Inspiration from Books

Ten brilliant, streetwise, high-resolution stories from the man who coined the word cyberspace. Gibson's vision has become a touchstone in the emerging order of the 21st Century, from the computer-enhanced hustlers of Johnny Mnemonic to the technofetishist blues of Burning Chrome. With their vividly human characters and their remorseless, hot-wired futures, these stories are simultaneously science fiction at its sharpest and instantly recognizable Polaroids of the postmodern condition.

The novel that started a genre, this book is cyberpunk at its best. Case, the ex cyberspace decker, returns to the matrix he missed and takes us on a ride with him through the world of the not too distant future as written by Gibson with exceptional vision. The story leads from the streets of Chiba, through the BAMA, and up the gravity well to the Villa Straylight. If we had a required reading list, this would be book #1 on it.

Enter the world of a terrifying high-tech future gone awry, a world where computer chips are implanted directly into the brain of a child, where artists hide underground like hunted prey, and where a new force has invaded Earth's Computer Matrix--a force that's playing for keeps . . . Count Zero Interrupt. Count Zero is the sequel to the award-winning novel, Neuromancer.

Into the cyber-hip world of William Gibson comes Mona, a young girl with a murky past and an uncertain future whose life is on a collision course with internationally famous Sense/Net star Angie Mitchell. Since childhood, Angie has been able to tap into cyberspace without a computer. Now, from inside cyberspace, a kidnapping plot is masterminded by a phantom entity who has plans for Mona, Angie, and all humanity, plans that cannot be controlled...or even known. And behind the intrigue lurks the shadowy Yakuza, the powerful Japanese underworld, whose leaders ruthlessly manipulate people and events to suit their own purposes.

Welcome to NoCal and SoCal, the uneasy sister-states of what used to be California. Here the millennium has come and gone, leaving in its wake only stunned survivors. In Los Angeles, Berry Rydell is a former armed-response rentacop now working for a bounty hunter. Chevette Washington is a bicycle messenger turned pick-pocket who impulsively snatches a pair of innocent-looking sunglasses. But these are no ordinary shades. What you can see through these high-tech specs can make you rich--or get you killed. Now Berry and Chevette are on the run, zeroing in on the digitalized heart of DatAmerica, where pure information is the greatest high.

The author of the ground-breaking science-fiction novels Neuromancer and Virtual Light returns with a fast-paced, high-density, cyber-punk thriller. As prophetic as it is exciting, Idoru takes us to 21st century Tokyo where both the promises of technology and the disasters of cyber-industrialism stand in stark contrast, where the haves and the have-nots find themselves walled apart, and where information and fame are the most valuable and dangerous currencies.

A gorgeous collection bursting with imagination. Eerie extrapolation on biotechnology, space migration and other staple SF fixtures. 'Mirrorshades' stories handle the future in intimate detail. This is a great guide to some of the best writers working today--a telling indication, since 'Mirrorshades' is over a decade old. Bruce Sterling's introductory essay is fascinating.

This is the high-octane cyberpunk adventure that put Neal Stephenson on the science fiction map, and the first 30 pages alone are worth the purchase price.It conjures a future world where the Net is virtual and avatars are the Entre into the 'metaverse.' But something called 'snow crash' is rezzing out many of the metaverse's top personalities and threatening an infocalypse.

The original roleplaying game of the dark future; a world of corporate assassins, heavy-metal heroes and brain-burning cyberhackers, packed with cutting-edge technology and intense urban action. In this game you'll find everything you need to tackle the mean streets of the 2000's - in a game system that combines the best in realistic action and playability.

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 persons 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.

Ex-U.N. envoy Takeshi Kovacs has been killed before, but his last death was particularly painful. Dispatched one hundred eighty light-years from home, re-sleeved into a body in Bay City (formerly San Francisco, now with a rusted, dilapidated Golden Gate Bridge), Kovacs is thrown into the dark heart of a shady, far-reaching conspiracy that is vicious even by the standards of a society that treats 'existence' as something that can be bought and sold. For Kovacs, the shell that blew a hole in his chest was only the beginning. . . .

