If you are a fan of the Cyberpunk genre, then you are at the right place. Here we have listed the 10 best cyberpunk books every sci-fi lover must-read in 2024
What is Cyberpunk?
Cyberpunk is undoubtedly the science fiction genre that is most accurate about the future years. It has boomed into movies and video games today, but it all began with old books before we had the choice of reading them on a tablet, laptop, or mobile device.
The best way to describe cyberpunk is as mobility or a series of movement patterns. The original movement was formed by a small group of writers who wrote the first wave of cyberpunk writings. It was published between the 1980s and ’90s.
Interestingly, the future occurrence of the digital revolution is a crucial factor in our daily lives, as depicted in these cyberpunk books. They illustrated the resulting dystopian world and its residents in a problematic scenario, often in a criminal world. It’s no coincidence that the genre is frequently summarised as high-tech, low-life.
We have prepared a list of the 10 Best Cyberpunk Books of all time for you to read. If you are a tech geek and an avid reader, too, you will love reading these books.
Best Cyberpunk Books
1. Neuromancer
Highlights
Author: William Gibson
Publication Year: 1986
Publisher: Penguin USA
William Gibson’s Neuromancer is one of the most famous cyberpunk works. Gibson had compiled successful short stories and was regarded as a rising star in sci-fi, but his work exemplified how cyberpunk was a counterculture movement within science fiction. He admired technology but recognized its enormous potential for evil, particularly during the 1980s corporate boom.
Can one megacorporation enslave the entire population if it can create 1000s of fascinating arcade games with some unsettling secret message? This type of scenario paved the way for many of the characteristics that define cyberpunk. Even in a high-tech future, someone must stand out and critically assess the situation.
The charming bounty hunter Molly Millions recruits Gibson’s discredited hacker Henry Case, and their chief repairs Case’s brain and body. That further creates a liability that must be paid off.
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2. The Book of Strange New Things
Highlights
Author: Michel Faber
Publication Year: 2015
Publisher: Canongate Books
Michel Faber is a Dutch fiction writer best known for his 2000 book Under the Skin, which was adapted into a movie featuring Scarlett Johansson. She played the role of an alluring extraterrestrial being on the hunt for humans. In the book, Faber has shown daily life on a remarkably remote space station where humans from Earth meet and influence local extraterrestrials in their world.
The protagonist Peter, possibly a reference to Jesus’ apostle and the very first Church leader, is a company-hired missionary tasked with a monumental task. He has to translate Scripture and its concepts from English to another language into the group of languages of a world with an entirely different paradigm. Meanwhile, as the Earth crumbles due to global warming, Peter’s wife sends time-delayed messages.
Overall, it’s an interesting story that grabs the attention till the end. To explore more, purchase your copy now!
3. When Gravity Fails
Highlights
Author: George Alec Effinger
Publication Year: 2005
Publisher: Orb Books
This classic cyberpunk fiction set in the near-future Middle East was shortlisted for Hugo & Nebula Awards. Drugs and plug-ins that alter the mind and mood can transform a person into anything, including a murderer.
The story is presented from the perspective of Marîd Audran, a young guy from humble beginnings who works as a small-scale operator and hustler in Budayeen, an unnamed Middle-Eastern city’s entertainment and criminal sector. A string of savage killings soon paralyzes the Budayeen, and Audran is nearly executed by Friedlander Bey, who initially suspects him of being the murderer before becoming his investigator.
While the killer or killers kill witnesses and acquaintances of Audran one by one, he tries to piece together clues about their nature. Meanwhile, he’s battling his insecurities in the face of a serial killer who employs “moddies,” turning him into one of history’s most feared and bestial killers.
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4. Data Runner
Highlights
Author: Sam A. Patel
Publication Year: 2013
Publisher: Diversion Books
Data Runner is a power-packed dramatic thriller book. The entire storyline is highly engaging and fun to read. It revolves around Jack and Megacorporations.
Megacorporations will own it all, including the internet, in the “not-too-distant future.” Entrusting confidential material to “Data Runners” who physically courier it via the sneakernet is the only way to send it in secret. Enters Jack, a parkour professional who moonlights as a runner to assist his father in repaying a large gambling debt.
In this rapidly young adult caper, Jack finds himself at the center of a web of pursuit and curiosity when he is loaded with something much more significant than everything he’s ever carried earlier.
You can buy this book here.
5. Slant
Highlights
Author: Peter Newell
Publication Year: 2012
Publisher: Tara Books
In Greg Bear’s thriller, cyberpunk meets the traditional storyline. Nanotechnology appears to have eliminated all of humanity’s flaws, both superficial and severe. Now, humans can change their abilities, looks, and even their bodies up to a minute level. Violence and disease appear to have vanished thanks to advanced psychotherapy.
The world is well-balanced and rational. Violent criminal activity is a relic of the past until Seattle rattles by the murders of 2 sex workers and a chain of suicide cases.
The inquiry of public defender Mary Cho leads her into the rotten core of a seemingly perfect future, where she discovers a conspiracy of virtual pornographic materials, neo-Luddites, and a mystical AI (artificial intelligence) lurking in the “dataflow.” Everything seems to be intertwined in a vast conspiracy. As technology fails, so does society perched high atop it. Perfection is a high pedestal from which to fall!
