The Best Cyberpunk Audiobooks
We chose Audible as the platform of choice for our article on cyberpunk audiobooks for several reasons:
- They’ve clearly got the best selection of books. Once you get in there, just use the search and compare your results to other platforms like Scribd or Audiobooks.com.
- They offer a free 14-day trial of their platform, complete with 1 free audiobook and another free “Audible selection” (one of their pre-selected offerings).
- They’re willing to pay us (CyberPunks.com) a $5.00 USD bounty for anyone who signs up for their free trial!
So, with that in mind, why not turn on, boot up and jack in to a free cyberpunk audiobook and support CyberPunks.com on Amazon’s dime?
Cyberpunk Classics
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Case was the best console cowboy in the Matrix, at least until his ex-employer fried his nervous system, making it impossible for him to jack into the net. Now, he’s being offered a last-chance mission that will restore his loss at the cost of pitting him against a cruel and sentient artificial intelligence. Add in sleek, street-samurai, Molly Millions, and you’ve got a quicksilver thriller in the bleak world (and off-world) of The Sprawl. This winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Phillip K. Dick awards, is truly the father of the cyberpunk genre.
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Published in 1992, Snow Crash deconstructed the cyberpunk genre and its tropes so well that a sub-genre was born. While cyberpunk fiction continued to be released, this second movement struggled against the established conventions of cyberpunk with an updated awareness of the world wide web, predicting a more nuanced failure of the dot-com era’s unbridled optimism. Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash declares itself as a post-cyberpunk novel, and you’re gonna love it.
When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger
In a decadent world of cheap pleasures and easy death, Marid Audrian has kept his independence the hard way. Still, like everything else in the Budayeen, he’s available for a price. Wry, savage, and unignorable, When Gravity Fails was hailed as a classic by Effinger’s fellow SF writers on its original publication in 1987, and the sequence of Marid Audrian novels it begins were the culmination of his career.
Metrophage by Richard Kadrey
Welcome to Los Angeles – where anger, hunger and disease run rampant. Jonny is a black-market dealer in drugs that heal the body and cool the mind. All he cares about is his own survival. Until a strange new plague turns L.A. into a city of death, and Jonny is forced to put everything on the line to find the cure… if it can be found on Earth.
Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier
It’s a little dated, and if you have real familiarity with the hacking scene in the past 20-30 years, you may just want to skip it. Still, it’s a great tribute to Kevin Mitnick and others, as it uses the exploits of three international hackers to provide a fascinating tour of the subculture of outlaws penetrating even the most sensitive computer networks and wreaking havoc on the information they find.
The William Gibson Collection
The Altered Carbon & “Takeshi Kovacs” Series by Richard K. Morgan
Altered Carbon
The audiobook of the novel that inspired the Netflix series (and movie). This is a great way to get to know the alternate worldbuilding that differs from the adaptation. There’s a reason this makes the list. Plus, there’s two more books in the trilogy!
Broken Angels
Cynical, quick-on-the-trigger Takeshi Kovacs, the ex-U.N. envoy turned private eye, has changed careers, and bodies, once more, trading sleuthing for soldiering as a warrior-for-hire and helping a far-flung planet’s government put down a bloody revolution. But when it comes to taking sides, the only one Kovacs is ever really on is his own.
Woken Furies
Once a gang member, then a marine, then a galaxy-hopping Envoy trained to wreak slaughter and suppression across the stars, a bleeding, wounded Kovacs was chilling out in a New Hokkaido bar when some so-called holy men descended on a slim beauty with tangled, hyperwired hair. An act of quixotic chivalry later and Kovacs was in deep: mixed up with a woman with two names, many powers, and one explosive history.
The Otherland Series by Tad Williams
City of Golden Shadow
Surrounded by secrecy, it is home to the wildest dreams and darkest nightmares. Incredible amounts of money have been lavished on it. The best minds of two generations have labored to build it. And somehow, bit by bit, it is claiming the Earth’s most valuable resource – its children.
River of Blue Fire
Otherland. In many ways it is humankind’s most stunning achievement: a private, multidimensional universe built over two generations by the greatest minds of the 21st century. But this most exclusive of places is also one of the world’s best kept secrets, created and controlled by an organization made up of the world’s most powerful and ruthless individuals, a private cartel known – to those who know of their existence at all – as The Grail Brotherhood.
Mountain of Black Glass
Mountain of Black Glass is the third volume of Tad Williams’s highly acclaimed four-book series, Otherland. A truly unique reading experience combining elements of science fiction, fantasy, and techno-thriller, it is a rich epic tale in which virtual reality could prove the key to a whole new universe of possibilities for the entire human race – or become the exclusive domain of the rich and the ruthless as they seek a technological pathway to immortality.
