James Patrick Kelly et al.
The revolution has been co-opted by half-assed heroes, overclocked CGI, and tricked-out sunglasses. Once radical, cyberpunk is nothing more than a brand.These sixteen extreme stories reveal a government ninja routed by a bicycle repairman, the inventor of digitized paper hijacked by his college crush, a dead boy trapped in a warped storybook paradise, and the Queen of England attacked with the deadliest of forbidden technology: a working modem. You’ll meet Manfred Macx, renegade meme-broker, Red Sonja, virtual reality sex-goddess, and Felix, humble sysadmin and post-apocalyptic hero.
“Arranged loosely in order of publication, the 16 diverse selections in this decade-spanning anthology add up to a plausible snapshot of cyberpunk’s short-form evolution. Kelly and Kessel (Feeling Very Strange) clearly describe cyberpunk counterculture in a cogent introduction, yet draw only one story from a nongenre source (Greg Egan’s Yeyuka) and greatly undervalue the subgenre’s ability, at its most popular, to reach beyond SF’s core audience. While some entries (Charles Stross’s Lobsters; Cory Doctorow’s When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth) focus strongly on techno-geek culture, others apply high-tech ideas in more down-to-earth contexts (Mary Rosenblum’s Search Engine; Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Calorie Man). The critical matter is too scant for academic readers and too intrusive for genre fans; discussion of specific stories is extremely sparse, and excerpts from correspondence between Kessel and Bruce Sterling distract rather than enlighten. Readers seeking a thorough critical study should look elsewhere, but those looking for well-told stories will be satisfied.”
—Publishers Weekly
Reviews
“Cyberpunk is dead. Long live post-cyberpunk!” —Kirkus Reviews
“[The] strange, cinematically atmospheric story, ‘Thirteen Views of a Cardboard City,’ fits perfectly in Rewired.” —William Gibson, author, Spook Country
“A short story collection filled with very good stories by very good science fiction writers offering very engaging ideas.” —PopMatters
“Sixteen inspiring, mind-altering stories . . . and every story in the bunch is a knockout.” —BoingBoing.net
“An excellent collection and a reminder that the short story is often the best venue for new ideas in the field.” —SF Crowsnest.com
“Cyberpunk has grown past its rebel stage and is now not only capable of dazzling us with surfaces but also of speaking of the human condition.” —Tangent
“Mind-altering . . . every story in the bunch is a knockout.” —Monstrous.com
James Patrick Kelly is the winner of two Hugo Awards and is the author of Burn, Think Like a Dinosaur, and Wildlife. He is a columnist for Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine and serves as chair of the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts. He lives in Nottingham, New Hampshire. John Kessel is a Nebula, Sturgeon, Tiptree, and Locus award winner and the author of Corrupting Dr. Nice, Good News from Outer Space, and The Pure Product. He teaches science fiction, fantasy, and fiction writing at North Carolina State University and his criticism has appeared in Foundation, Los Angeles Times Book Review, The New York Review of Science Fiction, and Science Fiction Age. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, January 24th, 2012 at 12:00 am under Bruce Sterling, Charles Stross, Christopher Rowe, Cory Doctorow, David Marusek, Elizabeth Bear, Greg Egan, Gwyneth Jones, James Patrick Kelly, Jonathan Lethem, Mary Rosenblum, Michael Swanwick, Paolo Bacigalupi, Pat Cadigan, Paul Di Filippo, Science Fiction, Short Story Anthology, Tachyon Publications, Walter Jon Williams, William Gibson.
Follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed or via the notify by email option below.
Please leave a comment below or trackback from your own site.
