Just cause it's fun rather then it being relevant to PersonalTelco .... Everygeek has their favorite Sci/Fi books and authors. Free free to chat about whatever seems interesting., especially if they are predicting community wireless :-)

Bruce Sterling

One of the early gods of cyberpunk, these days he largely spends his time being a technological pundit and trying to do cool stuff. He earlier work (pre-early ninties) was cutting edge, political, relevant etc. IMHO his writing has lost his edge a bit these days and is mostly going over old ideas in more details without a whole lot new to say. His also has lots of short stories which are really good. Favorites are The Bicycle Repair Man and the one about the cat thing in Japan. What the hell was that one called ... -- AdamShand

Neal Stephenson

The current cyberpunk god. Writes great, but typically long, books that are also pretty technical and accurate. Often his books desperatly need an editor to whack out a couple hundred pages but are good enough that they survived that flaw.

William Gibson

Acknowledged as one of (if not "the") originators of cyberpunk. Personally I think he has kickass ideas which are ruing by his absolutely dry and boring writing style. But that's just me :-) -- AdamShand

Personally, I think cyberpunk as a genre is mostly dead, but the works of its writers are still extremely important. well, for SF, anyway. Sterling had a [http://lonestar.texas.net/~dub/sterling/cheap.html zine] back in the 80s, that basically cast the cyberpunk-led groundswell against the old hackish space opera crap. He makes a good point. The battle continues. --AndrewWoods

Vernor Vinge

Mostly recognized in cypher/cyberpunk circles for his novella, True Names. Published 3 years before Neuromancer, TN establishes several important concepts, like immersive virtual reality, the importance of anonymity, the dangers and consequences of excessive governmental power, etc. etc. It was out of print for quite a long time, and was recently collected along with a bunch of essays by the likes of Marvin Minsky, Tim May, Chip Morningstar, and Eric S. Raymond. I have a copy floating around somewhere, if anybody wants to borrow it. He's also a promulgator of the technological singularity, and his other books are above-average hard SF space stories.

Greg Egan

Greg Egan is a worthless hack. Permutation City is the worst possible attempt to cash in on the cyberpunk trend. ugh.

Greg Egan can be pretty OK. YMMV :) -- CatonGates

Greg Bear

The other greg's written some good stuff, Eon (and its sequels), Blood Music, and Slant, first among them. Slant's his most cyberpunkish book that i've read.

Melissa Scott

SF Writer that happens to deal with gender/sexuality issues in an intelligent way. Personal favorite is Trouble and her Friends, though it's been a while since I've read it.

Philip K. Dick

Is God.


[CategoryPhilosophy]