Cynical, quick-on-the-trigger Takeshi Kovacs, the ex-U.N. envoy turned private eye, has changed careers, and bodies, once more . . . trading sleuthing for soldiering as a warrior-for-hire, and helping a far-flung planets government put down a bloody revolution.

But when it comes to taking sides, the only one Kovacs is ever really on is his own. So when a rogue pilot and a sleazy corporate fat cat offer him a lucrative role in a treacherous treasure hunt, hes only too happy to go AWOL with a band of resurrected soldiers of fortune. All that stands between them and the ancient alien spacecraft they mean to salvage are a massacred city bathed in deadly radiation, unleashed nanotechnolgy with a million ways to kill, and whatever surprises the highly advanced Martian race may have in store. But armed with his genetically engineered instincts, and his trusty twin Kalashnikovs, Takeshi is ready to take on anythingand let the devil take whoevers left behind.

Richard K. Morgan has received widespread praise for his astounding twenty-fifth-century novels featuring Takeshi Kovacs, and has established a growing legion of fans. Mixing classic noir sensibilities with a searing futuristic vision of an age when death is nearly meaningless, Morgan returns to his saga of betrayal, mystery, and revenge, as Takeshi Kovacs, in one fatal moment, joins forces with a mysterious woman who may have the power to shatter Harlan's World forever.

In London, Maya, a young woman trained to fight by her powerful father, uses the latest technology to elude detection when walking past the thousands of surveillance cameras that watch the city. In New York, a secret shadow organization uses a victims own GPS to hunt him down and kill him. In Los Angeles, Gabriel, a motorcycle messenger with a haunted past, takes pains to live 'off the grid' -- free of credit cards and government IDs. Welcome to the world of The Traveler -- a world frighteningly like our own.In this compelling novel, Maya fights to save Gabriel, the only man who can stand against the forces that attempt to monitor and control society. From the back streets of Prague to the skyscrapers of Manhattan, The Traveler portrays an epic struggle between tyranny and freedom. Not since 1984 have readers witnessed a Big Brother so terrifying in its implications and in a story that so closely reflects our lives.

By award winning novelist Frank Creed, his Christian sci-fi novel starts when peacekeepers bust a home-church in Ward Six of the Chicago Metroplex. Brother and sister, Dave and Jen Williams, are the only members who evade capture. Their only place to turn? A Christian terrorist cell known as the Body of Christ.

In their shattered world, Dave and Jen adopt codenames and slip between the Underground cracks of the Chicago Metroplex. They must save their home-church before their parents, brother, and neighbors are all brainwashed, or worse, by the One State Neros.

Calamity Kid and e-girl fearlessly walk the valley of death, because He is with them. But theyll need every molecule of their re-formed faith to face down peacekeepers, gangers, One-State neros, and fallen-angels, in Americas dark Post-Modern Humanist age.

Set in 2037, Calamity Kid and his muscle cell are targeted by the One State's Federal Bureau of Terrorism and must survive alone in Chicago's Underground. At one-half its usual might, the cell encounters traps and snares set by a faceless opponent-and question the suspicious arrival of a bio-engineered One State traitor. Blamed by the media for the very violence they're trying to contain, CK and his fellow saints race for their lives to avoid the high-tech crosshairs aimed into the underground. War of Attrition.

'Recombination' is the first book in the 'Chronicles of Withmore City' series. Set in the dystopian future of 2085, mega-corporations control almost everything and destitute governments are fighting a losing battle for relevancy. Human cloning and brain mapping has been perfected, making death a mere inconvenience for the lucky minority wealthy enough to afford a clone. A new religion has sprouted up around human cloning, backed by the corporations that hold patents on it. Life teeters towards those with wealth and power, while those without reluctantly work as near-slaves for the corporations, in exchange for the scraps they are expected to survive on.

Transmetropolitan is a cyberpunk transhumanist comic book series written by Warren Ellis and co-created and designed by Darick Robertson

After years of self-imposed exile from a civilization rife with degradation and indecency, cynical journalist Spider Jerusalem is forced to return to a job that he hates and a city that he loathes. Working as an investigative reporter for the newspaper The Word, Spider attacks the injustices of his surreal 21st-century surroundings.

