Cyberpunk Books

In Neon Leviathan, twelve cyberpunk short stories ricochet off one another. They center around marginalized perspectives in Australia after a futuristic war entangled that country, Vietnam, and China. The stratification of class has been exacerbated. Each story focuses on one or more individuals who are just trying to get by in a world where the corporations dominate. Expect tales of criminals, gamblers, medics, and soldiers.

The opening line to Neuromancer (1984) by William Gibson sets the tone for a dark and gritty cyberpunk world that’s progressively looking more like the world of today. An uninformed reader would be hard-pressed to imagine the book being written during the 1980s, seeing as much of the once-speculative technology has been realized.

Richard Kadrey’s Metrophage says “Society is a Carnivorous Flower.” Written in 1988, Metrophage is a first wave cyberpunk novel with most of the usual trappings. There is no middle class anymore, just the super-rich and the dirt poor.

All right, chums. Today, we’re gonna focus on a cyberpunk magazine that holds a special place in my heart, since they published my first story ever: Write Ahead: The Future Looms (shortened to WA/FL for convenience and amusement).

[email protected] jiggles, twists and contorts virtual models of proteins into procedurally generated shapes in order to study how those shapes affect their function. This is useful for studying diseases like Alzheimer’s and cancer, finding new antibiotics to fight resistant superbugs, and developing drug candidates that could block the ability of viruses like HIV and COVID-19 from attacking human cells.

Tsutomu Nihei’s BLAME! is a manga composed of 65 chapters, also called Logs. The series was a revolutionary step in the cyberpunk manga genre, challenging accepted concepts and forms with its sweeping, illustrated landscapes and inspired use of negative space.

Although published in 1991, the world of Pat Cadigan’s Synners and L.A in the late 1980’s still feels relevant today. In fact, it’s more relevant than a lot of cyberpunk, especially among fellow first-wave texts.  Unlike many of the books’ peers, it doesn’t feel archaic after thirty years, perhaps because it’s a hard, purposeful look at nostalgia itself.

Diving deep into Bell Labs’ history, Jon Gertner’s book, The Idea Factory, explores the origins of some of the twentieth century’s most important inventions and inventors, telling a story of a small group of career engineers who overcame challenges with innovative solutions. Here was the cradle of communication.

Matt Hawkins is a familiar name in the annals of independent comic book history. Having been with Image Comics almost since its initial launch in 1992, Hawkins famously asked for a job from Rob Liefeld while in line at an Extreme Studios event in the summer of 1993. Now president and COO of Top Cow comics, he has also written several books that explore the relationship between humanity and technology. 

Walkaway is a book about many things, but fundamentally this is what it wants you to think about, the rest is a thought experiment viewed from a few different characters’ eyes. On paper, this book has everything I want from a post-cyberpunk book, including callbacks to the first-wave cyberpunk books.