General disclaimer up top – I was given access to an e-copy of this book from the editor, and we are generally internet friends. However, all opinions expressed in this review are my own, and I am notoriously bad at finishing books I don’t like.
Cyberpunk always seemed to me to be a flashy but ultimately passé genre. A curiosity I intended to indulge some day, but not a genre I’d seriously engage with. I’d not read any of the luminaries, perhaps because of my aversion to the stereotypical aesthetics of cyberpunk (shades, arrogant hackers with silly nicknames, noir neon cityscapes). So I approached The Big Book of Cyberpunk, edited by Jared Shurin, with trepidation – a 100+ story, 1000+ page monster of a book. Surprisingly, I devoured it, coming back for story after story until none were left.
The Big Book of Cyberpunk is an anthology that attempts to encompass all aspects of the sub-genre, and does a bloody good job of it, fielding early precursors, classic staples and more modern takes on the genre. Authors chosen go beyond the stereotypical old white men (although those talented authors still grace these pages) to a diverse range of authors, including many stories originally published in other languages. And many of these stories push the envelope of traditional cyberpunk, varying in tone and aesthetic but ultimately featuring the same themes, along with a delicious undercurrent of rebellion that suffuses every tale in this anthology (keeping the punk in cyberpunk).
The stories are mostly split into five sections – Self, Society, Culture, Challenge and Post-Cyberpunk. Each section then begins with a “pre-cyberpunk” story before going chronologically through the picks in that section, building up to stories published in the last few years. As is expected with anthologies, not every story is a hit (accounting for each reader’s personal preference is impossible) but there was only one I found myself unable to finish, and beyond that the general low bar was set pretty high. The peaks were high indeed, with a good amount of the stories causing me to immediately look up the author and their other works once I was done.
Jared does a good job of pitching his interpretation of cyberpunk, with a lengthy introduction outlining the criteria behind his choices – and each section also has its own introduction which briefly outlines how each story fits within the theme. (For a taste of Jared’s views on cyberpunk, check out his blog post debunking the common myths around cyberpunk fiction).
It’s quite hard to pick out standout stories in such a large collection, but I thought the stories by Lavanya Lakshminaraya, James Tiptree Jr., Aleš Kot, qntm, Lavie Tidhar, Bruce Bethke, Greg Egan, Paul J. McAuley, Minister Faust, Yun Ko-eun, Arthur Liu, E. Lily Yu, Nancy Kress, Steve Beard, Corey J. White, Erica Satifka, Sam J. Millar, E. J. Swift, Beth Cato, Eileen Gunn, Victor Pelevin, Brandon O’Brien, Rudy Rucker, Nisi Shawl, Bruce Sterling, Janelle Monae/Alaya Dawn Johnson, K. C. Alexander, and Saad Hossein were all really special in their own ways. This anthology really runs the full gamut of emotion, and there’s a lot of stories here that made me think about elements of the world differently.
It’s a special thing to read a book that inspires you to engage with an entire genre or sub-genre. The Big Book of Cyberpunk was to me a revelation, a showcase of what I’ve been missing, a suggestion that maybe I’m a cyberpunk guy now (or have I been all along?). Well worth a read for fans of the genre, those who’ve barely touched upon it and most people in between.
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