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 & 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.