Describe Books During Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology
| Original Title: | Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology |
| Edition Language: | English |
Bruce Sterling
Paperback | Pages: 239 pages Rating: 3.95 | 8227 Users | 157 Reviews
Itemize About Books Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology
| Title | : | Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology |
| Author | : | Bruce Sterling |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 239 pages |
| Published | : | July 1st 1988 by Ace (first published December 1986) |
| Categories | : | Science Fiction. Cyberpunk. Fiction. Short Stories. Anthologies |
Chronicle In Pursuance Of Books Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology
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.Contents:
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
Rating About Books Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology
Ratings: 3.95 From 8227 Users | 157 ReviewsWrite-Up About Books Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology
What became of cyberpunk? William Gibson got a nice career out of that dark future, although throughout the years has progressed asymptotically backwards in time, just about making it to the present day with the Blue Ant trilogy and then careening back into an even darker future with his recent trilogy. Interestingly, the embryonic conceit of 2014's the Peripheral can be found in the last story featured in this collection by Bruce Sterling and Lewis Shiner, "Mozart in Mirrorshades". Although thePerhaps looking back at cyberpunk from 2014, it is impossible to fully grasp what the authors at the beginning of that movement were truly about. We have Bruce Sterling's intro of this anthology to help us out, including other names for the movement at the time - Outlaw Technologists, Eighties Wave, Radical Hard SF, and others. Maybe we just needed to call it the Weird at the time, and in each decade assign different authors to that category. When I read this anthology I struggle to place each
A battered copy lives in my nightstand at all times. Between novels, I always come back to this, flipping through the pages until a word catches my eye. Such a diversity of talent, mixed together quite well here.Rated Individually: "The Gernsback Continuum" (William Gibson) ★★★★★ "Snake-Eyes" (Tom Maddox) ★★★★ "Rock On" (Pat Cadigan) ★★★★ "Tales of Houdini" (Rudy Rucker) ★★★★★ "400 Boys" (Marc Laidlaw) ★★★★★ "Solstice" (James Patrick Kelly) ★★★★ "Petra" (Greg Bear) ★★★★★ "Till Human Voices Wake
This seminal collection of cyberpunk short fiction was probably more effective back in the 80s when it was published. About half the stories included are excellent, a few of that half shockingly accurate in the predictions they make and the ideas they explore. Overall the whole thing is worth the read - just be open minded and more than anything accept the more ridiculous (Mozart in Mirrorshades specifically) stories as what they are intended to be, fun.
In what seems to be becoming a trend for me in anthologised short fiction, Mirrorshades as a collection shines despite many of the individual stories being rather lacklustre. Reading this book more than 30 years after it was published, and having read quite a bit of cyberpunk fiction that was released in those same three decades, has provided an interesting perspective on what cyberpunk was to the people who created it and caused me to seriously rethink my own ideas about what makes something
This is barely what I understand as Cyberpunk, some stories are fine (The Gernsback Continuum, Solstice) but others are just plain bad (Tales of Houdini, Rock On) I think it's interesting to see how the genre has evolved over the last decades but if I wanted to introduce someone to cyberpunk I wouldn't recommend this, instead I'd go with something like 'Do Androids dream of electric sheep' or 'Ubik' by Philip K. Dick.Not what I expected at all.
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