In the distant future, the human body is a temporary and interchangeable commodity - if you can pay. For the interstellar elite, bodies are swapped out and reused without a second thought. You never grow old; you never die.

However, some bodies are more temporary than others ...

Takeshi Kovacs was once a member of the Envoy Corps, stormtroopers for the Interstellar Earth Protectorate, ultra-lethal adepts in switching bodies across the stars. While he served, he was known by a variety of names--Mamba Lev, One Hand Rending, the Icepick--all testament to his capacity for rapid response and extreme violence in whatever flesh he wore. Now he's out of the service and trying to live a different life. But the Protectorate hasn't changed its spots, no matter what world Kovacs drifts to, and with that old combat rage still burning deep inside him, will he ever really be able to walk away?

Tokyo Ghost is an American science fiction comics series written by Rick Remender, drawn by Sean Murphy and colored by Matt Hollingsworth, released in September 2015 by Image Comics. The current story arc concluded in issue 10, with the possibility of a new story at some point in the future.

Set in a very dystopian future, this novel is rife with violence similar to that found in the mix. Hi-tech weapons and bloody motivations similar to things found in Withmore, this book is a wild ride of violence, romance, with some really good, quipped dialog. Worth the read!

A local cop. A US Peacekeeper. A divided Tokyo.

In the future, two mismatched cops must work together to solve crimes in a divided Tokyo.

Years of disaster and conflict have left Tokyo split between great powers. In the city of drone-enforced borders, bodymod black markets, and desperate resistance movements, US peacekeeper Emma Higashi is assigned to partner with Tokyo Metropolitan Police Detective Miyako Koreda. Together, they must race to solve a series of murders that test their relationship and threaten to overturn the balance of global power. And amid the chaos, they each need to decide what they are willing to do for peace.

It's been twenty years and two election cycles since Information, a powerful search engine monopoly, pioneered the switch from warring nation-states to global micro-democracy. The corporate coalition party Heritage has won the last two elections. With another election on the horizon, the Supermajority is in tight contention, and everything's on the line.

With power comes corruption. For Ken, this is his chance to do right by the idealistic Policy1st party and get a steady job in the big leagues. For Domaine, the election represents another staging ground in his ongoing struggle against the pax democratica. For Mishima, a dangerous Information operative, the whole situation is a puzzle: how do you keep the wheels running on the biggest political experiment of all time, when so many have so much to gain?

The future of democracy is about to implode.

After the last controversial global election, the global infomocracy that has ensured thirty years of world peace is fraying at the edges. As the new Supermajority government struggles to establish its legitimacy, agents of Information across the globe strive to keep the peace and maintain the flows of data that feed the new world order.

In the newly-incorporated DarFur, a governor dies in a fiery explosion. In Geneva, a superpower hatches plans to bring microdemocracy to its knees. In Central Asia, a sprawling war among archaic states threatens to explode into a global crisis. And across the world, a shadowy plot is growing, threatening to strangle Information with the reins of power.

The future of democracy must evolve or die.

The last time Information held an election, a global network outage, two counts of sabotage by major world governments, and a devastating earthquake almost shook micro-democracy apart. Five years later, it's time to vote again, and the system that has ensured global peace for 25 years is more vulnerable than ever.

Unknown enemies are attacking Information's network infrastructure. Spies, former superpowers, and revolutionaries sharpen their knives in the shadows. And Information's best agents question whether the data monopoly they've served all their lives is worth saving, or whether it's time to burn the world down and start anew.

Paranoia is a humorous role-playing game set in a dystopian future similar to Nineteen Eighty-Four, Brave New World, Logan's Run, and THX 1138; however, the tone of the game is rife with black humor, frequently tongue-in-cheek rather than dark and heavy.

Most of the game's humor is derived from the players' (usually futile) attempts to complete their assignment while simultaneously adhering to The Computer's arbitrary, contradictory, and often nonsensical security directives.