Bruce Sterling
bruces@well.sf.ca.us

Literary Freeware --- Not For Commercial Use


Bruce 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.

Magazines

MONDO 2000.
        "Cyberpunk" as glossy West Coast fashion magazine.  It Had To Happen.
bOING bOING
        Ultra-happening cyberslacker antizine from the heart of digitized
        desktop bohemia.
ISAAC ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE.
        Least reactionary of the standard American SF magazines.
INTERZONE
        Foremost British SF magazine.  Libraries should carry this worthy
        zine as a public service, since individual US subscriptions are
        costly.
SCIENCE FICTION EYE
        More-or-less official lit-crit organ of cyberpunk SF and assorted
        fellow-travellers.  Like most fanzines, sadly sporadic.
SCIENCE FICTION STUDIES
        Dull gray academic rag seized in startling coup by wacky post-
        modernists.  Now almost readable!

Non-Fiction, Critical Studies

STORMING 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.