Cyber Fiction: Daring to Dream the Dark
Explore the dark, daring edge of cyber fiction with top titles like William Gibson's *Neuromancer*, Margaret Atwood's *Oryx and Crake*, and Philip K. Dick's *Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?*. Dive into curated cyberpunk, sci-fi, and speculative classics from M. John Harrison, Pat Cadigan, and Neal Stephenson.
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Neuromancer
by William Gibson
Case, a nerve-damaged data thief, is recruited by a new employer for a last-chance run against a powerful artificial intelligence.
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Islands in the Net
by Bruce Sterling
Information is power, and even in the peaceful post-millenial age, power corrupts. Data pirates, new-age mercenaries, high-tech shamans, and murder stalk a brutal netherworld of deregulated havens in the Global Communications Network--Islands in the Net.
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White Light
by Rudy von Bitter Rucker
Felix Rayman spends the day teaching indifferent students, pondering his theories on infinity, and daydreaming. When his dreams finally separate him from his physical body, Felix plunges headfirst into a multidimensional universe beyond the limits of space and time — the place of White Light.
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Snow Crash
by Neal Stephenson
The “brilliantly realized” (The New York Times Book Review) breakthrough novel from visionary author Neal Stephenson, a modern classic that predicted the metaverse and inspired generations of Silicon Valley innovators Hiro lives in a Los Angeles where franchises line the freeway as far as the eye can see. The only relief from the sea of logos is within the autonomous city-states, where law-abiding citizens don’t dare leave their mansions. Hiro delivers pizza to the mansions for a living, defending his pies from marauders when necessary with a matched set of samurai swords. His home is a shared 20 X 30 U-Stor-It. He spends most of his time goggled in to the Metaverse, where his avatar is legendary. But in the club known as The Black Sun, his fellow hackers are being felled by a weird new drug called Snow Crash that reduces them to nothing more than a jittering cloud of bad digital karma (and IRL, a vegetative state). Investigating the Infocalypse leads Hiro all the way back to the beginning of language itself, with roots in an ancient Sumerian priesthood. He’ll be joined by Y.T., a fearless teenaged skateboard courier. Together, they must race to stop a shadowy virtual villain hell-bent on world domination.
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The Cat who Walks Through Walls
by Robert Anson Heinlein
Join forces with a swashbuckling duo of inter-galactic space rogues struggling to save the future and history of civilization.
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Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
by Philip K. Dick
A masterpiece ahead of its time, a prescient rendering of a dark future, and the inspiration for the blockbuster film Blade Runner One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years By 2021, the World War has killed millions, driving entire species into extinction and sending mankind off-planet. Those who remain covet any living creature, and for people who can’t afford one, companies built incredibly realistic simulacra: horses, birds, cats, sheep. They’ve even built humans. Immigrants to Mars receive androids so sophisticated they are indistinguishable from true men or women. Fearful of the havoc these artificial humans can wreak, the government bans them from Earth. Driven into hiding, unauthorized androids live among human beings, undetected. Rick Deckard, an officially sanctioned bounty hunter, is commissioned to find rogue androids and “retire” them. But when cornered, androids fight back—with lethal force. Praise for Philip K. Dick “The most consistently brilliant science fiction writer in the world.”—John Brunner “A kind of pulp-fiction Kafka, a prophet.”—The New York Times “[Philip K. Dick] sees all the sparkling—and terrifying—possibilities . . . that other authors shy away from.”—Rolling Stone
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Synners
by Pat Cadigan
Hooked on artificial reality, an outlaw band of hackers must find the answer when a new computer virus in the network threatens their destruction.
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Jack Faust
by Michael Swanwick
Désespéré par l'inutilité de son savoir, le Docteur Faust brûle ses livres. Alors, une voix étrange retentit et l'appelle. Méphistophélès va offrir à Faust des secrets capables d'amener l'humanité à un nouvel âge d'or. Mais du progrès à la damnation, il n'y a parfois qu'un pas... Lyrique, terrifiante, provocante, une nouvelle interprétation de la légende de Faust, l'homme qui vendit son âme au diable en échange de la connaissance absolue.
