Welcome to Postmarked From the Stars Top 100 Cyberpunk Books Checklist!
20 down, how about ten more cyberpunk book classics?! As we continue our deep dive into the neon-lit alleys and virtual realms of our curated list, we invite you to explore ten more captivating titles that define and expand the boundaries of cyberpunk literature. Whether you're here to rediscover beloved classics or uncover new narratives, this next set of books includes some of the best cyberpunk ever!
Here's a template to print your high resolution version of our cyberpunk bookmark!
Here's the 21-30 of our 100 books on the list!
1986 - Mirrorshades - Bruce Sterling
Blurb: With their hard-edged, street-wise prose, they created frighteningly probable futures of high-tech societies and low-life hustlers. Fans and critics call their world cyberpunk. Here is the definitive "cyberpunk" short fiction collection.
Stories Included:
The Gernsback Continuum (1981) by William Gibson
Snake-Eyes (1986) by Tom Maddox
Rock On (1984) by Pat Cadigan
Tales of Houdini (1981) by Rudy Rucker
400 Boys (1983) by Marc Laidlaw
Solstice (1985) by James Patrick Kelly
Petra (1982) by Greg Bear
Till Human Voices Wake Us (1984) by Lewis Shiner
Freezone (1985) by John Shirley
Stone Lives (1985) by Paul Di Filippo
Red Star, Winter Orbit (1983) by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling
Mozart in Mirrorshades (1984) by Bruce Sterling and Lewis Shiner
Product Link: Here’s a link to buy a new paperback edition.
1986 - Hardwired - Walter Jon Williams
Blurb: “Hardwired features high-tech thrills and unforgettable heroes in the great tradition of William Gibson's Neuromancer. According to Locus, Hardwired is Walter Jon Williams's "best book to date".
Ex-fighter pilot Cowboy, "hardwired" via skull sockets directly to his lethal electronic hardware, teams up with Sarah, an equally cyborized gun-for-hire, to make a last stab at independence from the rapacious Orbitals.”
Product Link: Here’s a link to buy a new paperback edition.
1987 - When Gravity Fails - George Alec Effinger
Blurb: “In a decadent world of cheap pleasures and easy death, Marid Audrian has kept his independence the hardway. Still, like everything else in the Budayeen, he's available...for a price.
For a new kind of killer roams the streets of the Arab ghetto, a madman whose bootlegged personality cartridges range from a sinister James Bond to a sadistic disemboweler named Khan. And Marid Audrian has been made an offer he can't refuse.
The 200-year-old "godfather" of the Budayeen's underworld has enlisted Marid as his instrument of vengeance. But first Marid must undergo the most sophisticated of surgical implants before he dares to confront a killer who carries the power of every psychopath since the beginning of time.
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.”
Product Link: Here’s a link to buy a new paperback edition.
1986 - The Movement of Mountains - Michael Blumlein
Blurb: “When a virus attacks a race of genetically engineered slaves, Dr. Jules Ebert must decide whether to cure the disease or allow its dissemination on the chance that it will liberate the slaves and the rest of humankind.”
Product Link: Here’s a link to buy a new paperback edition.
1987 - Vacuum Flowers - Michael Swanwick
Blurb: “In a world of plug-in personalities and colonized asteroids, daring fugitive Rebel Elizabeth Mudlark seeks refuge on Earth orbiting settlements, where evil, self-interest, and greed flourish in the vacuum of space.”
Product Link: Here’s a link to buy a new paperback edition.
1987 - Mindplayers - Pat Cadigan
Blurb: “Caught experimenting with technologically induced psychosis, Alexandra Victoria Haas is given a choice between prison or becoming a pathosfinder.”
Product Link: Here’s a link to buy a new paperback edition.
1987 - True Names - Vernor Vinge
Blurb: “Once in a great while a science fiction story is so visionary, yet so close to impending scientific developments that it becomes not only an accurate predictor, but itself the locus for new discoveries and development. True Names by Vernor Vinge, first published in 1981, is such a work.
The newest edition has a feast of articles by computer scientists and journalists on the cutting edge of the field, writing about innovations and developments of the Internet.”
Product Link: Here’s a link to buy a new paperback edition.
1988 - Islands in the Net - Bruce Sterling
Blurb: “Laura Webster's on the fast track to success. A bright young star in a multinational conglomerate, she's living well in a post-millennial age of peace, prosperity, and profit.
In an age of advanced technology, information is the world's most precious commodity. Information is power. Data is locked in computers and carefully rationed through a global communications network. Full access is a privilege held by few.
Now, Laura Webster is about to be plunged into a netherworld of black-market data pirates, new-age mercenaries, high-tech voodoo... and murder.”
Product Link: Here’s a link to buy a copy from our store.
1988 - Emerald Eyes - Daniel Keys Moran
Blurb: “When the government created 250 telepathic infants to train as warriors, the children were nurtured as only the most valuable of slaves can be. But now these rare children have come of age, and they demand the same freedom as all men and women--and possess a unique power with which to fight for it.”
Product Link: Here’s a link to buy a new paperback edition.
1988 - Heatseeker - John Shirley
Blurb: “A mixed collection of reprint and original science fiction, horror, and surrealism, by one of the genre's more radical innovators and a cofounder of the cyberpunk movement. Particularly powerful are the very dark new story 'Equilibrium' and the stunning cyberpunk tale, 'Wolves of the Plateau.' Few writers are capable of getting away with so much over-the top craziness" - Anatomy of Wonder (2004)
"HEATSEEKER is a deadly powerful collection of dark parables by a man who was writing the stylized naturalism of the future before it became fashionable. John Shirley's prophet-in-the-cyber-wilderness voice deserves high billing among the best. He will be remembered." - Roger Zelazny.”
Product Link: Here’s a link to buy a new paperback edition.
Here's the rest of the list: 1-10, 11-20, 30-40, 40-50, 50-60, 60-70, 70-80, 80-90, 90-100.