Bruce Sterling bruces@well.sf.ca.us Literary Freeware --- Not For Commercial UseBruce Sterling's Idea of What Every Well-Appointed "Cyberpunk SF" Library Collection Should Possess (circa Dec 92)
The Canon:
BURNING CHROME William Gibson Gibson's short stories.NEUROMANCER, COUNT ZERO, MONA LISA OVERDRIVE William Gibson
The "Cyberspace Trilogy."MIRRORSHADES THE CYBERPUNK ANTHOLOGY Bruce Sterling ed.
Useful pointer to actual no-kidding Movement Cyberpunks. MINDPLAYERS Pat Cadigan Her best novel. An absolute must-have. HEATSEEKER John Shirley Shirley's short-stories. His most significant and influential work. DESERTED CITIES OF THE HEART Lewis Shiner Shiner's best SF novel. SLAM Lewis Shiner Intriguing cyberpunk mainstream non-genre novel. SOFTWARE and WETWARE Rudy Rucker Best-known novels of deranged math-professor/hacker/cyberpunk. TRANSREAL Rudy Rucker Every short piece Rucker ever wrote. Enormous. Like being hit in the head with a bowling ball. BLOOD MUSIC Greg Bear Bear's most c-wordish book. CRYSTAL EXPRESS Bruce Sterling Sterling's short work. SCHISMATRIX Bruce Sterling Posthuman space opera. ISLANDS IN THE NET Bruce Sterling 21st-century global information politics. THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE William Gibson and Bruce Sterling 19th-century cyberpunk by subgenre's foremost critics'-darlings.Other Useful Fiction:
HALO Tom Maddox Remarkable SF treatment of robots and artificial intelligence. GLOBALHEAD Bruce Sterling Sterling's second story collection. PATTERNS Pat Cadigan Cadigan's short work. Great range of topics and treatments. SYNNERS Pat Cadigan Cadigan's well-received second novel. FRONTERA Lewis Shiner Shiner's first novel, about mission to Mars. LOOK INTO THE SUN James Patrick Kelly Interesting novel by peripheral cyberpunk. ARACHNE Lisa Mason Cyberspace robots vs drug-addict San Francisco lawyer-careerists. Weirdissimo. SNOW CRASH Neal Stephenson Fine example of second-generation cyberpunk by Seattle hacker. HARDWIRED Walter Jon Williams Williams' most successful effort. SPACETIME DONUTS, WHITE LIGHT Rudy Rucker Rucker's early novels. Brilliantly deranged. INVOLUTION OCEAN, THE ARTIFICIAL KID Bruce Sterling Sterling's first two novels. SF adventures.SEMIOTEXT(E) SF Rudy Rucker, Peter Lamborn Wilson, Robert Anton Wilson, eds.
Story anthology of bad craziness. Quite likely to cause protests from scandalized parents and censors. MagazinesMONDO 2000.
Non-Fiction, Critical StudiesSTORMING THE REALITY STUDIO Larry McCaffery ed.
Cyberpunk's man-in-academe gives his highly postmodern take on matters in this bug-crusher anthology.CYBERPUNK: OUTLAWS AND HACKERS ON THE COMPUTER FRONTIER by Katie Hafner and John Markoff.
The best book to date on the outlaw "computer underground."ACROSS THE WOUNDED GALAXIES Larry McCaffery ed.
McCaffery interviews various weirdo leading-lights of pomo SF, including Gibson and Sterling.THE HACKER CRACKDOWN, LAW AND DISORDER ON THE ELECTRONIC FRONTIER by Bruce Sterling. It's not just for breakfast any more.