many of those works, I still haven't found *the* cyberpunk novel that gives me the same feelings that I've had whilst reading some other science fiction, fantasy, or literary fiction.

I know the stories are to be technologically dense, jargon-filled, chaotic, et cetera. I just don't buy into it when the *writing* is chaotic (or dense to the point of being a quasi-technical manual, yawn,) especially when the words themselves convolute any story *cough*bruce sterling*cough*. ;)

I am hoping, however, now that cyberpunk has a couple of decades under its genre belt, that more literary treatments of the core concepts will find their way into print.

I know that Bruce Sterling hailed Blood Music as one of the founding texts of cyberpunk but I cannot see it myself.

Firstly, there is the world and protagonists. We aren't in the gritty world of nearly any other cyberpunk. Our protagonists are scientists and normal businessmen and the microbiota themselves. It is all too well-mannered, there is none of the "punk" ethos of outsider there. Vergil Ulam fits the spurned but brilliant scientist trope more than he does the punk outsider or tough cop that is more familiar in cyberpunk books.

Secondly, Blood Music is far too ambivalent about what happens. Cyberpunk is almost gung-ho about technology (both in the computer and biological fields) despite it often being the jack-boot stomping on humanity.

As far as Blood Music (as novel) is concerned I think it shares more with Childhood's End than cyberpunk

andyl:

There were a lot of people in class that objected to some of those classifications as well - about Blood Music specifically - the key points were that he's an 'outsider' scientist that 'becomes one with the machine' - more like Bruce Sterling's vision of cyberpunk than William Gibson's. The ambivalence / outsider-not-punk is far more like Sterling's Schismatrix.

If Sterling's version had won all of the awards (instead of Gibson's), I think cyberpunk would have had a different mode of operation (more biological-allusions and less machine-description-virtual-reality.)

surely "machine-description-virtual-reality" is what makes cyberpunk well cyber. You could have biopunk for your genetech dystopias I'm sure it would be worthwhile reading but it wouldn't be cyberpunk.

It was considered cyberpunk - at the time. Any manipulation of the human body with machine or genetic technology was considered 'cyber' ... it didn't have to be just a machine.

Now, of course, it has its own genre. LOL. :)

#62

Amen.

It's (Blood Music) more like the prototypical work of that movement that didn't quite coalesce; ribofunk.

> 55-61
Kassetra's Cyberpunk reading list seems like such a great idea that I started marking it up on the wiki (here, at Cyberpunk Reading List). My attention is being demanded elsewhere now, but I thought I'd chuck up what I'd done so far in case anyone else felt like helping!

Aside from that reading list there've been so many books mentioned in this thread that it'd be great to compile a list of them all in one place.

Looking over this thread again, it dawns on me that a major part of cyberpunk was these folks took economics, or at least the corporation, seriously for the first time since Pohl, Kornbluth, etc. back in the Fifties, and which was a thread that soon attenuated out back in the day.

In case anyone is interested, I thought I might update: 2 years and 4 months later!

I took all of the wonderful suggestion and have read many of them. Thanks so much everyone! Most of Stross' other works, the entirety of Richard K. Morgan's works (including the new fantasy one), some other Stephenson, and a smattering of many of the others, from all of your ideas. It turns out I really did not know much about what I was talking, for the most part.

Now with some additional years of experience and much new reading (still, not enough... starting classes full time again has slaughtered my reading pace) behind my initial post, I have come to some conclusions: mostly that I'm still not a huge fan of cyberpunk (during it's prime anyway... I enjoy some of the newer stuff a bit more), it's just not my thing.

BUT, the book I held out for example (Accelerando) never was cyberpunk. And with the additional reading and background since, I found I DO quite enjoy the singularity sub-genre. Reading Stoss' other work really helped. And Greg Egan... and others. All very cool stuff with some amazing ideas. Next term break, I plan to re-read Accelerando. I think it will hold up much better now. :-)

Anyway, LTers. I just wanted to say thanks for the education.

>1 thegreattim: I'm not impressed by cyberpunk either. I'm too entrenched in space opera and hard sf to even try cyberpunk-it just seems to exist for its own sake. Havng said I must try Neuromancer sometime, and maybe watch Johnny Mnemonic if it ever comes on our tv schedules!

