Hardwired
Hardwired, the acknowledged inspiration for the games Cyberpunk Red and Cyberpunk 2077, is now available in a deluxe edition for its thirtieth anniversary, with new content by the author. Earth lies prostrate beneath the lash of the Orbital powers, and Earth’s Balkanized nations have no choice but to let the Orbitals plunder their remaining wealth. Below the zone of Orbital control, buttonheads, panzerjocks, dirtgirls, and hustlers scramble for their ticket out of the gravity well. But now, if the criminal underworld and the guerrilla underground can join forces, there is a chance to shift the balance of power— in a war fought on the ground by hardwired commandos, in the air by high-flying deltajocks, and by genius hackers in the neural interface. As Roger Zelazny said, “Hardwired is a tough, sleek juggernaut of a story, punctuated by strobe light movements, coursing to the wail of jets and the twang of steel guitars— glittering, nasty, and noble— and told in a style perfectly suiting its content. It has all of my favorite things— blood, love, fire, hate and a high ideal or two. I wish I’d written this one.” The Thirtieth Anniversary Edition of this cyberpunk classic includes essays by the author devoted to the origin of the novel, the unexpected source of the term “panzerboy,” and an amused guide through some of the oddities of the first German edition. “Williams' use of language is as explosive and as techno-tinged as the world he describes.
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What Hacker News says
- I found his books (which IMO are not that famous) because our local library had them. Otherwise I don't think I would have stumbled upon it.
Same applies to Walter Jon Williams and his Hardwired which was one of my early favorites. I was amazed to find out later that this book is one of inspirations for Cyberpunk tabletop games and Cyberpunk 2077.
- Aside from what I mentioned, you're looking at Bruce Sterling, maybe a little Stross. I hesitate to recommend Doctorow -- he is faddishly distracted and senselessly optimistic. Vinge's "True Names" stands out. Maybe When H.A.R.L.I.E. Was One for the AI side of things. The amusing Headcrash, writings by Pat Cadigan, Jeter's deliciously dystopian Noir is a favorite if you want to see how bad it might get. Hardwired, by Walter Jon Williams, but that one has been a while.
- Walter Jon Williams, author of the cyberpunk classic Hardwired, also wrote two books in a setting that fuses cyberpunk and fantasy: Metropolitan and City on Fire.
- Pity they didn't film Walter Jon Williams' 1986 novel Hardwired; it's one of the major cyberpunk works.
- Non-fiction
The Emperors New Mind - Roger Penrose
Godel, Escher, Bach - Douglass Hoffstadter
Brocas Brain - Carl Sagan
The (mis)Behavior of Markets - Benoit Mandelbrot
The Black Swan - Nicholas Nassem Taleb
Fiction
Gates Of Fire - Stephen Pressfield
Neuromancer - William Gibson
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
Hardwired - Walter Jon Williams
Altered Carbon - Richard Morgan
Red Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson
Space - Stephen Baxter
Enders Game - Orson Scott Card
Skeleton Crew - Stephen King
I've given away a lot of books. I'm old.
- If you like Neuromancer, you might like Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams. It's even more high-tech and morally ambiguous, and writing style very much like Gibson's in Neuromancer.
