2. A cyberpunk book

[Cyndy]

I read Frontera by Lewis Shiner. "All because the corporation didn’t have the booster stages to slow them down any other way." Shiner, Lewis. Frontera (Kindle Locations 52-53). Subterranean Press. Kindle Edition. --- Interesting tale of life in the combined (American, Russian, Japanese) colony on Mars. The combined colony was the result of the fall of governments on Earth, where corporations are in control. Two corporations (one from Houston and one from Russia) send separate teams to Mars in a race to acquire the technology that may have been invented there. Each of the separate teams that travel to Mars have their corporate agendas that the individual team members may not know.

[SadieReadsAgain]

I read Ready Player One. This genre is not my jam, the book shouldn't have really appealed to me, but somehow it did. Possibly it was the 80's nostalgia, but a lot of that went over my head because I wasn't born until '84. I think it was the pace of the story that kept me hooked, there was never any downtime. It was funny too, and because there wasn't any real depth to the story or the writing it made it quite a light read. Normally that isn't a good thing in my book, but for a genre I didn't want to struggle with I was glad of it here. It's strange though, because although it's set in the future, it seemed quite dated. Probably the 80's theme didn't help, but even the futuristic setting seemed a future imagined in the 80's. Still, it was a fun and very quick read.

[Zoe]

Would @artemis work for this one?

[StefanieFrei]

Ooooookay, I need your help, please!
About a year ago I had never even heard about "cyberpunk", and I normally read neither S/F nor Fantasy (I tried "The Time Machine" and, sorry, hated it - anyway, would that be Cyberpunk?).
Would some Jules Vernes fit in here? Like 20.000 miles under the sea?
What about "Divergent"?
Else, I would probably HAVE to do Orwell's 1984 - he was a school read sometime and I did not like it either, but at least...

[Nadine in NY]

StefanieFreigericht wrote: "Ooooookay, I need your help, please!
About a year ago I had never even heard about "cyberpunk", and I normally read neither S/F nor Fantasy (I tried "The Time Machine" and, sorry, hated it - anyway..."

Cyberpunk is basically a futuristic story in which androids/robots/computers are key features, and the characters either "jack in" to the computer and action takes place in the virtual world (such as Ready Player One or Warcross), or the characters are robots or androids, AND the characters are in some way subverting the ruling government (that's the "punk" part). Divergent is not cyberpunk, 1984 is not cyberpunk, The Time Machine and 20,000 Leagues are not cyberpunk. (they all have no robots or virtual reality). Classic cyberpunk is Sterling and Gibson, such as Mona Lisa Overdrive. I don't know of any Wells or Verne or Orwell books that are cyberpunk. Cinder counts, because some of the characters are robots and androids. If you are certain that you are going to hate this genre because you never like sci-fi, but you still want to read something that fits, I recommend you stick with a short story, like The Minority Report (this will take you max one hour to read) or Johnny Mnemonic. They've both been made into movies, so you may already be familiar with the plots.

[Frieda]

JT Lawrence does wonderful Cyberpunk in the series When tomorrow calls. It's set in Johannesburg 2021.

[StefanieFrei]

Nadine wrote: "StefanieFreigericht wrote: "Ooooookay, I need your help, please!
About a year ago I had never even heard about "cyberpunk", and I normally read neither S/F nor Fantasy (I tried "The Time Machine" a..."
Thanks!!! I just got me "The Minority Report" on Kindle, although the description of "Dick took drugs etc. had visions etc. and wrote a lot..." probably did not help much about my reservations ;-)

Even as a kid, you could forget me about Alice in Wonderland, no Harry Potter, I walked out of the Matrix movie, and merely know the movies you mentioned exist, but never watched them after seeing the trailer.

I will, though, sometime try Dick's "The Man in the High Castle" after Wikipedia had tought me that Alternate History is a subgenre to S/F (ha! a soft approach!!). I LOVED the similar "Farthing" by Jo Walton and highly recommend it. Being German, I found the idea of Hitler making a separate peace treaty with Britain and his reign continuing rather repulsive, but Walton's entry words made me read it: "This novel is for everyone who has ever studied any monstrosity of history, with the serene satisfaction of being horrified while knowing exactly what was going to happen, ....
....rather like studying a dragon anatomized upon a table, and then turning around to find the dragon's present-day relations standing close by, alive and ready to bite." quoted from the preface. No cyberpunk for sure


Microhistory, allegory, TIME TRAVEL!, cyberpunk! ... this year, I really broaden my horizon!

[oshizu]

I've read most of Gibson's stuff already and was turned off by reviews of Altered Carbon.
After looking for a female author, I found Pat Cadigan and her book Synners. I hope I like it...

[Tracy]

Oh boy. I'm going to TRY Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. I'll probably end up loving it, lol. Every time I think Im going to hate something I don't. Thats why I love these challenges so much :-)

[Stina]

Christy wrote: "I just got from the library, and I'm counting it for this prompt. Yeah, sure there are demigoddesses, but there's a whole chapter in binary code for heck's sak..."

I loved that book!

