Cyberpunk 101 reading list

Whole Earth Review, Summer, 1989 by Richard Kadrey

Here's a quick list of the books that helped to shape cyberpunk ideology, and books by the cyberpunks themselves, in roughly chronological order. - Richard Kadrey

Last and First Men (Olaf Stapledon, 1937, Dover) Hardly a novel at all. More like a long, brilliant encyclopedia essay on the next million-or-so years of human evolution.

The Big Sleep (Raymond Chandler, 1939, Random) Chandler's smooth, polychromatic prose style, and vision of the detective as knight errant has influenced more than one cyberpunk.

The Stars My Destination (Alfred Bester, 1956, Watts) Body modification, corporate intrigue, baroque settings and characters, and a walk down the gray line that separates criminals from the straight world. But it's the protagonist's purely anarchic belief in humanity that makes this book remarkable. This remains one of the few truly subversive novels ever to come out of science fiction.

Naked Lunch (William Burroughs, 1959, Grove) A blast of maniacal laughter from Hell. A combination of comedy as black as clotted blood, Dr. Benway's twisted medical speculations, tales of the criminal underground, and sexual fantasies that tear at your inseams like a rabid brontosaurus, all told in a fragmented prose style that still reads like the raw, beautiful poetry it is. The influence of this book is enormous. Without Naked Lunch, there would probably be no cyberpunk.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (A.K.A Blade Runner, Philip K. Dick, 1968, Ballantine) Renegade androids escape to earth from off-planet, and robot killer Decker must track them down. Identity is the big question here: who is more human, the androids who want to live or the cop who wants to kill them? Basis for the film Bladerunner.

Nova (Samuel Delany, 1968, Out of print) Stylistically, the bridge between the baroque 1950s SF of The Stars My Destination and the harder-edge worldview of Neuromancer. A space opera full of feuding families and oddball characters, but with a respect for the science that makes it all run.

The Cornelius Chronicles, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 (Michael Moorcock, 1969, Avon) The semi-complete story of the life/lives of Jerry Cornelius, Nobel Prize winning scientist and rock & roll musician. The existential plotting, ambiguous sexuality of the main characters, and general low-life/high brow feel makes these very important works in the canon.

Future Shock (Alvin Toffler, 1970, Bantam) Information increases and comprehension decreases. Sound familiar? Get ready. The future is only going to get weirder.

The Atrocity Exhibition J.G. Ballard, 1969, Out of Print) Ballard studied medicine while in college and it shows here. Through a series of fragmented 'compressed novels," Ballard traces the breakdown of a doctor at a mental hospital.

Dog Soldiers (Robert Stone, 1973, Penguin) Stone's post-Beat prose style and vision of America as a morally bankrupt party town tearing itself apart is as harrowing as Conrad's "Heart of Darkness." The difference is that like most cyberpunk, the action in Dog Soldiers could be happening right next door.

Gravity's Rainbow (Thomas Pynchon, 1973, Penguin) The best cyberpunk ever written by a guy who didn't even know he was writing it. Pynchon's most difficult (and rewarding) book puts you into the bad brains of soldiers, scientists, hookers, losers, etc., during World War Two, when science was about to Change Everything.

Shockwave Rider (john Brunner, 1975, Del Rey) When people are little more than bytes in the government data stream, can anyone remain human? Fugitive Nickie Heflinger wants to find out, and change a few things.

Blood and Guts in High School (Kathy Acker, 1982, Grove) Her influence is similar to that of Burroughs and Moorcock, but Acker started out as a poet, so her prose is infused with the poet's lust for words. That and her moral outrage make her very important. If Genet had sung for Black Flag, he might have sounded like this.

Frontera (Lewis Shiner, 1984, Pocket Books) The first privately funded mission to Mars after the collapse of NASA turns nightmarish when the protagonist, Kane, finds himself programmed to bring something back to Earth, at any cost.

Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive (William Gibson; 1984, Ace; 1986, Ace; 1988, Bantam) The evolution of the Matrix, a computer-generated reality created by data from all the world's computers, and the lives of those that live in and through it.

Mirrorshades (ed. by Bruce Sterling, 1986, Warner Books) Could be subtitled "A Young Person's Guide to Cyberpunk." The first and still definitive collection of cyberpunk short fiction.

Blood Music (Greg Bear, 1985, Ace) A renegade gene hacker injects himself with his own experimental microorganisms and gets up close and personal with Information Theory and a too, too malleable reality. Visually, this book is worthy of Salvador Dali.

Mindplayers (Pat Cadigan, 1987, Bantam) Deadpan Allie is a sort of future psychiatrist who works on her patients by entering virtual representations of their psyches.