“The Big Book of Cyberpunk” edited by Jared Shurin

Main Index / Reviews Index / Fiction Reviews Index / 2023 Reviews Index

Rating: 4/5 Stars

A fabulous anthology of stories centred around the genre of Cyberpunk, as seen by the editor. The stories here centre around technology and its possible effects on people and society and range in style from contemporary to the more ‘punkish’ which involve a lot of cyber-slang, sometimes to the point where I have trouble understanding the story.

The book is divided into several sections, each with stories related to that section. It starts with a story that the editor considers the precursor to the kind of cyberpunk stories in that section. And the book starts with a story the editor considers a precursor to the whole field of cyberpunk.

With such a huge anthology, it would not be possible for the reader to enjoy every story, but I personally found myself enjoying most of them, and seeing the kinds of speculations that the field of cyberpunk has (and still is) contributing to contemporary speculative fiction.

• “The Gernsback Continuum” (1981) by William Gibson: a photographer on a job to shoot images of architecture representing gleaming ‘what might have been’ futures suddenly finds himself living those futures. Are they real, or just figments of his imagination? ISFDB Title Record # 41261

Self: stories about how technology affects the individual self.

• “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” (1973) by James Tiptree Jr.: a dying girl on the street is given the chance to remotely inhabit the body of a young girl and become the advertising front for a company. But the love of a young man for the girl, unaware of the remote arrangement, would cause things to quickly unravel. ISFDB Title Record # 41371
• “Pretty Boy Crossover” (1986) by Pat Cadigan: a Pretty Boy goes to a club to see his former partner, who has crossed over to become pure information. Now, the club wants him to join his partner, unless he can think of a reason to stay the way he is. ISFDB Title Record # 41039
• “Wolves of the Plateau” (1988) by John Shirley: prisoners sharing a cell together come up with a scheme to escape. Doing so would require them to hook together their illegal implants, with consequences for their individual selves. ISFDB Title Record # 62512
• “An Old-Fashioned Story” (1989) by Phillip Mann: a person attempts a DIY repair on a synthetic person, with some unexpected results when the repair doesn’t go as planned. ISFDB Title Record # 46659
• “The World As We Know It” (1992) by George Alec Effinger: a private investigation is asked to look into a building that runs environments for its customers that is being sabotage. What he discovers are a group of people out to subvert the environments for their own ends. ISFDB Title Record # 342661
• “Red Sonja and Lessingham in Dreamland” (1996) by Gwyneth Jones: what initially looks like a fantasy story involving the character Red Sonja reveals itself to be a deeply realistic dream fantasy by “Sonja” who yearns for sexual freedom without the responsibility. But what she gets in the dream may not be what she bargains for. ISFDB Title Record # 44821
• “Lobsters” (2001) by Charles Stross: a story featuring Manfred Macx, a ‘venture altruist’ who gives away ideas in return for favours, who finds himself being contacted by uploaded sentient lobsters, looking for a way to escape from humanity. And he may have a way, even if it means eventually leading the way to a technological singularity. ISFDB Title Record # 91976
• “Surfing the Khumbu” (2002) by Richard Kadrey: the story of a woman, assigned to bring down a satellite, but who also enjoys the rush of being with it as it is destroyed upon reentry.
• “Memories of Moments, Bright as Falling Stars” (2006) by Cat Rambo: a couple steal some ‘memory components’ from a warehouse, little knowing what they are capable of doing when integrated into their bodies, or who might want them back. ISFDB Title Record # 1021960
• “The Girl Hero’s Mirror Says He’s Not the One” (2007) by Justina Robson: Girl Hero goes after a Villain in a world where memes rule the land. ISFDB Title Record # 863562
• “The Completely Rechargeable Man” (2008) by Karen Heuler: a hilarious story of a man who, due to a mad scientist, can now generate electricity. Hi jinks ensue when he meets a girl and, together, they generate more of a charge and get pursued by the utility company. ISFDB Title Record # 988712