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Ghost In the Shell 2: Innocence (Novel-Hard Cover)
by Masaki Yamada
The hulking cyborg counterterrorist Batou doesn't have a family; his electronic brain never dreams. So why did he dream the other night--and dream that he has a son?At one time, Batou had a human love for his partner, the legendary Major, before he witnessed her transfiguration into something beyond humanity. Now he has only his job, and his beloved basset hound, Gabriel. But when Batou has a near-death experience in an arranged car "accident," he returns home to find Gabriel has gone missing--perhaps, to go look for her owner's lost soul.Batou's desperate search for Gabriel leads him down surreal streets where homeless men fight tanks and yakuza racing hounds chase rabbits downloaded into their heads. Batou fears his poor dog has made a horrible mistake out of innocence--for Batou has taken a cold look inside himself...and decided that he never truly had a soul...Innocence, After The Long Goodbye is the prequel to the Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence film, also available as a four-volume Ani-Manga box set from VIZ Media. The Innocence novel contains a special bonus discussion between the director, Mamoru Oshii, and the author, Masaki Yamada.
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Rim
by Alexander Besher
In 2027, Satori Corporation, a virtual reality entertainment giant, is in a cutthroat corporate war to preserve its market share and save the lives of thousands of users, including Berkeley professor Frank Gobi's son who is trapped inside one of its virtual worlds.
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Permutation City
by Greg Egan
Transformed into an electronic code, a Copy must discover an alternate way out, back into its real body, because the original avenue of escape has been cut off by the human version from which its was originally copied. Original.
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Vurt
by Jeff Noon
A cyberpunk novel with a difference, a rollicking, dark, yet humorous examination of a future in which the boundaries between reality and virtual reality are as tenuous as the brush of a feather.
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The Shockwave Rider
by John Brunner
"Brunner writes about the future as if he and the reader were already living in it!"--The New York Times Book Review"When John Brunner first told me of his intention to write the book, I was fascinated--but I wondered whether he, or anyone, could bring it off. Bring it off he has, with cool brilliance. A hero with transient personalities, animals with souls, think tanks and survival communities fuse to form a future so plausibly alive it as twitched at me ever since."--Alvin Toffler, author of FUTURE SHOCKIn a world drowning in data and information and choking on novelty and innovation, Nickie Haflinger, a most dangerous fugitive who doesn't even appear to exist, provides a window onto a global society falling apart in all directions, with madness run amok and personal freedom surrendered to computers and bureaucrats. Caught and about to be re-programmed, can he escape once again, defy the government and turn the tide of organizational destruction?"One of the most important science fiction authors. Brunner held a mirror up to reflect our foibles because he wanted to save us from ourselves."--SF SiteFor each generation, there is a writer meant to bend the rules of what we know. Hugo Award winner (Best Novel, STAND ON ZANZIBAR) and British science fiction master John Brunner remains one of the most influential and respected authors of all time, and now E-Reads is pleased to re-introduce many of his classic works. For readers familiar with his vision, it's a chance to re-examine his thoughtful worlds and words, while for new readers, Brunner's work proves itself the very definition of timeless."
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Ambient
by Jack Womack
Combining the nightmarish vision of J. G. Ballard and the linguistic brilliance of Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, Ambient is Jack Womack's stunning first novel. Set in a decaying and violent twenty-first-century New York, Ambient tells the story of O'malley, a very special bodyguard for an outrageously ruthless CEO named Dryden, and of his attempts to woo Dryden's personal femme fatale, Avalon. But what begins as a simple case of unrequited love quickly turns into a complicated deathtrap involving corporate intrigue, murderous family rivalries, and perverse subcultures. A stylish and brilliantly inventive novel, Ambient creates a world that is powerful, convincing, and prophetically real.
