Cyberpunk 101 - Reading List

This is a class we'd all likely want to enroll in. After all, cyberpunk is science fiction's most recognizable, bad-ass sub-genre. Here are a few books categorized by decade that are must-reads for any and all blade runners and razor girls. #cyberpunk #cybernoir #amreading #scifi

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Philip K. Dick (1968)

Via en.wikipedia.org

The main plot follows Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter who is faced with "retiring" six escaped Nexus-6 brain model androids, the latest and most advanced model, while a secondary plot follows John Isidore, a man of sub-par IQ who aids the fugitive androids. In connection with Deckard's mission, the novel explores the issue of what it is to be human. Unlike humans, the androids possess no sense of empathy. In essence, Deckard probes the existence of defining qualities that separate humans from androids.

Although frequently omitted from cyberpunk reading selections, the empathy machine and the androids themselves warrant the genre's umbrella to shade Dick's remarkable dystopian vision.

The Terminal Man - Michael Crichton (1978)

wordpress.com / Via goodreads.com

Harry Benson suffers from violent seizures. So violent that he often blackouts when they take hold. Shortly after severely beating two men during an episode, the police escort Benson to a Los Angeles hospital for treatment. There, Dr. Roger McPherson, head of the prestigious Neuropsychiatric Research Unit, is convinced he can cure Benson with an experimental procedure that would place electrodes deep in his brain’s pleasure centers, effectively short-circuiting Harry's seizures with pulses of bliss. The surgery is successful, but while Benson is in recovery, he discovers how to trigger the pulses himself. To make matters worse his violent impulses have only grown, and he soon escapes the hospital with a deadly agenda. . .

Neuromancer - William Gibson (1984)

en.wikipedia.org / Via goodreads.com

The Matrix is a world within the world, a global consensus- hallucination, the representation of every byte of data in cyberspace . . .

Case had been the sharpest data-thief in the business, until vengeful former employers crippled his nervous system. But now a new and very mysterious employer recruits him for a last-chance run. The target: an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence orbiting Earth in service of the sinister Tessier-Ashpool business clan. With a dead man riding shotgun and Molly, mirror-eyed street-samurai, to watch his back, Case embarks on an adventure that ups the ante on an entire genre of fiction.

Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson (1992)

majorspoilers.com / Via goodreads.com

In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo’s CosoNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse he’s a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus that’s striking down hackers everywhere, he races along the neon-lit streets on a search-and-destroy mission for the shadowy virtual villain threatening to bring about infocalypse. Snow Crash is a mind-altering romp through a future America so bizarre, so outrageous…you’ll recognize it immediately.

River of Gods - Ian McDonald (2004)

fantasticfiction.co.uk / Via goodreads.com

As Mother India approaches her centenary, nine people are going about their business-a gangster, a cop, his wife, a politician, a stand-up comic, a set designer, a journalist, a scientist, and a dropout. And so is Aj-the waif, the mind reader, the prophet-when she one day finds a man who wants to stay hidden.

In the next few weeks, they will all be swept together to decide the fate of the nation.

Cypulchre - Joe MacKinnon (2014)

terraglitch.com / Via goodreads.com

CYPULCHRE is a dark and twisted cyberpunk thriller that will take readers on a journey through revolt and redemption, high-tech nightmares and low-life dreams.

The inventor of the CLOUD technology—that's swept Los Angeles' rich and willing into the noosphere—has lived in exile for a decade, north of the mountains, feared, defamed, and despised by his former colleagues and estranged family. When he learns that the same technology that led to his downfall now threatens his family as well as the thousands synchronized to it, he must take action. Nothing is what it seems, especially with his psychoses turning allies to enemies, and enemies into demons.