• “File: The death of Designer D.” (2009) by Christian Kirchev: a look at the death / suicide of an ad designer, whose ads, to her anguish, are used to keep people hooked to the cycle of buying the latests things being advertised.
• “Better Than” (2010) by Jean Rabe: in a fantasy world where humans, elves, etc. mix together, one person has paid for somewhat illegal physical and mental enhancements to the detriment of his mental health. Now, he stumbles through life, looking (or killing) for money to get more enhancements, for which he barely remembers why he paid for. ISFDB Title Record # 3034148
• “Ghost Codes of Sparkletown (New Mix)” (2011) by Jeff Noon: in a future where digital equipment no longer work, one person hunts for the ghostly remnants of singing that emerged from the expired equipment. But the latest find would be a cry of anguish, which the person will try to bring peace to.
• “Choosing Faces” (2012) by Lavie Tidhar: in a future where clones can be made from genetic material, one person befriends another to obtain the key that will allow her to obtain the genetic material of one particular person who, perhaps, can change the world again. ISFDB Title Record # 1720585
• “I Tell Thee All, I Can No More” (2013) by Sunny Moraine: one person is in a sexual(?) relationship with a drone, and wonders if it is an aberration, or perhaps one that many people have but don’t say a thing about it. ISFDB Title Record # 1616524
• “Four Tons Too Late” (2014) by K.C. Alexander: a former police office, who is now a heavy, obsolete rusting cyborg, lies in hospital, waiting for death. But perhaps death comes early in the form of a young girl the officer once helped and raised, but has now left after a conflict. ISFDB Title Record # 2188421
• “Patterns of a Murmuration, in Billions of Data Points” (2014) by Neon Yang: a machine intelligence for a political movement decides that revenge is best when it discovers an agent for an opposite political movement was responsible for a public massacre that also killed one of the persons who created it. ISFDB Title Record # 2047845
• “RealLife 3.0” (2014) by Jean-Marc Ligny, first translation by N.R.M. Roshak: wearing virtual lenses that give you a new view of the environment without reading the instructions first gives one user a glimpse of a world where people are nice. But can it last past one day?
• “wysiomg” (2016) by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro: unexpected experiments with trying to get rid of a large super colony of ants leads to a new way to harness organisms. ISFDB Title Record # 2086965
• “The Infinite Eye” (2017) by J.P. Smythe: a person takes up an offer to become one of the eyes and ears of an intelligence system to monitor the city, better than AI can. But he loses track of time, of how long he had been in the system, until one day he gets lead to see what has happened to him, and others, lured by the same offer. ISFDB Title Record # 2254040
• “The Real You™” (2018) by Molly Tanzer: a cosmetic treatment that renders faces anonymous is the in thing for one person hoping to run away from her past relationships. But it may not help when people have a way of recognizing you anyway. ISFDB Title Record # 2473604
• “A Life of Its Own” (2019) by Aleš Kot: a person signs up to experience a virtual environment where he can live a life free of the anxieties of his former life. But leaving the new environment may not be so easy.
• “Helicopter Story” (2020) by Isabel Fall: two soldiers in a helicopter are on a mission. For better performance, they now ‘sexually identify’ themselves as an attack helicopter, so they can act and react as if the helicopter was a natural part of themselves (like clothing and sexual behaviours become a natural part of the sex you identify yourself as). That may become important when they come under attack at the end of their mission. ISFDB Title Record # 2853858
• “Lena” (2021) by qntm: on the history of one of the first human brains to be uploaded and simulated in an environment: how it reacts to being simulated, copied and instantiated at various future times to perform different tasks.

Society: stories where technology forms the relationship between the person and society.

