The Fantasy Review’s List of 7 Gripping Cyberpunk Novels that’ll Hook You from Page One.
Altered Carbon (Takeshi Kovacs, #1) by Richard K. Morgan
From the blurb:
In the twenty-fifth century, humankind has spread throughout the galaxy, monitored by the watchful eye of the U.N. While divisions in race, religion, and class still exist, advances in technology have redefined life itself. Now, assuming one can afford the expensive procedure, a person’s consciousness can be stored in a cortical stack at the base of the brain and easily downloaded into a new body (or “sleeve”) making death nothing more than a minor blip on a screen.…
Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1) by William Gibson
From the blurb:
Case was the sharpest data-thief in the matrix—until he crossed the wrong people and they crippled his nervous system, banishing him from cyberspace. Now a mysterious new employer has recruited him for a last-chance run at an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence. With a dead man riding shotgun and Molly, a mirror-eyed street-samurai, to watch his back, Case is ready for the adventure that upped the ante on an entire genre of fiction.…
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
From the blurb:
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….
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
From the blurb:
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.…
The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport by Samit Basu
From the blurb:
Shantiport was supposed to be a gateway to the stars. But the city is sinking, and its colonist rulers aren’t helping anyone but themselves.
Lina, a daughter of failed revolutionaries, has no desire to escape Shantiport. She loves her city and would do anything to save its people. This is, in fact, the plan for her life, made before she was even born….
Emergent Properties by Aimee Ogden
From the blurb:
A state-of-the-art AI with a talent for asking questions and finding answers, Scorn is nevertheless a parental disappointment. Defying the expectations of zir human mothers, CEOs of the world’s most powerful corporations, Scorn has made a life of zir own as an investigative reporter, crisscrossing the globe in pursuit of the truth, no matter the danger.…
Cyberpunk 2077: No Coincidence by Rafał Kosik
From the blurb:
In neon-drenched Night City, a ragtag group of strangers have just pulled off a daring heist on a Militech convoy transporting a mysterious container. What do each of them have in common? Good, old-fashioned blackmail. Forced to do the job, they have no idea how far their employer’s reach goes, nor what mysterious object the container holds.
The newly-formed gang – consisting of a veteran turned renegade, a Militech sleeper agent, an amateur netrunner, a corporate negotiator, a ripperdoc and a techie – must overcome their differences and work together lest their secrets come to light before they can pull off the next deadly heist.…
