Cyberpunk book thread

I was just doing some articles on my favorite cyberpunk books and it occurred to me that there's not much talked about this genre beyond the classics, so I thought I'd make a thread to celebrate both the old and new cyberpunk novels. There's some truly fantastic near future sci-fi dystopia crime fiction out there and the majority of the attention tends to go to the video games, movies, and other material when they don't seem to acknowledge the literary roots.

So here's some links to start us off:

https://www.grimdarkmagazine.com/cyberpunk-where-to-start-reading/

https://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/2022/09/ten-indie-cyberpunk-novel.html

What are your favorite cyberpunk books and why?

And accidentally wrote "cyberbook book thread."

I am very embarrassed. I wonder if a mod could help.

Not a big Cyberbuff, but I'm eading Neuromancer. Edgerunners got me inspired, but I'm trying to get a better understanding of the genre.

It's weird. You can understand what they're saying, but both the prose and the dialogue is strange and clunky. You can tell it's supposed to be, but that doesn't make it less off kilter. It does get easier to read, but it can veer into somewhat purply prose.

But the first chapter has a fucking Night City so you can tell where Cyberpunk (the pen and paper game) got it's inspiration.

I actually think Neuromancer is a bad place to begin cyberpunk because it's very-very good once you get immersed but it's a hard read due to how bizarre Gibson's eclectic style is, really.

I recommend Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (which is actually a parody of cyberpunk but the genre is so weird that a lot of people miss that) and Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams for much easier reads.

Snow Crash being about how a for profit megachurch attempts to take over the Net with a program designed to simulate religious enlightenment and are only opposed by a 14 year old courier and an African American samurai programmer named Hiro Protagonist. Oh and the Italian mafia pizzaria corporation.

Hardwired is weirdly similar to Gundam in that orbital habitats conquered the Earth via rocks dropped from space and now are enforcing hideously uneven economic treaties. A hover tank based smuggler and a prostitute get roped into a corporate paid-for heist that goes out of control.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Oct 13th 2022 at 8:02:11 AM

Gracias!

Are there any cyberpunk books that are more updated to modern aesthetics and speculation on current future tech as opposed to the 80s aesthetics and ideas of the future?

Stray Cat Strut is a bit like that. Point of divergence is 2020 or so (takes place in the 2050s), and it does feel a bit more modern in that way. A lot of the megacorps are entertainment or food corporations instead of just giant weapons manufacturers, augmetics are of the more modern non-invasive type (mostly), that sort of thing. It's a very non-standard cyberpunk book all around, a little bit more optimistic even putting aside the fact that the main character gets an alien AI that lets her buy hyper-advanced tech to threaten corporate idiots.

It's a good book, absolutely, but I'm not sure if it will quite fit what you're describing.

The Mecha Samurai Empire books end up that way, but they're Cyberpunk by way of alternate history, so it's not really the future.

The RPG stuff (and the aliens too) seems to be a bit too much for me, but thanks for the suggestion.

I'm actually fine with alternate history stuff (though the Axis powers winning is super cliché), but the mechs seem a bit much for me. Still, it seems interesting to me, as I was actually thinking of getting The Man in the High Castle. How are the characters in these book? Are they developed?

Any of you guys ever read the Marid Audran series? One of my favorite protagonists I ever read, when I was in my late teens and early 20's I emulated Marid a lot in my social life and it worked out pretty well except for the whole "developing an alcohol and coke problem" but. Still a fun time though. great books, fascinating setting too (Imagine new Orleans but Cyberpunk and also in the Middle East)

I bought Black Trace by Matt Maxwell on a whim today because I like his twitter posts. I really dig it so far, it takes place in a world where basically the internet went down one day and American society collapsed. This dude's a fed and dips from his job one day while Denver is in open revolt from the populace and goes to independent California where Shit's Going Down. It has some lovely prose, reminds me of a Walter John Williams joint so if the description sounds good I say check it out

Is it just me, or does the sex scene in Neuromancer come out of nowhere and contribute nothing to the plot or characters? (Mind you I've only half way through the book.)

Case and Molly are kind of an item for the whole book so it establishes that. Plus, like yeah there aint much build up but have you ever met a bad bitch like Molly? They don't dance around the issue when they want something

What kind of music do you listen to when reading cyberpunk? I think like, Post Punk, Warren Zevon, Velvet Underground, some of The National, that kind of stuff usually gets me in a cyberpunk mood. It seems a lot of people associate the genre with Synthwave which like, idk I get it but at the same time I think synthwave is so shallow most of the time

This is a truly fantastic article on the definition of "punk" of cyberpunk.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on May 3rd 2023 at 5:33:38 AM