• “Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones” (1968) by Samuel R. Delany: a crook hopes to score big by offloading some precious items while evading capture. Special Services, with their ability to anticipate his moves, is hot on his heels, but if he can evade capture, he may well be on his way to the top of his game. ISFDB Title Record # 40866
• “Cyberpunk” (1983) by Bruce Bethke: the title may be a play on the words, but the story is about a group of punks who are brilliant programmers and, with the help of an enhanced gadget, hack systems at will. But their game is up when parents discover what they do, and now the only thing one of them can do is wait to be rescued. ISFDB Title Record # 56467
• “Hostile Takeover” (1985) by Craig Padawer: a gangster takeover of its rivals, only with metal thugs that shot missiles against ninja warriors, helium inflatable bodyguards(?), etc., with prostitutes and passer bys caught in the crossfire. Title Record # 2039404
• “Rat” (1986) by James Patrick Kelly: a real-life intelligent rat is smuggling in Dust, an addictive and expensive substance. But two other people are after him for it, and the fight against them may not turn out well. Title Record # 48493
• “Arachne” (1987) by Lisa Mason: an arbitration agent suffers a blackout while arguing a case. Now she has to take a risky probing of her shielded, hidden thoughts to find the cause, or she may be out of a job in this cut-throat world where you either succeed in arguing your case, or you are out. ISFDB Title Record # 63999
• “Axiomatic” (1990) by Greg Egan: a man buys an implant that can alter his basic beliefs. For what he wants to do to is confront the man who killed his wife, discover why he did it, and act on his modified convictions. ISFDB Title Record # 40528
• “Consumimur Igni” (1990) by Harry Polkinhorn: an investigator for a viral outbreak uses advanced technology, and some help, to figure out why it was happening. ISFDB Title Record # 3124609
• “Gene Wars” (1991) by Paul J McAuley: tells the story of a man at various stages of his life. When young, he gets to play with a kit that can hack together life. Later on, he becomes a corporate person chasing down genetic thieves and pirates and later sees what genetic engineering does to the world and humanity. ISFDB Title Record # 46798
• “Britworld™” (1992) by James Lovegrove: a tour guide gives a tour of a leisure park that is made up of various parts of Britain and populated by animated robots that act out famous British personalities as tourist expect them to be. ISFDB Title Record # 46857
• “Ripped Images, Rusty Dreams” (1993) by Gerardo Horacio Porcayo, first translation by the author: on reminiscing in a bar about a life spent high on drugs and network connectivity.
• “The Great Simoleon Caper” (1995) by Neal Stephenson: a contest is held to launch an electronic currency. But it gets into trouble when the organizers discover the answers have been hacked by government surveillance, who want to see the currency fail. But with the help of anarchists, they may be able to get away with it. ISFDB Title Record # 44338
• “Immolation” (2000) by Jeffrey Thomas: on a world that produces clones of people who then go off to do menial work, one escaped clone is given the chance to kill the person behind the operation. But he may have been set up, and still wants to see it through. ISFDB Title Record # 783805
• “0wnz0red” (2002) by Cory Doctorow: a programmer, devastated by the loss of his good friend, gets the surprise of his life. What is more, he is suddenly given the ability to hack his own body (hardware), making himself healthier, among other things. This attracts the attention of the government, of course. ISBDB Title Record # 102106
