Cyberpunk is a genre that hit its peak in the Eighties but has still carried on like the little Replicant that could ever since. Really, it’s now split between present day cyberpunk (Watch_Dogs, Mr. Robot, Hackers) and far future experiences (The Expanse, Altered Carbon). However, I think the best place to find cyberpunk novels these days is the indie writing scene.
There’s something decidedly cyberpunk about going to writers not affiliated with the big corporations to get your fix about cybernetically enhanced humans, transhumanist themes, social satire, and street samurai action. Cyberpunk comes in many forms and just because we’re living in a world where everyone has a computer monitored by sinister corporate forces trying to sell us stuff doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it still.
As an author of indie cyberpunk Agent G, Daughter of the Cyber Dragons, Moon Cops on the Moon, and Dark Destiny, I am always on the look for more of these books and love to share the gems that I have managed to find in a genre that is sometimes considered to be past its prime than undergoing a renaissance. After all, what is our time if not one where corporations run amuck and technology is rapidly outpacing our ability to deal with it?
1. Mushroom Blues by Adrian M. Gibson
MUSHROOM BLUES is a unique exercise in storytelling that I very much enjoyed from beginning to end. It is the story of humanity having reached out into space and conquered an alien (?) race that has achieved symbiosis with fungi. They immediately subject these human-like aliens to horrific conditions and race tension becomes massive between occupier as well as occupee. The protagonists are a fungi and a human cop with the appropriate tensions. How is it cyberpunk? Well, the system and tech show that the more things change…the more they get worse. Excellent cyberpunk noir.
What is it about?
Two years after a devastating defeat in the decade-long Spore War, the island nation of Hōppon and its capital city of Neo Kinoko are occupied by invading Coprinian forces. Its fungal citizens are in dire straits, wracked by food shortages, poverty and an influx of war refugees. Even worse, the corrupt occupiers exploit their power, hounding the native population.
As a winter storm looms over the metropolis, NKPD homicide detective Henrietta Hofmann begrudgingly partners up with mushroom-headed patrol officer Koji Nameko to investigate the mysterious murders of fungal and half-breed children. Their investigation drags them deep into the seedy underbelly of a war-torn city, one brimming with colonizers, criminal gangs, racial division and moral decay.
In order to solve the case and unravel the truth, Hofmann must challenge her past and embrace fungal ways. What she and Nameko uncover in the midst of this frigid wasteland will chill them to the core, but will they make it through the storm alive?
2. Ego Trip by Eric Malikyte
2. Ego Trip by Eric MalikyteEGO TRIP is a work of pure cyberpunk that I really think everyone who just loves the explosive high octane spray of ideas so prevalent in “classic” cyberpunk should check out. This has a lot of the typical concepts of cyberpunk fiction: evil megacorps, corrupt cops, dystopia, and so on but it does it in a way that feels fresh and original. I also like its use of a concept that most cyberpunk from the Eighties couldn’t have predicted in Twitch streaming and augmented reality turned to the 11. The twist is pretty easy to guess about what the gamers are “really” doing but that’s not where the story lies. It’s about how the story deals with the consequences thereof.
What is it about?
3. Space Punks by Anna Mocikat
3. Space Punks by Anna MocikatSPACE PUNKS is a story that reminds me of Cowboy Bebop and Firefly but with a decidedly more punk edge. The Earth is destroyed and our antiheroes are piloting around the solar system and beyond in order to make a few credits. They’re mercenaries but in a dictatorship run by the cybernetic legion that supposedly defeated all of the AI years ago. Well, they didn’t do a great job and they aren’t too keen on anyone with cyborg mercs of their own (like the heroes) running free. I really enjoyed Anna Mocikat’s Behind Blue Eyes and think this is an enjoyable world that may even be a distant sequel.
What’s it about?
4. Auxiliary: London 2039 by Jon Richter
If you hadn’t guessed, I’m a huge fan of combining cyberpunk with noir. They go together like bacon and eggs or peanut butter and jelly. Whether it’s cops who don’t realize the police are part of the problem or criminals just trying to survive until their mythical big score, there’s always room for a good crime story. AUXILIARY: LONDON 2039 is probably a little too close to now for the future it describes but it is a fantastic story about AI run amuck with profiling, coordination, and the tedium of bureaucracy all automated under a new system. It’s enough to control a person’s perception of what is true and what is not but who is controlling the machine and is it better off unsupervised?
What is it about?
The silicon revolution left him behind, but not even the world’s greatest AI can make a good detective obsolete.
London is quiet in 2039, thanks to the machines.
People stay indoors, communicating through high-tech glasses and gorging on simulated reality while 3D printers and scuttling robots cater to their every whim.
Mammoth corporations wage war for dominance in a world where human augmentation blurs the line between flesh and steel. And at the center of it all lurks The Imagination Machine: the hyper-advanced, omnipresent AI that drives our cars, flies our planes, cooks our food, and plans our lives.
Servile, patient, tireless … TIM has everything humanity requires. Everything except a soul.
Through this silicon jungle prowls Carl Dremmler, police detective—one of the few professions better suited to meat than machine.
His latest case: a grisly murder seemingly perpetrated by the victim’s boyfriend. Dremmler’s boss wants a quick end to the case, but the tech-wary detective can’t help but believe the accused’s bizarre story: that his robotic arm committed the heinous crime, not him. An advanced prosthetic, controlled by a chip in his skull. A chip controlled by TIM.
Dremmler smells blood: the seeds of a conspiracy that could burn London to ash unless he exposes the truth. His investigation pits him against desperate criminals, scheming businesswomen, deadly automatons—and the nightmares of his own past.
And when Dremmler finds himself questioning even TIM’s inscrutable motives, he’s forced to stare into the blank soul of the machine.
5. Tronick by Rosie Record
5. Tronick by Rosie RecordSometimes you want your cyberpunk to be deeply cerebral. Other times you’d prefer it to be more like a bunch of guys on bikes hitting each other. TRONICK manages to be both as Rosie Record follows a protagonist that works as an undercover cop in a California that is seemingly cut off from the rest of the world. This doesn’t entirely make sense, what with the Pacific ocean and all. However, there’s a kind of feverish nightmare quality to the world she’s in and she has to wonder why no one has tried to leave as well as what the government is telling its citizens. Fiona Tronick thinks she can use her ties to the system to protect her friends but is it possible she’s the biggest danger to them by far? Good stuff and I enjoyed it.
