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 June 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.
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 recently 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.