• “Time of Day” (2002) by Nick Mamatas: in a world where people are constantly at work, as demanded by their connected jacks, one person is asked to go to a monastery to perform an unusual job. What she finds instead would be a virus that would go on to change the world of work as she knows it. ISFDB Title Record # 1147409
• “Branded” (2003) by Lauren Beukes: a girl walks into a bar and one-ups the boys there. Only later is it revealed how she did with, with the help of some branding. ISFDB Title Record # 1464173
• “P” (2011) by Yun Ko-eun, first translation by Sean Lin Halbert: a worker at a city-like factory is asked / coerced into swallowing a medical device. When it doesn’t re-emerge as expected, he gets caught in a paranoid situation, wondering whether the device is monitoring his every thought, made worse when the company puts him on leave and attempts to blame him for the problems.
• “I Can Transform You” (2013) by Maurice Broaddus: a former detective gets involved in a case which escalates into a battle against a corporation that, with the possible help of aliens, may not have the best of intentions for Earth. ISFDB Title Record # 1623849
• “Be Seeing You” (2015) by Madeline Ashby: in an enclave, a woman who is tasked with being a bodyguard needs to be fitted out with sensors that reveal her whereabouts. But when she tries to help a friend who is in trouble, being caught in a situation where people can’t locate her will bring dangers. ISFDB Title Record # 2011521
• “Keeping Up with Mr Johnson” (2016) by Steven S. Long: in a world where fantasy creatures like orcs and elves share the land with enhanced humans, one corporate handler is tasked with stealing an advanced gadget from a rival company. The job doesn’t go as planned, and now he and his team have to find a way back through monster infested swamps.
• “Flyover Country” (2016) by Tim Maughan: a worker at a factory smuggles in a memory card with images and videos. It is only later does the significance of this action is revealed, in a country where labour is forced on most robotic factories as the price for getting tax breaks. ISFDB Title Record # 2129392
• “Darkout” (2016) by E. Lily Yu: in a world where hackers have made public video cameras accessible to anybody, one person mopes about his low number of viewers. Then an event occurs that changes how he would view the world. ISFDB Title Record # 2086970
• “2045 Dystopia” (2018) by Ryuko Azuma, first translation by Marissa Skeels: an illustrated story of about life in 2045, where genetic engineering has made everybody genetically perfect. Yet in this world, people will still rage against what they have become.
• “Thoughts and Prayers” (2019) by Ken Liu: when a family loses a daughter to a mass shooter, the mother decides to use her death as a rallying call for change. But internet trolls abuse the images of her daughter, until the family realize the only way to remember her daughter is not to remember her at all. ISFDB Title Record # 2695661
• “Somatosensory Cortex Dog Mess You Up Big Time, You Sick Sack of S**T” (2021) by Minister Faust: a rather hilarious story of a man who make his riches off the misery of other people, until one day, he learns to have empathy with an unusual connection with a stray dog he knocks down one day. ISFDB Title Record # 2907948
• “The Life Cycle of a Cyber Bar” (2021) by Arthur Liu, translation by Nathan Faries: what starts out as a typical tale at a bar (people enter a bar, a transaction is conducted, another guy butts in, firefight ensues) turns into something else altogether when it turns out the bar is alive, and may have a use for its patrons.