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6. Van
Highlights
Author: Madeline Ashby
Publication Year: 2012
Publisher: Angry Robot
This book is about Amy, a von Neumann ( a self-replicating humanoid robot ). She’s been steadily growing in a mixed organic/synthetic household for the past five years. Amy does not know her android mother’s past, so she eats her alive when her grandmother arrives and attacks her. She now carries her faulty granny on her memory drive as a partition.
Moreover, Amy’s grandmother holds some startling mysteries about Von Neumann and their importance in Amy’s strange new world. She’s learning unbelievable things about Claude’s past, such as the fact that she can kill humans without failing.
After consuming her grandma, Amy carries the elder VonNeumann’s character under her memory drive. She also attempts to attack her mom, putting her on the road not only to rediscover herself but also possibly discover the mysteries behind the presence of all the Von Neumann.
You can buy this book here.
7. The Windup Girl
Highlights
Author: Paolo Bacigalupi
Publication Year: 2010
Publisher: Orbit
The Hugo and Nebula Award-winning book of 23rd century Thailand and widespread biotech by Paolo Bacigalupi is sometimes regarded as a subgenre of cyberpunk known as “biopunk.” The Windup Girl is an innovative modern classic that won every major science fiction award when it was released.
AgriGen’s calorie agent in Thailand, Anderson Lake, is a businessman. He wanders Bangkok’s street markets on the quest for long-forgotten delicacies. There he sees the windup girl, the lovely and mysterious Emiko, who has been abandoned in the slums. She is a member of the New Folks, who are groomed to please the wealthy.
However, this is a story of a mysterious, scary near future where oil has run out, calorie businesses rule the world, and bio-engineered plagues abound. It is about a future where the world is ravaged by massive flooding and pandemics, all due to global warming.
You can buy this book here.
8. Snow Crash
Highlights
Author: Neal Stephenson
Publication Year: 2000
Publisher: Audible Studios
Neal Stephenson is a writer who defies comparison, a writer who is so unique that he redefines our perspective on the world. Snow Crash, published in 1992, divided the cyberpunk genre and its archetypes so well that a sub-genre was founded. Snow Crash is a novel like this, blending virtual reality, Sumerian myth, and everything in between with a relaxed, hip cyber sensibility to deliver us the thrill of the information age.
Snow Crash, a new viral drug, is the talk of the town. Cultists are flocking to Bob Rife’s new religion. A virtual antagonist is spreading a computer virus connected to an impending information disaster via ancient Mesopotamian power words qualified to drive people insane. Neal Stephenson is a revolutionary who is not short on imagination. Snow Crash is a sci-fi satire that is so perfect that it achieves the pinnacle of popularity.
You can buy this book here.
9. Holy Fire
Highlights
Author: R. T. Kendall
Publication Year: 2016
Publisher: Christianaudio.com
T. Kendall, best-selling author, and respected theologian clarifies the Holy Spirit’s role in our lives and the church in Holy Fire. The novice Christian, the mature scholar, the layperson, and the church leader will benefit from Holy Fire. The author mentions that If this book does not stimulate your interest in the Holy Spirit, he will apologize. He attempted to introduce the Holy Spirit to the reader as if they had never heard of Him before. A chapter about twenty-one things every Christian should know about the Holy Spirit is included early in the book. I also have a chapter called “Strange Fire” in which I must, unfortunately, discuss several unbiblical attitudes and behaviors among today’s Pentecostals and Charismatics. This chapter reads as a “cessationist wrote it.”
This book is for you if you want to learn more about the Trinity’s most misunderstood member or if you desire to experience His presence in your life in a more profound way than you have previously.
You can buy this book here.
10. Synners
Highlights
Author: Pat Cadigan
Publication Year: 2012
Publisher: Gateway
Pat Cadigan has been dubbed the “Queen of Cyberpunk,” thanks in part to this foresightful thriller, which ended up winning the Arthur C. Clarke Award when it was first published in 1992. Many of the novel’s innovative features are shockingly common today, notably a plan by a corporate giant to deliver music video content directly into the brains of consumers.
In Synners, the distinction between technology and humans is razor-thin. A continuous flow of new technology generates crime even before it hits the streets. The human brain and the outer surroundings have merged where any interaction with “reality” is incidental.
Cadigan’s language is a blend of poetry and science fiction analyses of technology and software. They’re lucid fever dreams that include folks immersed in the internet and drugs.
Synners is a sharp and grounded cyberpunk tale that shook up the genre, stole its wallet, and told it to do something more fascinating.
In 1992, however, this scathing depiction of a near-future reality in which the natural world and online were almost smoothly blended felt far off, if not outright impossible.
You can buy this book here.
Conclusion
If you haven’t noticed, cyberpunk has become a massive success in the entertainment industry, with several cyberpunk novel adaptations being made into television shows and films. Cyberpunk’s success is at an all-time high, thanks to Netflix’s Altered Carbon adaptation, the Blade Runner 2049 cyberpunk film, and the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 video game.
Cyberpunk books indicate how far a human brain can think and how much we can imagine. Many old books written about technologies exist today and were not heard of during those days. These books mentioned above will surely be a pleasure to read if you are into cyberpunk sci-fi reads.
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