[Stina]

Has All Systems Red come up yet? I just finished it, and I think it's cyberpunky. Its world is high-tech and very computerized, and there are augmented humans in addition to the POV character who is a security cyborg who has hacked its way free of its governor module and just wants to be left alone to watch its favorite shows but ends up helping its humans solve a murder mystery on the planet they are surveying. And "the company" seems to be calling all the shots in this slice of the social structure, which puts me in mind a little bit of Snow Crash and The Diamond Age, though we don't get to see the big picture much at all.

My husband, however, disagrees. What do y'all think? If it isn't, I can always give DADoES? yet another shot (I suspect I am not a PKD fan), or start in on Infomocracy. And I might even have downloaded a copy of Warcross. So I am not out of options. It'd just be nice to go ahead and cross this one off the list.

[Nadine in NY]

I loved All Systems Red (and I am fully committed to reading the rest of the series SOON), I did not think it was cyberpunk as I was reading it, however your argument is quite persuasive and I think you make excellent points. Based on what you said, it should count!

Nobody really know exactly what cyberpunk is anyway ;-)

[Stina]

Nadine wrote: "I loved All Systems Red (and I am fully committed to reading the rest of the series SOON), I did not think it was cyberpunk as I was reading it, however your argument is quite persuasive and I thin..."

Thanks for the support! Hubby is starting to come around to my way of thinking. :-)

[Johanne]

Nadine wrote: "I loved All Systems Red (and I am fully committed to reading the rest of the series SOON), I did not think it was cyberpunk as I was reading it, however your argument is quite persuasive and I thin..."

As soon as you start discussing genres and genre definitions, there are like so many different interpretations, especially among literary scholars. I almost mentioned this in the ATY discussion about whether graphic novels is a format or a genre - because you could really argue both (and people do)... But I thought it would just contribute to common confusion, which is something I enjoy doing in conversation, but it´s not so amusing in written text among people who don´t know each other.

[Tracy]

Johanne wrote: "I almost mentioned this in the ATY discussion about whether graphic novels is a format or a genre - because you could really argue both'

This is why I just threw the vote in for the "not a novel" lol. Because then I can still do a graphic genre/format whatever....

But my favorite discussion by far has to be the literary fiction....

Ok so back to cyberpunk... I really need to look it up again, but I think I'm set with my pick. there are just so many sub genres among genres now. All I care about is if the writings good. Hopefully I don't struggle too much with this one :/

[Johanne]

Tracy wrote: "...But my favorite discussion by far has to be the literary fiction.... ..."

Oh yeah, talk about an elusive genre definition!

[Rose]

Tracy wrote: "Oh boy. I'm going to TRY Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. I'll probably end up loving it, lol. Every time I think Im going to hate something I don't. Thats why I love these cha..."

I just read it and wasn’t looking forward to it either. But I did enjoy it. Not my favorite but glad I read it.

[Tracy]

Rose wrote: "Tracy wrote: "Oh boy. I'm going to TRY Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. I'll probably end up loving it, lol. Every time I think Im going to hate something I don't. Thats why I ..."

Good to hear, Thank you :-)

[Nicole]

Soo, after struggling to find a book that fits this category that is available at my library I found this download on the authors page.
https://craphound.com/littlebrother/d...

The book is Little Brother by Cory Doctorow and I haven't read it yet, so I can't say anything about it, but it sounds intresting and google confirms that it is actually Cyberpunk...

[Eujean2]

Nicole wrote: "The book is Little Brother by Cory Doctorow and I haven't read it yet, so I can't say anything about it, but it sounds intresting and google confirms that it is actually Cyberpunk... "

I read & enjoyed that book before I ever heard the term cyberpunk. It was a summer reading suggestion about 5 years ago at the high school where I work.

I guess I do like *some* cyberpunk books. ;)

[Kimberly]

I just finished , and really enjoyed it. Its middle grade, but very well written and very interesting spin on history. I enjoyed the audio, but also had an electronic copies to view the pretty illustrations.

[Tabitha]

Not all the stories are cyberpunk but there are cyberpunk stories to be found in these books:

Sound & Fury: Shakespeare Goes Punk
Once More Unto the Breach: Shakespeare Goes Punk 2
Merely This and Nothing More: Poe Goes Punk
What We've Unlearned: English Class Goes Punk

[Tabitha]

Sometimes I go for short stories. I know it says books, but I've seen things where short stories count and (if it makes you feel better) you could read multiple short stories for the prompt. Sometimes I go to Tor and their All Fiction category. Then you can choose genre.

My read of choice was Party Discipline by Cory Doctorow which was a wonderful read with a lot of relevant themes.

[Lynette]

Altered Carbon was actually a pretty decent read! My husband and I both enjoyed it. If you're still looking for a cyberpunk option, give it a whirl.

[Soph ♡]

Lynette wrote: "Altered Carbon was actually a pretty decent read! My husband and I both enjoyed it. If you're still looking for a cyberpunk option, give it a whirl.

This is the prompt I was dreading the most, and was struggling to find a book that looked like it would interest me. Altered Carbon sounds pretty interesting though, so going to give this one a go instead, thanks for the recommendation!

[Erika]

I guess I will try Cinder by Marissa Meyer since I've seen it mentioned a few times in the list. nothing else is really jumping out at me, not really sure how I will enjoy this category