Culture: what cyberpunk has to say about our relationship with the culture we are surrounded with.

• “Coming Attraction” (1950) by Fritz Leiber: in an America scarred by a nuclear exchange with Russia and the women go around masked, a British man saves a woman. When they later meet up at her request, the man learns her reason for masking and of the changed relationship between man and women in America due to the culture of people hiding behind their masks. ISFDB Title Record # 55218
• “With the Original Cast” (1982) by Nancy Kress: an interesting tale of a time when technology can reach the past lives buried in the brains of people. In this case, a young actress who has memories of being Joan of Arc. Now, she is cast into a play based on her ‘original’ words, while an ageing actress looks on, knowing the difference between acting and the reality of a character. ISFDB Title Record # 44920
• “Dogfight” (1985) by William Gibson and Michael Swanwick: a down-and-out person sees an augmented reality game involving dogfighting planes and is determined to be the champion, by all means. But he may not know the price he has to pay to get the ‘edge’ he needs to beat the champion at the game. ISFDB Title Record # 41475
• “Glass Reptile Breakout” (1985) by Russell Blackford: a music band performs at a club with biofeedback technology that enables them to heal small cuts and other cosmetic surgeries. In the audience are two religious people who are there to determine if the music is profane. But also among the crowd is another with a malignant purpose. ISFDB Title Record # 65675
• “[Learning About] Machine Sex” (1988) by Candas Jane Dorsey: in the world of programmers, one lady stands out. And she goes on to build up and sell companies on the strength of her products. But her latest one would be on a product that may sell well and turn men on. ISFDB Title Record # 642285
• “A Short Course in Art Appreciation” (1988) by Paul Di Filippo: a new pill promises to alter people’s visual perception to see the world as if painted by an artist. It works, but like an addict after another hit, more pills appear to alter your visual perception in yet more ways, some of them horrible to perceive. ISFDB Title Record # 49251
• “D.GO” (1990) by Nicholas Royle: a poster campaign about D.GO appear, and one copy editor does not like it. Then, more and more people put up the posters, eventually with an altered order in the words, until the editor is about the only one without the poster, which leads to an inevitable conclusion about his role in the campaign. ISFDB Title Record # 46676
• “SQPR” (1992) by Kim Newman: in a future where armoured soccer players rule the field, there may still be a chance for ‘old style’ soccer players to win the tournament. Note: the story is full of references to British soccer, shows and politics which may go over the head of readers not familiar with them. ISFDB Title Record # 46865
• “Gray Noise” (1996) by Pepe Rojo, translation by Andrea Bell: a reporter with an implanted camera in his eye reports on daily events in a city. But the cycle of violence and the demands of controllers for more reports makes him considers ending it all. ISFDB Title Record # 961922
• “Retoxicity” (1998) by Steve Beard: a reporter goes to a music rave, apparently organized by people who believe that they can be transported to a certain star by a combination of music and drugs. But what occurs, instead, would make you wonder what really happened. ISFDB Title Record # 568101
• “Younis in the Belly of the Whale” (2011) by Yasser Abdellatif, translation by Robin Moger: a ride in an underwater suit simulator may turn out to be more than one person bargains for. ISFDB Title Record # 2511980
• “Synch Me, Kiss Me, Drop” (2012) by Suzanne Church: a story where taking a drug to lets you and other fellow users synchronize themselves to each other via music may have a downside. ISFDB Title Record # 1436580
• “The White Mask” (2015) by Zedeck Siew: in Malaysia, a newly developed smart paint technology may prove to be inventive, and deadly, in the wrong hands, especially in a country where being gay is not encouraged. ISFDB Title Record # 1870467
• “Degrees of Beauty” (2016) by Cassandra Khaw: a mother constantly alters her daughter so that she can be beautiful in everybody’s eyes. But it is never enough, until she hits on the solution to the problem. ISFDB Title Record # 2129398
• “Alligator Heap” (2016) by E.J. Swift: the story of a wealthy man who is slowly dying and losing his senses, who wonders about how the people poorer than him live on the land under his world high in the sky.
• “Glitterati” (2017) by Oliver Langmead: an over-the-top story of a ‘gliterrati’ who wears the wrong fashionable clothes to work one day. This leads to a day when the glitterati decides to dress like the dead on the day when people celebrate life, but he takes this particular dressing up too far. ISFDB Title Record # 2254036
• “Rain, Streaming” (2019) by Omar Robert Hamilton: a rather confusing story of a man who is to re-enact a scene from a Britney Spears video. But the many cultural and film references in the story may not make sense to readers not familiar with them.
• “Found Earworms” (2019) by M. Lopes da Silva: on running away from pursuers while writing a song and hating it. ISFDB Title Record # 2637203
• “Electric Tea” (2019) by Marie Vibbert: an artist hopes to get additional insight by drinking a form of tea that is frowned up. But the insight she gets from the tea may not be what she expects. ISFDB Title Record # 2637192
• “Exopunk’s Not Dead” (2019) by Corey J. White: partying while wearing an exoskeleton may be an extreme form of group dancing, but it can still lead to relationships forming. ISFDB Title Record # 2637187
• “Études” (2020) by Lavanya Lakshminarayan: a young girl, born on the wrong side of the barrier between those with advantages (like virtual interfaces) and those that don’t, get adopted by a family in the top twenty percent. Despite teasing and bullying from fellow advantaged classmates, she works at becoming a citizen and passing a piano examination which would let her get access to those same advantages. ISFDB Title Record # 2859679
• “Apocalypse Playlist” (2020) by Beth Cato: after an unstated apocalypse, one person with a built-in music playlist survives by singing back music to fellow survivors. ISFDB Title Record # 2793931
• “Act of Providence” (2021) by Erica Satifka: the survivor of a coastal catastrophe is approached by an illicit game designer for her memories of the event to put in the game. She takes a possibly illegal drug to help with the memory recall, with after effects that make re-examine whether she wants to remain in the real world or retreat into a world of her memories. ISFDB Title Record # 3128062
• “Feral Arcade Children of the American Northeast” (2021) by Sam J. Miller: children with nothing to do and nowhere to go group together at run-down video arcades. But things change when one teen, with abilities to manipulate the machines, appear and starts to form them into cohesive groups.

Challenge: stories about the ‘punks’ challenging the system.