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The Long Orbit
by Mick Farren
Though firmly ensconced in a futuristic world, Marlowe lives in the past of 1940s detectives, but his fantasy life assumes the hard edge of reality when he takes a case offered by a mysterious woman
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He, She and It
by Marge Piercy
"A triumph of the imagination. Rich, complex, impossible to put down."—Alice Hoffman In the middle of the twenty-first century, life as we know it has changed for all time. Shira Shipman's marriage has broken up, and her young son has been taken from her by the corporation that runs her zone, so she has returned to Tikva, the Jewish free town where she grew up. There, she is welcomed by Malkah, the brilliant grandmother who raised her, and meets an extraordinary man who is not a man at all, but a unique cyborg implanted with intelligence, emotions—and the ability to kill. . . . From the imagination of Marge Piercy comes yet another stunning novel of morality and courage, a bold adventure of women, men, and the world of tomorrow.
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Mockingbird
by Walter S. Tevis
Mockingbird is a powerful novel of a future world where humans are dying. Those that survive spend their days in a narcotic bliss or choose a quick suicide rather than slow extinction. Humanity's salvation rests with an android who has no desire to live, and a man and a woman who must discover love, hope, and dreams of a world reborn.
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The Man who Fell to Earth
by Walter S. Tevis
T.J. Newton is an extraterrestrial who goes to Earth on a desperate mission of mercy. But instead of aid, Newton discovers loneliness and despair that ultimately ends in tragedy.
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Psykosis
by Wilhelmina Baird
In order to avert imminent war, the Earth's government agrees to negotiate with alien invaders. The military's representative is Swordfish, a veteran of the Third Alien War. A delegation travels to meet the aliens--an enemy whose nature no human being will ever truly know or trust again. From the author of Clipjoint.
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Lucifer's Dragon
by Jon Courtenay Grimwood
Passion di Orchi is no more than the obscenely rich daughter of a West Coast mafia boss - until she decides to rebuild Venice. In the middle of the Pacific. A century later, with New Venice ossified into a puritanical elegance, the daughter of Count Ryuchi slips away from her father's palazzo, out to the levels to play Lucifer's Dragon. A multi-level, self-perpetuating, true 3-D trawl through the Apocalypse, Lucifer's Dragon is coded so the game never repeats its own failures. But an altercation in a bar puts Karo on a collision course with NVPD officer Angeli, drafted in by media giant CySat to investigate a murder she knows way too much about. And then there's Razz, the silver exotic. Too tired and jaded to keep living, she takes on the job of guarding CySat's ultimate boss, the ten-year-old Aurelio. With all the high tech security in place, it should be a walk in the park. But the last thing Razz sees is CySat's child-ruler making too close an acquaintance with an Uzi, and then she wakes up in Zurich. Dead…
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Hardwired
by Walter Jon Williams
ears ago, the last desperate hopes of Earth were crushed as corporate Orbital blocs ruling from on high devastated the planet's face. Today, the autocratic Orbitals indulge in decadent luxury far above the mudboys, dirtgirls, zonedancers, and buttonheads who live out violent lives of electronic distraction and dependence amid the flooded, ruined cities and teeming slums of a balkanized America. But there are heroes; those who would stand against the Orbital powers and keep freedom's cause alive. Two such heroes are the metal-eyed ex-fighter pilot turned panzer-driver Cowboy, and Sarah, the cybernetic assassin desperate to find a better life for her drug-addicted brother. Together, Cowboy and Sarah embark on a high-octane odyssey across the shattered face of the American west. From Walter Jon Williams comes Hardwired, the hard-hitting, seminal classic that feels as prescient today as when it was first published. Like a steel-guitar fueled Damnation Alley, as directed by Sam Peckinpah, Hardwired demonstrates how Williams's singular vision helped defined the cyberpunk genre. Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.
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Cyberweb
by Lisa Mason
In the sequel to the author's popular "cyberpunk" novel Arachne, a female fugitive living in post-apocalyptic San Francisco becomes the target of a robotic mercenary and a group of artificial intelligence terrorists. Reissue.
