Cyberpunk Recommendations?

By On April 9, 2008 · 5 Comments

by Chad Michael Ward I’ve been a fan of science fiction pretty much since before I could walk. My parents took me to see The Empire Strikes Back when I was a toddler, and I grew up on Star Wars, Star Trek, and other science fiction and fantasy staples. The thing is, most of the science fiction I consume is visual. I watch SF movies and TV shows or read comics. I don’t read a lot of SF, and by god, it’s time to change that.

I’ve always been interested in cyberpunk as a genre, though again mostly through films like Bladerunner and The Matrix. I got interested in William Gibson thanks to The X-Files episode “Kill Switch” in season 5. Hell, I’ve even studied feminist cyberpunk in a course on the supernatural in pop culture, but other than a couple of short stories, I’ve never read any.

So, dear readers, here is where I ask you to recommend your favorite cyberpunk books. I’m already collecting Gibson novels (I found The Difference Engine at a used bookstore, and snagged Virtual Light, Idoru, Mona Lisa Overdrive, and All Tomorrow’s Parties off of BookMooch), but which ones have I missed? How about Phillip K. Dick? What are some other awesome cyberpunk authors? I am particularly interested in cyberpunk (or science fiction in general) written by women, so I’d welcome those recommendations, too.

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TDF Pamela

The Discriminating Fangirl, who is more likely to answer to Pamela if you shout it at her, is the proud owner of an MA in English, focusing on children's/young adult literature and popular culture. She's now not using that degree to work as a project manager for a mobile app company. She reads voraciously, loves geeky movies and tv shows, reads comic books as long as she's not pissed off at Marvel, and when she's procrastinating, she enjoys playing video games. She can be contacted at t.d.fangirl @ gmail.com and followed on Twitter @tdfangirl.

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  • http://wabbitseason.livejournal.com Julia L.

    One female cyberpunk author that comes to mind is Pat Cadigan, specifically Synners.

    Philip K Dick wrote the basis for “Bladerunner” with “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” There’s also “Minority Report”.

    You might also find Bruce Sterling’s Mirrorshades anthology and maybe Neal Stephenson’s stuff.

    As far as Gibson goes, Neuromancer and Count Zero compose the same universe as Mona Lisa Overdrive. I think they can be read separately though.

  • John

    Sounds like you’ve got most of your bases covered. You’re definitely on the right track with Virtual Light: I think it’s one of his best. Gibson started in a pretty distant future with Neuromancer (did you ever read it?), and has progressively worked his way back with each set of stories. His last two, Pattern Recognition and Spook Country, have both been set in the present. Pattern Recognition may not fit the traditional definition of sci-fi or cyberpunk, but it is definitely some of his best work. You might also try Burning Chrome, which is a collection of his old cyberpunk short stories, including the one that (unfortunately) became Johnny Mnemonic

    Incidentally, there’s an interesting and little-known movie you might be interested in called “New Rose Hotel,” based on a short story of Gibson’s from Burning Chrome. It stars Willem Dafoe, Christopher Walken, Asia Argento, and (this should raise your nerd antenna) Yoshitaka Amano.

    As far as other authors go, heh, there’s always the Shadowrun books. You’ve kinda gotta take the good with the bad on those, but there are some good ones: there’s one you might like called The Terminus Experiment, about what goes on with vampires in the cyberpunk world. The setting alone is nerdgasmic. Vampires, corporate warfare, mafia wars, lesbian elves. Ha ha ha.

  • ARun

    Ahh steampunk/cyberpunk.

    YOu’ve got Gibson covered so let us go to Stephenson. YOu should probably read Diamond age and Cryptonomicon. They are very dense with scientific allusion and theory to the point where he spends pages discussing high-level calculus and linux programming. It is incredible dry wit though.

    Others to read would be George Alec Effinger and his “When Gravity fails”, “Budayeen Nights”, “A Fire in the Sun” and “exile’s kiss.”

    Effinger is interesting because he lived the quintessential new orleans lifestyle but his cyberpunk fiction was steeped in the middle-east and is definitely one of a kind.

  • http://amiestuart.com/blog Amie Stuart

    Hey I strolled in from Goodreads. I know I”m probably a total heathen but I loved the movies of Minority Report and Bladerunner, but I have a question (please don’t hit me)…what makes Cyberpunk…what it is?

  • http://blog.phoenixfyre.net The Discriminating Fangirl

    @Julia: Thanks for the recs! I’m looking for some Pat Cadigan stuff, and I snagged a Sterling book over the weekend. And I’ve got to get my hands on Count Zero now, seeing as I have Neuromancer and Mona Lisa Overdrive, d’oh!

    @John: It’s funny, I have Neuromancer sitting on my bookshelf, and I’d completely forgotten about it. o_O I must have picked it up at Half Price a few months ago and then forgot that I had it. I’ve managed to snag a bunch of his books off of BookMooch, so I’m going to work my way through them. I did get Burning Chrome, and I’ll beware of Johnny Mnemonic. ;)

    @Arun: Thanks for the recs, and it’s good to hear from you! Effington sounds really fascinating; I’ll have to look for his books next time I go to Half Price. I’ve heard of Stephenson, too, but never read anything of his. I’ll have to find his stuff, too.

    @Amie: Hi! It’s nice to see another GoodReads person out and about on the web. :D

    Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction that deals with how people and technology interact, particularly in a heavily technologized, dystopian environment. Characters often include hackers, cyborgs, and the like. Common themes are hackers versus megacorporations or governments as well as striving for a “meat-free” existence, i.e. consciousness without a body (like uploading your consciousness to the internet so you can live without a body). It’s a pretty cool genre, and I like that the setting can range from present day to the far future.

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