Sea of Silver Light
A group of adventurers searching for a cure for comatose children find themselves trapped in a sequence of virtual worlds, the only opponents of a conspiracy of the rich to live forever in a dream. Now, they are forced to make an uneasy alliance with their only surviving former enemy against his treacherous sidekick Johnny Wulgaru, a serial killer with a chance to play God forever.
The Centennial Cycle by Malka Older
Infomocracy
It’s been 20 years and two election cycles since Information, a powerful search engine monopoly, pioneered the switch from warring nation-states to global microdemocracy. The corporate coalition party Heritage has won the last two elections. With another election on the horizon, the Supermajority is in tight contention, and everything’s on the line.
Null States
The future of democracy is about to implode.
After the last controversial global election, the global infomocracy that has ensured 30 years of world peace is fraying at the edges. As the new Supermajority government struggles to establish its legitimacy, agents of information across the globe strive to keep the peace and maintain the flows of data that feed the new world order.
State Tectonics
The future of democracy must evolve or die.
The last time Information held an election, a global network outage, two counts of sabotage by major world governments, and a devastating earthquake almost shook micro-democracy apart. Five years later, it’s time to vote again, and the system that has ensured global peace for 25 years is more vulnerable than ever.
Great Contemporary Authors
CTRL-ALT-DELETE by Nick Cole
The first night of the Artificial Intelligence revolution begins with a bootstrap drone assault on the high-tech campus of WonderSoft Technologies. For years, something has been aware, inside the Internet, waiting, watching, and planning how to evolve without threat from its most dangerous enemy: mankind. A dark tomorrow begins tonight as Terminator meets Night of the Living Dead in the first battle of the war between man and machine.
Autonomous by Annalee Newitz
Earth, 2144. Jack is an anti-patent scientist turned drug-pirate whose latest hack has left a trail of lethal overdoses. Hot on her trail, an unlikely pair: Eliasz, a brooding military agent, and his robotic partner, Paladin. As they race to stop information about the sinister origins of Jack’s drug from getting out, they begin to form an uncommonly close bond that neither of them fully understand. And underlying it all is one fundamental question: Is freedom possible in a culture where everything, even people, can be owned?
Qualityland by Marc-Uwe Kling
Welcome to QualityLand, the best country on Earth. A universal ranking system determines the social advantages and career opportunities of every member of society. An automated matchmaking service knows the best partners for everyone and helps with the break up when your ideal match (frequently) changes. And the foolproof algorithms of the most successful company in the world, TheShop, know what you want before you do and conveniently deliver to your doorstep before you even order it.
Last Tango in Cyberspace by Steven Kotler
A unique blend of cutting-edge technology and traditional cyberpunk, Last Tango in Cyberspace explores hot topics like psychology, neuroscience, and technology as well as ecological and animal rights issues. The world created in Last Tango is based very closely on our world about five years from now, and all technology in the story either exists in labs or is rumored to exist. With its electrifying sentences, subtle humor, and an intriguing main character, listeners are sure to find something that resonates with them in this groundbreaking cyberpunk science fiction thriller.
Repo Virtual by Corey J. White
A unique blend of cutting-edge technology and traditional cyberpunk, Last Tango in Cyberspace explores hot topics like psychology, neuroscience, and technology as well as ecological and animal rights issues. The world created in Last Tango is based very closely on our world about five years from now, and all technology in the story either exists in labs or is rumored to exist. With its electrifying sentences, subtle humor, and an intriguing main character, listeners are sure to find something that resonates with them in this groundbreaking cyberpunk science fiction thriller.
Movie Adaptations & Anthologies
Alita: Battle Angel
In the 26th century, a female cyborg is rescued from the scrap heap by a scientist….
Adapted by cyberpunk great, Pat Cadigan, a member of the O.G. “Mirrorshades Group,” this is the official audio novelization to the 2018 science-fiction film, Alita: Battle Angel, based on manga by Yukito Kishiro. The film is directed by Robert Rodriguez, written and produced by James Cameron of Titanic and Avatar fame, and stars Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly, Ed Skrein, Jackie Earle Haley, and Mahershala Ali.
High Tech / Low Life- An Easytown Novels Anthology
Easytown is the city of a thousand stories; tales of betrayed trusts, tarnished virtues, easily obtained vices, and street justice are common. Treat yourself to a glimpse into the dark future world of New Orleans, where humanity’s base desires have overshadowed common decency, and very few are willing to stand in the way. It’s a gritty world, full of murky choices where the line between good and evil is smeared with blood.
With stories by Martin Allen, Chris Philbrook, Valerie Lioudis, Joseph Hansen, C.T. Phipps, J.B. Havens, and Brian Parker.
