I freely admit this is a genra I've never really explored. Does anyone know of some good cyberpunk authors or novels? I've just recently broken out of my fantasy rut and am just about finished DonQuiote so I'm looking for somthing a little lighter. Sci-Fi cyberpunk seems to fit the bill.

oh, and I'd rather avoid the Shadowrun franchise novels. I've read a few of the Dragonlance/Forgotten Realms novels and I tend to find the writing sub par at best and this has kinda tainted my entire outlook on the subgenre

Anthologies:
The Ultimate Cyberpunk
Mirrorshades

William Gibson:
Burning Chrome
Neuromancer
Count Zero
Mona Lisa Overdrive
Virtual Light
Idoru
All Tomorrow's Parties

John Shirley:
City Come A Walkin
The Exploded Heart
Eclipse
Eclipse Penumbra
Eclipse Corona

Pat Cadigan:
Mind Players
Synners
Patterns

Bruce Sterling:
Globalhead
A Good, Old-Fashioned Future
Crystal Express
Islands in the Net
Heavy Weather
Distraction

Neal Stephenson:
Snowcrash
The Diamond Age

Also recommended:
Interzone (A British sci-fi mag featuring several prominent Cyberpunk authors, colelctions available)
The Hacker Crackdown (non-fiction by Bruce Sterling, avalable for free)
Ghost in the Shell (Graphic novel/series/manga by Masamune Shirow)
Shatter (Graphic novel by Michael Saenz and Peter Gillis)
The Difference Engine (a collaboration 'tween Bruce Sterling and William Gibson)
Achilles Choice (By Larry Niven and Steve Barnes)
Cryptonomicon (By Neal Stephenson, thought by some the beginning transition to Slipstream)
Pattern Recognition (A new William Gibson novel, firmly Slipstream)

gah! that's a few... Thanks. I think I'll start with one of the anthologies. Out of that list who would you say is your favorite author? Just so I have somwhere to start.

Edit: ooo and the The Ultimate Cyberpunk is even available at the bookstore I work at... sweet.

Hammered by Elizabeth Bear, and Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams. Must-reads, the both of 'em.

William Gibson, hands-down. His Neuromancer is without question the most widely read book in the cyberpunk genre.

You can probably find The Ultimate Cyberpunk at your local new bookstore; Mirrorshades and some of the other books will be harder to find, try online booksellers like bookfinder.com if you have trouble.

Yeah, all of those : P

If you want something free you can read at work, check out:
http://project.cyberpunk.ru/lib/

If you can navigate the site, you can find a few things worth reading. Something I'd recommend starting with is DogFight, part of the Burning Chrome anthology:

http://project.cyberpunk.ru/lib/burning_chrome/

(Search for 'dogfight', all one word).

I personally dislike Gibson's writing style as being cluttered. Stephenson's Snow Crash is an awesome book, but he seems to be pretty hit and miss (mostly miss). Bruce Sterling is currently my favorite CP author. Globalhead was neat, especially all of the second half.

the great thing about working at the bookstore is I have acess to their ordering system. Basically if it's in print I can get it... Of course the downside to this means that I ususally just sign the backs of my paycheques and hand them back over to them but it keeps me well read that's for sure.

Cyberpunk's strongest works tend to be short stories. For an example, John Shirley's book City Come A Walkin is an extremely influential work, but his most widely published and best story is Freezone (actually, a condensed chapter ripped from his Eclipse trilogy).

For somehting closer to Shadowrun, check out Terry Windling's Borderland anthology: Borderland, BorderTown, and Life on the Border. Elves and cyberware and punks, oh my!

For a more recent entry into the genre, try <i>Altered Carbon</i>, <b>Broken Angels</i>, and <i>Market Forces</i> by Richard Morgan. Carbon is borderline space sci-fi, and Angels crosses over the line but both definitly have a cyberpunk core to them. Market Forces was unexpectedly fresh, and definitly good.

Phillip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

The novel that inspired Blade Runner.

Do androids dream of electric sheep is one that I have read. Good book

For a more dystopian, hate-filled future, Ambient by Jack Womack is awesome. Not so much cyber, but a lot of punk. Let's Put the Future Behind Us is also excellent. His other books, such as Elvissey and Terraplane, while set in the same world, deal with dimension-hopping and are much more like Command and Conquer: Red Alert than true cyberpunk.

The only thing it is lacking is the cynerpart but it has a whole shit load things you need in a cyberpunk story.

I agree, the Eclipse trilogy is not Shirley's best work, but it is classic Cyberpunk as far as most people are concerned...dystopian, massive corporations, certain philophical posturings, near-future with technological advances, subcultures experiencing dissonance with an increasingly smaller "main stream," a tendancy to approach basic problem-solving through an "outside the box" approach, etc.

You could more easily make this into a movie trilogy than the more cerebral cyberpunk fair. And despite it all, the scene where Rickenharp plays a Song Called Youth is beautiful. All in all, the books are worth reading...at least once. Some of it is delibrately over the top, but that's mainly because Shirely was working with not-always-really-good good guys vs. the nearest-thing-to-steretypical-evil bad guys.

My absolute favorite cyberpunk book was HardWired. by Walter Jon Williams.

There is a cyberpunk sourcebook for it that I am looking to convert to shadowrun.

Another good one by Walter Jon Williams is Voice of the Whirlwind. It has aliens in it, but it is still very cyberpunk in feel. To me, Williams has more of an SR feel than Gibson.

Snow Crash was kind of a disappointment. It had one or two good ideas, but it was too campy, and the author seemed to be a wee bit too impressed with his own cleverness.

For a good look at how advanced medical technology may affect society, read just about anything by Peter F. Hamilton. The cyber in his books is incredibly coherent and well thought out and fits the tech level of the rest of the society, and in fact, plays strong roles in shaping it.

However, it is not so much punk. But I feel that understanding some of the things that shape society make for a better game.

You can also try When Gravity Fails (and sequels) by George Alec Effinger and Johnny Zed by John Betancourt
There's also The Cold Cash War by Robert Asprin

I must chime in with the cautionary note that, in the opinions of some at least, including myself and 4 people I know off the top of my head, Snow Crash is more of a cyberpunk parody. It's a great book, and I recommend it, but saying it's cyberpunk is like saying that Terry Pratchet writes fantasy...