I think it was aluded to in the discussion from two years ago, but I thought I'd put in my 2 pesos anyway - cyberpunk is/was almost entirely an "in context" sub-genre. It applied the most during that time in the 80's when there was a lot of speculation regarding the direct implant of technology - sort of a bio-circuitry model. It expanded into the AI, singularity theories floating around during that same time, and rode upon the backs of post-punk chaos in music and culture. When Gibson, Stepenson and others announced its "death" it wasn't so much a pronouncement of a decision as it was a reaction to all the fans that were asking "when do we get more...?" - the problem was that we passed technologically beyond most of the gates that the speculation hinged itself upon - science fiction became reality (well with the exception of the singularity and some of the extreme ideas - but I predict those to be not too far out timewise).

A few other books that presage cyberpunk (but only in a supporting sense) are the Terminal Man (also made into a movie) by Crichton (chip implantation to control epilepsy) and the world computer concept - I think the first I read was in The Fall of Colossus by DF Jones (made into the Forbin Project) - the latter was before there was a WWW that allowed human interaction via the web, but it does involve a world-spanning web of information that allows for the two computers to achieve a programatic singularity (even if it wasn't call such at the time). There are many others - I think what Dick brought to the table was the marriage of possibility to a quirky chaos that later reared it's heard (though often in extreme) in cyberpunk as a sub-genre.

I'd second some of the recommendations already provided on more recent reads - try the Tad Williams' Otherland series - it takes many of the concepts from cyberpunk and applies them into a character rich, complicated sim world.

>61 kassetra: Re: Jeff Noon.
I found Vurt supremely cyberpunk, and not at all simply "Cyberpunk Flavoured". Would you agree?

>72 psybre:. I agree with you completely.

The first time I tried to read Neuromancer was shortly after it was released. I was 200 pages into it when I threw the book across the room -- didn't have a clue what was going on! Since then, I've read it 4-5 times, enjoying the book more each time I read it.

Two cyberpunk authors I enjoy are Bruce Sterling and Neil Stephenson; but its their non-cyberpunk books I really enjoy. Crytonomicon is one of my favorite books from the last decade.

Another author I really enjoy is Dan Simmons. The Hyperion series is phenominal -- I've seen it on some cyberpunk lists, but I don't see it as cyberpunk at all.

Jerry

>73 dbtfan: Thanks, Jerry. I, too, agree with you completely regarding "The Hyperion Cantos." We have some similar tastes.

One day in the summer of 1990, I was visiting A Change of Hobbit in Santa Monica, looking to buy some Sturgeon or Ellison or Heinlein or Pohl, when I noticed a printed list of the Hugo & Nebula Awards for the last ten years or so. I ended up buying a copy of Neuromancer, and loved it then and have read it 3 or 4 times again. This book soon directed me to strange places like CompuServe VR "groups" and Mondo2000 magazines, Sense8, and even a couple of Timothy Leary events. But even better it led me to Mirrorshades and Sterling and Stephenson who I have exhaustively read and enjoyed ever since.

I also have a problem getting "into" cyberpunk. I became interested in sci-fi back - oh - 30+ years ago when I was trying to get my much younger brother interested in reading. I like sci-fi. I like lots of different sci-fi. But I have trouble getting my head around cyberpunk.
I'll check out some of the suggestions here.

I'll put in a recommendation for the works of S. A. Swann and his long future history. The Moreau books (moreaus are human/animal chimeras) tend to each take one a different style plot (hardbitten noir, espionage, and cyberpunk). Each of the four novels are independent though do share some links together.

As always, you can look him up here or at http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/swann_s_andrew.

All my other would be recommendations have been mentioned. I think of cyberpunk as defined, glibly, as "high-tech, low-life". It often embraced information theory to regard human thought and sensation as just another medium for information. That information can be altered, transmitted, and copied.

I'd throw out three other works at the periphery: Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination, James Tiptree, Jr.'s "The Girl Who Was Plugged In", and Charles Platt's The Silicon Man. The first two are too early to be cyberpunk but influenced it. The Platt isn't quite punk enough.

I don't think anyone's mentioned Paolo Bacigalupi yet - he mostly writes YA novels but the first one I read was for adults: The Windup Girl.

Paul J. McAuley wrote some of the best and most original "cyberpunk" mid-career: White Devils and Fairyland are my favourites. (he's now doing what I think classifies as space-operas - I'm not big on slotting books into classifications generally).

BTW, I love William Gibson! He's one of my all-time favourite authors! But then other people hate chocolate and like eating liver and green olives so there's no accounting for tastes.