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Slapstick or Lonesome No More!
by Kurt Vonnegut
“Some of the best and most moving Vonnegut.”—San Francisco Chronicle Slapstick presents an apocalyptic vision as seen through the eyes of the current King of Manhattan (and last President of the United States), a wickedly irreverent look at the all-too-possible results of today’s follies. But even the end of life-as-we-know-it is transformed by Kurt Vonnegut’s pen into hilarious farce—a final slapstick that may be the Almighty’s joke on us all. “Both funny and sad . . . just about perfect.”—Los Angeles Times “Imaginative and hilarious . . . a brilliant vision of our wrecked, wacked-out future.”—Hartford Courant
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Oryx and Crake
by Margaret Atwood
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The first volume in the internationally acclaimed MaddAddam trilogy is at once an unforgettable love story and a compelling vision of the future—from the bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments Snowman, known as Jimmy before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where he may be the last human, and mourning the loss of his best friend, Crake, and the beautiful and elusive Oryx whom they both loved. In search of answers, Snowman embarks on a journey—with the help of the green-eyed Children of Crake—through the lush wilderness that was so recently a great city, until powerful corporations took mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride. Margaret Atwood projects us into a near future that is both all too familiar and beyond our imagining.
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Nova Swing
by M. John Harrison
Years after Ed Chianese’s fateful trip into the Kefahuchi Tract, the tract has begun to expand and change in ways we never could have predicted—and, even more terrifying, parts of it have actually begun to fall to Earth, transforming the landscapes they encounter. Not far from Moneytown, in a neighborhood of underground clubs, body-modification chop shops, adolescent contract killers, and sexy streetwalking Monas, you’ll find the Saudade Event Site: a zone of strange geography, twisted physics, and frightening psychic onslaughts—not to mention the black and white cats that come pouring out at irregular intervals. Vic Serotonin is a “travel agent” into and out of Saudade. His latest client is a woman who’s nearly as unpredictable as the site itself—and maybe just as dangerous. She wants a tour just as a troubling new class of biological artifacts are leaving the site—living algorithms that are transforming the world outside in inexplicable and unsettling ways. Shadowed by a metaphysically inclined detective determined to shut his illegal operation down, Vic must make sense of a universe rapidly veering toward a virulent and viral form of chaos…and a humanity almost lost.
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Viriconium
by M. John Harrison
A magnificent city existing on the ringes of the past, and on the brink of destruction, Viriconium • With a foreword by Neil Gaiman Available to American readers for the first time, this landmark collection gathers four groundbreaking fantasy classics from the acclaimed author of Light. Set in the imagined city of Viriconium, here are the masterworks that revolutionized a genre and enthralled a generation of readers: The Pastel City, A Storm of Wings, In Viriconium, and Viriconium Nights. Back in print after a long absence, these singular tales of a timeless realm and its enigmatic inhabitants are now reborn and compiled to captivate a whole new generation. Praise for M. John Harrison’s Viriconium “The world that Harrison depicts is intricate and authentic, peopled with a multitude of strange yet lifelike characters—a combination which serves to make his richly imagined empire of Viriconium feel very real indeed. . . . This omnibus collection from the author of Light is canon-reading for those who wish to know the genre's roots, as well as the heights, to which it can aspire.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Brilliant, beautiful, and absolutely essential reading. The breadth of vision and imagination alone in these books is unparalleled. It is truly one of a kind and will continue to haunt you in the best possible way for years.”—Jonathan Carroll, author of White Apples “Harrison’s Viriconium sequence is the jewel in the crown of 20th-century fantasy, a work that proves irrefutably that fantastic literature can be Art with a capital A, holding its own alongside the very finest writing of our time, or any other.”—Elizabeth Hand, author of Mortal Love “M. John Harrison is a true master of English prose. He possesses the eye of a painter, the ear of a bard, and a rigorous and playful intellect. The Viriconium novels and stories are infused with a haunting genius that never falters.”—K.J. Bishop, author of The Etched City
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Light
by M. John Harrison
In Harrison's dangerously illuminating new novel, three quantum outlaws face a universe of their own creation, where the rules are made up--and broken--along the way, and where there's only one thing more mysterious than darkness.