If you were compiling a list of Must Read Cyberpunk / Metaverse Books (hi Sox), what would be on it? Nonfiction as well as fiction.
The compilation Storming the Reality Studio is great. I love it because they have a critical bibliography of all the cyberpunk precursors which cites things like one particularly dark and cool short story by Fritz Leiber as well as all the usual Ballard and PKD.
Synners - Pat Cadigan
Queen of Angels - Greg Bear
Schismatrix - Bruce Sterling
Those Alec Effinger books which have recently been reprinted. What was the first one called? When Gravity Falls or something? Those were good.
Gibson, Stephenson etc.
Oh, and even before there was a World Wide Web I remember using FTP to download bits from Steve Shaviro's Doom Patrol. Which starts with the Grant Morrison comic but uses it as a springboard to pursue a lot then-trendy 90s notions of post-modernity.
Very cyberpunky.
Also in historical mode, Bruce Sterling's original rabble rousing, name-calling, icon shattering punk-as-fuck zine Cheap Truth is all available online.
Is the book as good as his short stories are? I love those, but I'm reluctant to read Oscar Wao, because sometimes good short story writers aren't such good novelists.
I much preferred Drown. I think that Oscar Wao is episodic enough that it gets to some of his strengths as a short story writer. But Drown was so much better.
Since cyberpunk came up, and it reminds me of my semi-annual plaint of "What is 'cyberpunk,' exactly?" (that's NOT what this post is about), it made me think of steampunk, and how when we were discussing steampunk quite some time ago (over a year ago, IIRC), Jilli mentioned The Anubis Gates, and I don't know if I ever mentioned this, but right after she mentioned it, I got it from the library, and although it took me a little bit to get into it, I *loved* it. LOVED. It's so sly.
Sterling calls out the weaknesses in Neuromancer to praise Greg Bear's Blood Music
According to your link, that particular article was written by Candace Berragus, not Bruce Sterling.
I'd add Walter Jon Williams Hardwired to Hec's list to round out the pulpy side of cyberpunk.
And, of course, Alpha Squad 7: Lady Nocturne (A Tek Jansen Adventure).
my semi-annual plaint of "What is 'cyberpunk,' exactly?"
I was thinking about this while scrolling through Powell's "cyberpunk" list. Which includes
The Crying of Lot 49
and
A Clockwork Orange,
among other things. Appears they view anything dystopian as cyberpunk. Also anything by Philip K. Dick.
I wanted to leave a snarky comment that something with "clockwork" in the title is clearly steampunk, but I did not.
That's Sterling's pseud
Aha! I did not know this.
