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I love cyberpunk fiction, and so should you
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items My ever-evolving list of recommended cyberpunk fiction, in roughly the order I would recommend reading. A mix of novels and short stories, from the early 1980s to the present. I haven't read everything out there, so I'll add more as I I get to them. ...
Sections
4
Foundations
Growing Up
Out There
Get In The Game
Foundations
The works I consider foundational to the genre. These tend to be tech power fantasies and cautionary tales about the corruption of power.
If I had to name my all-time favorite cyberpunk book, it's this one. Gibson is most known for Neuromancer—and rightly so—but these short stories provide a more accessible, varied, and punchier on-ramp into classic cyberpunk. Johnny Mnemonic, Hinterla...
Burning Chrome by William Gibson
The book that first really defined cyberpunk and gave us the term “cyberspace”. A bit old-fashioned to modern readers, maybe, but it set the original tone and is essential reading. This is the first in Gibson's Sprawl Trilogy, followed by Count Zero ...
Neuromancer by William Gibson
A wild, satirical, neon and chrome drenched adventure to contrast with Neuromancer's gritty gothic noir. Snow Crash features sword play, Sumerian mythology, pizza delivery, and so much more beside the typical genre trappings. By hitting GenX directly...
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Bruce Sterling—second only to Gibson in setting the tone of early cyberpunk—curated this early collection of cyberpunk works. He was attempting, in part, to expand the nascent sub-genre's scope, and few of the included stories are what most would hav...
Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology
Classic “high tech, low life” anchored within an Islamic milieu. While most foundational works feature a North American or Japanese setting, When Gravity Fails takes place in a future middle east slum. The protagonist is a street smart hustler, who's...
When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger
Old-school cyberpunk in the style of a campy 80s action movie. It's action-packed, muscular, tough-guy fiction that doesn't (in my estimation) sink as far into toxic machismo as the worst in the genre do. It's actually kind of shocking this wasn't ma...
Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams
Growing Up
In a world that includes Google and social media, cyberpunk has to change. Enter “post-cyberpunk” or “second wave cyberpunk.” The hard-edged, militaristic power fantasies have made way for more thoughtful, socially aware—or just more playful—takes on...
A collection of short stories that expand and modernize cyberpunk's themes and subject matter. Science fiction in general and cyberpunk in particular no longer belong to any one demographic or world view, if they ever did. Not every cyberpunk hero ne...
Cyber World: Tales of Humanity's Tomorrow
Robin Sloan is a breath of fresh air in the genre. A thoroughly modern writer with unique ideas who combines cyberpunk themes with a generally more optimistic view of technology—though there's still plenty of menace and unintended consequence.
Annabel Scheme by Robin Sloan
A collection of lively and inventive short cyberpunk fiction. All of the stories are short, some qualify as flash fiction, so it's a quick read. Worth it if only to marvel at how much world building and atmosphere can be crammed into only a few pages...
The Mods: Cyberpunk Stories (Shacklebound Books)
A 90s pop-punk album of a novel—irreverent, snarky, and you just can't help but bop along to the beat. It has a lot to say but never quite takes itself, its themes, or its message straight. In short: it isn't serious, but it is a lot of fun.
Cyberpunk Trashcan by Randall P. Fitzgerald
Organized crime, a soldier turned cop who won't follow the rules, a street smart kid hustling to survive, and a mysterious delivery. This is a modern take on the gritty noir thriller, but set in a miserable cyberpunk future of sentient AIs, unconscio...
The Paradise Factory: Dystopian Cyberpunk Thriller
As the title suggests, Autonomous concerns itself mostly with questions of control and self-determination. The parts that stuck with me the most revolved around unexpected explorations of gender and sexual identity. Also at play are scientific freedo...
Autonomous: A Novel - Newitz, Annalee: Books
Out There
Works that take cyberpunk themes in unexpected new directions. Whether by mixing in magic or horror—or just an excess of strange ideas—these are worth exploring.
Mix the cyber-noir of William Gibson, the cosmic horror and paranoia of HP Lovecraft, and the gonzo prose of Hunter S. Thompson, and you might end up with something like No Dogs in Philly. Dark, weird, wild, grotesque, and utterly captivating. The se...
No Dogs in Philly: Cyberpunk Horror Noir by Andy Futuro
The focus of this book is on the relationship between humans and the sentient AI that run the world. In many ways a return to classic noir-flavored cyberpunk coupled with even further future speculative technologies. A more challenging read than most...
And Shall Machines Surrender (Machine Mandate 1)
All of Simon Stålenhag's picture/art books could be considered cyberpunk or at least cyberpunk-adjacent. The Electric State has a clear claim and is among his best and most emotionally impactful, in my opinion. Ignore the far weaker Netflix movie and...
The Electric State by Simon Stålenhag
Conflict journalist and podcaster Robert Evans' first (and so far only) novel is a wild ride. It's a drug-soaked, hyper-violent tale of cybernetic super soldiers, zealotous ethnostates, and the aftermath of an ugly all-out American civil war. A rough...
After the Revolution: A Novel by Robert Evans
Get In The Game
If you want to move beyond reading, there are a number of great tabletop roleplaying games (RPGs) worth checking out. Even if you don’t play, these books make for interesting and detailed source information about cyberpunk tropes and related elements...
A love letter to classic pre-90s cyberpunk. It is obsessed with hard-edged technology and extensive body modification, and proudly proclaims its embrace of style over substance. Author Mike Pondsmith crammed everything he loved about the genre into t...
Cyberpunk 2020 RPG Core Book
Shadowrun took a different approach to making a cyberpunk RPG by adding in magic. Deck runners and street samurai exist alongside wizards, elves, and dragons. Even the game mechanics are unique and deeply complex. The result is a wild and wonderful m...
Shadowrun First Ed.—35th Anniversary
If Cyberpunk 2020 is a power-rock ballad, CY_Borg is a death metal mosh pit anthem—a book you don’t read so much as experience. The game setting is as dark as they come, and the mechanics are minimalistic and punishing, but the intensely graphic pres...
CY_Borg Core RPG Rulebook
A modern “Powered by the Apocalypse” (PbTA) game that may be more accessible to younger players. PbTA games focus more on shared story telling while still using set rules and die rolls to determine success or failure. Another game “The Veil” by Frase...
The Sprawl by Hamish Cameron