Gritty Cyberpunk Novels
Reading is a bit like breathing for me - it happens even when I’m not thinking about it, even when I have no spare time whatsoever. I've decided to start documenting my reading habits, since, a) I rarely have time to write anything lately, and this way at least I'm writing something and b) I’m actually sort of curious about my own reading habits. Not curious enough to do a spreadsheet though :)
I've managed to make a significant dent in the 50 books already, so I thought I’d share a few of these titles with you. My reading tastes do range all over the map, but my preference is science fiction. I’m not going to do them all at once, because that would take days, but for starters, I give you… all the gritty cyberpunk novels I’ve read this year.
By Richard Morgan:
1. Altered Carbon
2. Broken Angels
3. Woken Furies - these 3 titles depict an extremely gritty cyberpunk-ish future, featuring a very resourceful, and borderline sociopathic mercenary named Takeshi Kovacs, who nonetheless manages to capture my sympathy as a character. In this future, it’s pretty hard to actually die, since veryone has indestructible cortical stacks implanted, so you can just be ‘resleeved’ into a new body in case of death. This is a cool plot device. The AIs in this series are also somewhat hilarious in moments. I like the concepts, the characters are quirky and nicely developed, and the writing is dense, tense, jagged and efficient. I can easily imagine these books as graphic novels, which always makes me happy, although the artist would have to be adept at drawing blood-spattered violence (did I mention this was gritty?) Nicely written fight scenes - I usually just skim over violence and fight scenes in most novels, but somehow Morgan makes them an integral part of the plot, and I found myself reading every bone-crunching word. And wincing. A lot. Bonus; he writes great sex scenes. 4.5/5, 4/5, 4.5/5
4. Market Forces features protagonist Chris Faulkner, a hotshot executive in the burgeoning field of ‘conflict investment’. This all takes place in a near-future borderline sociopathic society (peri-apocalyptic England) where corporate success is measured by how many of your competitors you can kill off by means of extreme auto racing. Road Warrior meets RollerBall meets Survivor meets Noam Chomsky. Lots of ranting about the evils of globalization. A little bleak, but still, I found it to be a fascinating story of one man’s descent into irredeemable nastiness. I found myself cringing each time he made the wrong choices, and by the end of the book I wanted to yell at him for being such an asshat, and yet, the inevitability of the corruption was so gracefully done, I can’t really imagine any other ending. 4/5
By Neal Asher:
5. Gridlinked is, well let’s just call it a cyberpunk James Bond kind of thing. Only without quite as much sex and definitely not as campy. But grittier, and certainly inventive. Special Agent Cormac has spent something like 30 years gridlinked non-stop, which means he has basically forgotten how to be human. In this book, Cormac has to give up his link to the interstellar AI network (OMG, no internet!!!11!!1!!) and go completely cold turkey, while solving interstellar crime and relearning how to interact with normal (well, I use the term loosely here) humans. I particularly enjoy how in Asher’s future, interstellar travel happens by means of a device called a runcible - and yes, in this future, theoretical physicists pull their esoteric terminology from Edward Lear’s poems. Particularly amusing to me, as the original use of the word runcible is in the phrase ‘runcible spoon’, which is supposedly a spoon-shaped fork with three tines. In other words, a spork! 4.5/5
6. Line of Polity is another sinister space opera, featuring an alien-nanotech infested cyborg villain, that takes place in the same universe as Gridlinked, and featuring Special Agent Cormac, our erstwhile cyber-James Bond of the future. Although this book takes place chronologically after Gridlinked, I read this one first. I found it a very satisfying read, reminding me a little of the Iain Banks novels of the Culture. Cormac actually has a lesser role in this book, while several other characters are more developed. I particularly enjoyed the idea of a low-gravity strain of humanity especially engineered to be able to survive vacuum, who seal up all their membranes with saliva that hardens like crazy glue and then inflate like coloured balloons (because of course, they have brightly coloured skin, as in green, blue, bright yellow, etc.) 4/5
7. The Skinner takes place again in the same universe, but something like a few hundred years in the future, so really nothing to do with the two other novels. Instead, this book is a blackly humorous look at immortality, using the example of the planet Spatterjay, a mostly oceanic planet that is overflowing with incredibly deadly, dangerous, predatory and extremely carnivorous life forms. All of the life forms (and quite a few of the human inhabitants) are also hosts to a virus that makes them virtually impervious to harm. But there are side effects. I laughed my head off, (and that phrase is much funnier if you've read the book, I promise). Featuring giant leeches, a nano-cyber-zombie and a colony of sanctimonious cybernetically enhanced hornets. 4/5