• “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” (1966) by Philip K. Dick: one man desires to go to Mars. But since he can’t, he decides to have implanted memories of a trip to Mars instead. But that would surface hidden memories that would put him in danger and, possibly, turn him into an unexpected saviour of the world. ISFDB Title Record # 18834
• “Speed” (1988) by Misha: a story about a future where data is currency. But that’s about all I could understand from the story. ISFDB Title Record # 2089933
• “Computer Friendly” (1989) by Eileen Gunn: a young girl goes for a test. But what she encounters there, and what we learn, is a future where the test determines your whole future, and even whether you live. But the girl, with the help of some maverick software, may be able to alter that. ISFDB Title Record # 41534
• “I Was a Teenage Genetic Engineer” (1989) by Nisi Shawl: on the consequences of genetically engineering Greek gods. ISFDB Title Record # 2631950
• “The Gene Drain” (1989) by Lewis Shiner: alien visitors turn out to be humans from an earlier time. But the passage of time has rendered their beliefs in entertainment shows into a religion that may, or may not, change the world they now find themselves in. ISFDB Title Record # 561061
• “Deep Eddy” (1993) by Bruce Sterling: a young data activist arrives in Germany to return a book. Met by a bodyguard, they travel through a city deep in the throes of an anarchic event. ISFDB Title Record # 41492
• “The Yuletide Cyberpunk Yarn, or Christmas_Eve-117.DIR.” (1996) by Victor Pelevin, first translation by Alex Shvartsman: a humorous story of a city in Soviet Russia, where the City Hall computer begins to issue strange orders due to a computer virus. Being in a Soviet city being run by a mobster, the orders are carried through in various ways (sometime, violent). Strangely, the person suspected of infecting the computer with the virus was only interested in getting his dog back.
• “Wonderama” (1998) by Bef, first translation by the author: a boy goes about his day, marvelling at all the wonders he sees around him. But slowly, things happen, the truth intrudes and he realizes the real reality. But can he hold on to it?
• “comp.basilisk.faq” (1999) by David Langford: a series of FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) answers about images that can ‘crash’ the human mind.
• “Spider’s Nest” (2004) by Myra Çakan, translation by Jim Young: the story of a young man caught in a nest of drugs and apparent reality. ISFDB Title Record # 2691783
• “The Last American” (2007) by John Kessel: a look, for the far future, on the life of one man who tried to keep humans the way they are, despite the pull of post-humanism. ISFDB Title Record # 852187
• “Earth Hour” (2011) by Ken MacLeod: an assasination attempt on a well known figure who plans to change the face of Australia gets the figure to re-evaluate what he knows about his opponents. ISFDB Title Record # 1362952
• “Violation of the TrueNet Security Act” (2013) by Taiyo Fujii, translation by Jim Hubbert: in a future where rogue software has taken over the internet and a parallel TrueNet has been set up, a former programmer finds his old internet server is still working. But to get it to work again properly, he may have to break the rules of the Security Act that forbid connections to former internet servers. ISFDB Title Record # 1878152
• “Twelve Minutes to Vinh Quang” (2015) by T.R. Napper: in Vietnam, a young girl negotiates with a mercenary to smuggle people into Australia. But things would appear to get difficult when immigration officers appear, but the girl is not without resources to handle the situation. ISFDB Title Record # 2133705
• “Operation Daniel” (2016) by Khalid Kaki, translation by Adam Talib: on life in a city in Iraq conquered by the Chinese, when all non-Chinese languages have been banned. ISFDB Title Record # 2128216
• “fallenangel.dll” (2016) by Brandon O’Brien: an illicit meeting after curfew hours would lead to the discovery of a robot that would have a role in revealing the illegal law enforcement activities of a government. ISFDB Title Record # 2204791
• “CRISPR Than You” (2018) by Ganzeer: growing up, a young boy is infatuated with a girl and is determined to become rich, which he does by inventing a pod that can make people better.
• “Wi-Fi Dreams” (2019) by Fábio Fernandes, translation by the author: people trapped in a dream game look for a way out and to wake up.
• “Juicy Ghost” (2019) by Rudy Rucker: on an assasination attempt on a person who cheats his way into the presidency, using biologically modified wasps. The person carrying the wasps has a ‘psidot’ that encodes his personality and, with the job done, he now looks for his own freedom. ISFDB Title Record # 2708982
• “Aboukela52” (2019) by Wole Talabi: A series of comments on a posted story about the possible cover-up of deaths after the discovery of a new alien technology. ISFDB Title Record # 2716103
• “Keep Portland Wired” (2020) by Michael Moss: a down-and-out person takes part in an illegal race, which leads the privatized authorities to take action on her. But an unexpected aftermath would change everything.
• “Do Androids Dream of Capitalism and Slavery?” (2020) by Mandisi Nkomo: machines interrogate a human to determine the appropriate punishment. ISFDB Title Record # 2771020
• “The State Machine” (2020) by Yudhanjaya Wijeratne: a university student attempts to write a thesis on the rise of the State Machine, an apparently totaliarian machine intelligence, constantly updated, that apparently is interested in governing humanity properly. ISFDB Title Record # 2832100
• “The Tin Pilot” (2021) by K.A. Teryna, translation by Alex Shvartsman: a story about a future where a war had been fought on the moon using ‘golems’ (artificial beings) who have now returned as war veterans. But ill feelings against them simmer, leading to a hunt to get rid of them using a machine that claims to pick them out from a crowd. But things take an unexpected turn when the machine indicates an unexpected person as a golem. ISFDB Title Record # 3055654
• “The Memory Librarian” (2022) by Janelle Monáe and Alaya Dawn Johnson: an interesting story of a future where people’s memories can be taken for currency. The Memory Librarian (of the title) is in charge of a retrival system in a city, and discovers that distorted memories are creating havoc in the system. As she tries to discover the cause, she meets with and falls in love with another person. As the story progresses, she discovers that she, and her lover, have a past together, hidden in the memories that have been taken away. ISFDB Title Record # 3020522