This has been a interesting thread for me. I think of myself as someone loving cyberpunk but this has me realising it's based on a very narrow sampling of the subgenre. Which is fine, but good to keep an eye out for some of the new stuff, esp the post-cyberpunk like Stross. It's been on my list, but I have additional cause to seek it out now.

I have to put in a vote for Vacuum Flowers by Michael Swanwick.

This is the most seminal cyberpunk book you've never heard of. Along with Software and Neuromancer, it spun off pretty much all the ideas that made cyberpunk a movement.

Like all good SF, the story is not about science, but the effect of science on people. The premise is simple -- a technology that reprograms human wetware. The effects are profound and varied. Lots of different types of societies spring up. Communist countries program their citizens with political doctrine. Either police or thugs can grab passersby and reprogram them into copies of themselves, who then go on to reprogram others. Greatest of all is the Comprise, a planet-wide consciousness which tends to absorb individuals -- the clear inspiration for ST:TNG's Borg (first seen in "Q Who?" which aired two years after this book was published).

Through this world runs a woman who may not be herself, from enemies she doesn't understand, with no clear idea where she's going. Fast paced adventure against a backdrop of a fascinating hi-tech otherworld.

It's hard to find. But if you find a copy, grab it.

80> Good recommendation. A nice working out of a key cyberpunk idea: if thoughts and emotions and sensations are just data to be copied and manipulated ...

And you're right. I never see book versions of it. I read it in Asimov's as a serial.

Griffin's Egg is a worthy Swanwick companion piece to Vacuum Flowers

Thanks Randy. It's now on my list!

Besides a couple of outstanding novels ( Neuromancer by William Gibson, Ready Player One by Ernest Cline), I don't find Cyberpunk very interesting. To me it's inward-looking rather than forward-looking, although I'm sure there are some "New Wave" types who consider that a good thing.

But it's fiction of its' time, in the same way that Post-Apocalypse stories were the fiction of the Cold War. This, too, shall pass.

Ramez Naam and his trilogy Nexus, Crux and the upcoming Apex are surely where cyberpunk are going?

I think that the cyberpunk name is a clear link to punk music. There's an ethos of rebellion against the corrupt elite, and a flirtation with anarchist/outsider/nihlist points of view. To me, it starts with Gibson's Neuromancer trilogy, but the quintessential expression is George Alec Effinger's trilogy.

Just like some punk fans moved on to what the 80s called New Wave / New Romantics, cyber-punk has given birth to a lot of man / machine / mind explorations. To me, The Matrix or Inception are not cyber-punk, but it never would have existed without the cyberpunk exploration of virtual reality and human machine interaction.

"The Essential Cyberpunk Reading List"

http://io9.com/the-essential-cyberpunk-reading-list-1714180001

Most of the books on that list are ones of read, and many more are mentioned in the comments. Interesting list of works.

>87 Lyndatrue:

Good list, thanks for posting: I don't visit io9 regularly but when pointed there, it's been pretty good stuff.

Excellent compilation, particularly for someone like me who's been out of the sci-fi loop for ages.

Thanks for putting this up.

>18 andyl: >24 bluetyson: I'm late to this party but... the e-book version of Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams is currently (May 26, 2016) on sale for $0.99 at both Amazon and Smashwords. This book is a great deal at five times that price, IMHO.

>90 ScoLgo: Thanks for the tip, often US sales don't propagate to the other int'l sites but this one did :)

>1 thegreattim: It isn't compulsory to like cyberpunk :-) As someone who is returning to sf after a pretty long layoff (30 years or so) I am re-impressed by just how varied the genre is. Most of the concepts that cyberpunkers bang on about have been there in sf for decades, only less cyberpunky. There's no real virtue in being obscure for the sake of it...

Now that this thread has been resurrected from the dead and is lumbering zombie like through the recent threads in Talk I will just add that I recently (well within the last year) read Crashing Heaven by Al Robertson. It is what I would consider cyberpunk and features an accountant (well an auditor) and a foul-mouthed virtual ventriloquist's dummy. I enjoyed it a lot and there will be a sequel towards the end of this year.

Cyberpunk is new to me as well. Although I apparently wrote one before I heard of it. ;O Too busy writing these days to get a chance to read as much as I'd like. Guess I'll have to check out a couple of the familiar books mentioned.