8. Cowl is something completely different. This book features Polly, a cracked-out teenaged prostitute, who has unwittingly bonded with an organic time machine programmed to drag her inexorably back into the past in incremental jumps. She eventually discovers that she has been collected as a sample by Cowl, a genetically modified and somewhat monstrous being who has it in for all human life. Meanwhile, there is an interdimensional war raging between two advanced branches of future humanity, both of whom are trying to manipulate the time stream so as to ensure the future they want. They are also fighting over Tack, a programmed military assassin who is chasing after Polly initially, but whose mission gets subverted into going back in time to assassinate Cowl instead. Great space opera, and very weird indeed. I saw a review somewhere that called this book “Kage Baker on Steroids”, but I wouldn’t even call this distantly related, except for the time travel thing. Also, this book has a very high creepy factor, if only because of the interdimensional behemoth called the Tor Beast that eats, well, pretty much everything. 4.5/5
By Cory Doctorow:
9. Down and Out in The Magic Kingdom takes place mostly in Disneyland of the future, and features ‘whuffie’ scores, a kind of realtime credit-rating/esteem indicator that lets people know whether you’re worth talking to (sort of like being friended by a whole shitload of BNFs). Doctorow’s not a bad writer - in fact, there were numerous passages I rather enjoyed as isolated excerpts (especially his analysis of how to know which lineup will move fastest), but on the whole, the book kind of bored me. If it had been longer than 205 pages, I probably wouldn’t have finished it. This is one of those books that everyone is absolutely raving about. I find that all I can offer here is a resounding meh. Not enough grit for my taste, and the protagonist is a wussy milquetoast. 2.5/5
By William Gibson:
10. Pattern Recognition isn’t really cyberpunk, nor is it even science fiction, exactly, and yet it manages to capture the feel of both in its simultaneously bleak and surreal portrayal of modern culture. Cayce Pollard is our protagonist, a renegade ‘cool hunter’, with a talent for spotting the next big trends for her clients well before anyone even knows a trend exists. She is also allergic to brand names and logos, a fact which endeared her to me immensely. Despite supposedly being a thriller (WTF?), the story is haunting and evocative, and reminded me of the smell of rain in foreign airports. Gritty like air pollution - not very gritty at all, really, but it still fits better in this category than anywhere else. 4/5
And that’s the first 10 books. There’s lots more where those came from, and I'll continue as I have time, and until I'm caught up.
Currently reading:
Abused Boys: The Neglected Victims of Sexual Abuse by Mic Hunter
Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky
Cross-posted to my journal
I've managed to make a significant dent in the 50 books already, so I thought I’d share a few of these titles with you. My reading tastes do range all over the map, but my preference is science fiction. I’m not going to do them all at once, because that would take days, but for starters, I give you… all the gritty cyberpunk novels I’ve read this year.
By Richard Morgan:
1. Altered Carbon
2. Broken Angels
3. Woken Furies - these 3 titles depict an extremely gritty cyberpunk-ish future, featuring a very resourceful, and borderline sociopathic mercenary named Takeshi Kovacs, who nonetheless manages to capture my sympathy as a character. In this future, it’s pretty hard to actually die, since veryone has indestructible cortical stacks implanted, so you can just be ‘resleeved’ into a new body in case of death. This is a cool plot device. The AIs in this series are also somewhat hilarious in moments. I like the concepts, the characters are quirky and nicely developed, and the writing is dense, tense, jagged and efficient. I can easily imagine these books as graphic novels, which always makes me happy, although the artist would have to be adept at drawing blood-spattered violence (did I mention this was gritty?) Nicely written fight scenes - I usually just skim over violence and fight scenes in most novels, but somehow Morgan makes them an integral part of the plot, and I found myself reading every bone-crunching word. And wincing. A lot. Bonus; he writes great sex scenes. 4.5/5, 4/5, 4.5/5
4. Market Forces features protagonist Chris Faulkner, a hotshot executive in the burgeoning field of ‘conflict investment’. This all takes place in a near-future borderline sociopathic society (peri-apocalyptic England) where corporate success is measured by how many of your competitors you can kill off by means of extreme auto racing. Road Warrior meets RollerBall meets Survivor meets Noam Chomsky. Lots of ranting about the evils of globalization. A little bleak, but still, I found it to be a fascinating story of one man’s descent into irredeemable nastiness. I found myself cringing each time he made the wrong choices, and by the end of the book I wanted to yell at him for being such an asshat, and yet, the inevitability of the corruption was so gracefully done, I can’t really imagine any other ending. 4/5
By Neal Asher:
5. Gridlinked is, well let’s just call it a cyberpunk James Bond kind of thing. Only without quite as much sex and definitely not as campy. But grittier, and certainly inventive. Special Agent Cormac has spent something like 30 years gridlinked non-stop, which means he has basically forgotten how to be human. In this book, Cormac has to give up his link to the interstellar AI network (OMG, no internet!!!11!!1!!) and go completely cold turkey, while solving interstellar crime and relearning how to interact with normal (well, I use the term loosely here) humans. I particularly enjoy how in Asher’s future, interstellar travel happens by means of a device called a runcible - and yes, in this future, theoretical physicists pull their esoteric terminology from Edward Lear’s poems. Particularly amusing to me, as the original use of the word runcible is in the phrase ‘runcible spoon’, which is supposedly a spoon-shaped fork with three tines. In other words, a spork! 4.5/5
6. Line of Polity is another sinister space opera, featuring an alien-nanotech infested cyborg villain, that takes place in the same universe as Gridlinked, and featuring Special Agent Cormac, our erstwhile cyber-James Bond of the future. Although this book takes place chronologically after Gridlinked, I read this one first. I found it a very satisfying read, reminding me a little of the Iain Banks novels of the Culture. Cormac actually has a lesser role in this book, while several other characters are more developed. I particularly enjoyed the idea of a low-gravity strain of humanity especially engineered to be able to survive vacuum, who seal up all their membranes with saliva that hardens like crazy glue and then inflate like coloured balloons (because of course, they have brightly coloured skin, as in green, blue, bright yellow, etc.) 4/5
7. The Skinner takes place again in the same universe, but something like a few hundred years in the future, so really nothing to do with the two other novels. Instead, this book is a blackly humorous look at immortality, using the example of the planet Spatterjay, a mostly oceanic planet that is overflowing with incredibly deadly, dangerous, predatory and extremely carnivorous life forms. All of the life forms (and quite a few of the human inhabitants) are also hosts to a virus that makes them virtually impervious to harm. But there are side effects. I laughed my head off, (and that phrase is much funnier if you've read the book, I promise). Featuring giant leeches, a nano-cyber-zombie and a colony of sanctimonious cybernetically enhanced hornets. 4/5
8. Cowl is something completely different. This book features Polly, a cracked-out teenaged prostitute, who has unwittingly bonded with an organic time machine programmed to drag her inexorably back into the past in incremental jumps. She eventually discovers that she has been collected as a sample by Cowl, a genetically modified and somewhat monstrous being who has it in for all human life. Meanwhile, there is an interdimensional war raging between two advanced branches of future humanity, both of whom are trying to manipulate the time stream so as to ensure the future they want. They are also fighting over Tack, a programmed military assassin who is chasing after Polly initially, but whose mission gets subverted into going back in time to assassinate Cowl instead. Great space opera, and very weird indeed. I saw a review somewhere that called this book “Kage Baker on Steroids”, but I wouldn’t even call this distantly related, except for the time travel thing. Also, this book has a very high creepy factor, if only because of the interdimensional behemoth called the Tor Beast that eats, well, pretty much everything. 4.5/5
By Cory Doctorow:
9. Down and Out in The Magic Kingdom takes place mostly in Disneyland of the future, and features ‘whuffie’ scores, a kind of realtime credit-rating/esteem indicator that lets people know whether you’re worth talking to (sort of like being friended by a whole shitload of BNFs). Doctorow’s not a bad writer - in fact, there were numerous passages I rather enjoyed as isolated excerpts (especially his analysis of how to know which lineup will move fastest), but on the whole, the book kind of bored me. If it had been longer than 205 pages, I probably wouldn’t have finished it. This is one of those books that everyone is absolutely raving about. I find that all I can offer here is a resounding meh. Not enough grit for my taste, and the protagonist is a wussy milquetoast. 2.5/5
By William Gibson:
10. Pattern Recognition isn’t really cyberpunk, nor is it even science fiction, exactly, and yet it manages to capture the feel of both in its simultaneously bleak and surreal portrayal of modern culture. Cayce Pollard is our protagonist, a renegade ‘cool hunter’, with a talent for spotting the next big trends for her clients well before anyone even knows a trend exists. She is also allergic to brand names and logos, a fact which endeared her to me immensely. Despite supposedly being a thriller (WTF?), the story is haunting and evocative, and reminded me of the smell of rain in foreign airports. Gritty like air pollution - not very gritty at all, really, but it still fits better in this category than anywhere else. 4/5
And that’s the first 10 books. There’s lots more where those came from, and I'll continue as I have time, and until I'm caught up.
Currently reading:
Abused Boys: The Neglected Victims of Sexual Abuse by Mic Hunter
Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky
Cross-posted to my journal