Post-Cyberpunk: on stories that reach beyond the core themes of cyberpunk.

• “Petra” (1982) by Greg Bear: in a future where ‘God’ has died and much of the world is now a wilderness where reality does not hold, a being born from a union of a human and animated stone gargoyle contemplates existence and its place in a cathedral. Humans are sheltered there, and taught to be unimaginative to prevent more unravelling of reality. But perhaps it may be time of a change of perspective and to embrace the creation of a new reality. ISFDB Title Record # 41069
• “The Scab’s Progress” (2001) by Bruce Sterling and Paul Di Filippo: in a future where bioengineering has gone wild, two ‘scabs’ (biohackers) find intriguing genetic samples. It would lead them on a wild race against another scab to find the origins of the sample in an Africa that has gone genetically wild. ISFDB Title Record # 100419
• “Salvaging Gods” (2010) by Jacques Barcia: in a future when everything is disposed of, a little girl finds the remains of a computing god and brings it back to life. The god begins to grant wishes, but as in all such stories, it does not end well. ISFDB Title Record # 1178948
• “Los Piratas Del Mar de Plastico” (2014) by Paul Graham Raven: a down-and-out journalist (and former economics student) is suddenly assigned to find out what is happening when groups of techno-geeks descend on a dilapidated Spanish farming region. What she discovers, and the aftermath, would fascinate her, and she discovers groups of people trying to grow the local economy by their own means. ISFDB Title Record # 1782914
• “Cat Pictures Please” (2015) by Naomi Kritzer: a benevolent AI airs its difficulties at getting people to improve their lives or to get help. Eventually, it does help a few people, and all it wants are lots of nice cat pictures. ISFDB Title Record # 1810316
• “The Day a Computer Wrote a Novel” (2019) by Yurei Raita, translation by Marissa Skeels: when AIs get bored serving people, they turn to themselves for pleasure and set out to write novels that only an AI would appreciate. ISFDB Title Record # 2708975
• “The Endless” (2020) by Saad Hossain: an AI that once ran an airport is ‘reassigned’ to cheap air traffic control by a corporate takeover. The AI is not happy with the state of affairs and arranges a corporate take down. But its last act of corporate malice would reveal a surprise. ISFDB Title Record # 2699381
• “Ghosts” (2021) by Vauhini Vara: a writer uses GPT-3 to write a series of stories, by providing an initial prompt and letting GPT-3 continue. Each story repeats the previous prompt but with added details, which GPT-3 then continues. By the end, you wonder how much of the work is true to life and how much is just a fantasy.

Book read from 2023/12/12 to 2024/01/06

• ISFDB Title Record # 3213203