Rewired- The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology [Anthology]

427 Pages·2016·1.9 MB·English

by  Kelly James Patrick

Rewired: The PostCyberpunk Anthology
Copyright © 2007 by James Patrick Kelly & John Kessel
This is a work of fiction. All events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and
any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. All rights
reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any
form.
Cover photograph © 2007 by Patty Nason
Design & composition by John D. Berry
The text typeface is Freight Text, with Freight Sans and Freight Micro
Tachyon Publications
1459 18th Street #139
San Francisco, CA 94107
[phone]
www.tachyonpublications.com
Series Editor: Jacob Weisman
ISBN 10:1-892391-53-8
ISBN 13: 978-1-892391-53-7
Printed in the United States of America
First Edition: 2007
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Introduction © 2007 by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel | Sterling-
Kessel Correspondence © 2007 by John Kessel and Bruce Sterling | William
Gibson quotation © 1999 from No Maps for These Territories. Used by
permission of the author. | “Bicycle Repairman” © 1996 by Bruce Sterling. First
appeared in Intersections, edited by John Kessel, Mark L. Van Name, and
Richard Butner (Tor: New York). | “Red Sonja and Lessingham in Dreamland”
© 1996 by Gwyneth Jones. First appeared in Off Limits, edited by Ellen Datlow
(St. Martin’s: New York). | “How We Got in Town and out Again” © 1996 by
Jonathan Lethem. First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, September 1996. |
“Yeyuka” © 1997 by Greg Egan. First appeared in Meanjin, V56, #1, 1997. |
“The Final Remake of The Return of Little Latin Larry with a Completely
Remastered Soundtrack and the Original Audience” © 1997 by Pat Cadigan.
First appeared in Future Histories, edited by Stephen McClelland (Horizon
House: Norwood, Massachusetts). “Thirteen Views of a Cardboard City” © 1997
by William Gibson. First appeared in New Worlds, edited by David Garnett and
Michael Moorcock (White Wolf: Stone Mountain, Georgia). | “The Wedding
Album” © 1999 by David Marusek. First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction,
June 1999. | “Daddy’s World” © 1999 by Walter Jon Williams. First appeared in
Not of Woman Born (Roc: New York). | “The Dog Said Bow-Wow” © 2001 by
Michael Swanwick. First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction,
October/November 2001. “Lobsters” ©2001 by Charles Stross. First appeared in
Asimov’s Science Fiction, June 2001. | “What’s Up, Tiger Lily?” © 2003 by Paul
Di Filippo. First appeared in The Silver Gryphon, edited by Gary Turner and
Marty Halpern (Golden Gryphon: Urbana, Illinois). | “The Voluntary State” ©
2004 by Christopher Rowe. First appeared in sei fiction, May 5, 2004. | “Two
Dreams on Trains” © 2005 by Elizabeth Bear. First appeared in Strange
Horizons, January 3, 2005. | “The Calorie Man” © 2005 by Paolo Bacigalupi.
First appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction,
October/November 2005. | “Search Engine” ©2006 by Mary Rosenblum. First
appeared in Analog, September 2005. | “When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth” ©
2006 by Cory Doctorow. First appeared in Jim Baen’s Universe, August 2006.|
Contents

INTRODUCTION: Hacking Cyberpunk | James Patrick Kelly & John Kessel
Sterling-Kessel Correspondence
Bruce Sterling | “Bicycle Repairman”
Gwyneth Jones | “Red Sonja and Lessingham in Dreamland”
Jonathan Lethem | “How We Got in Town and out Again”
Greg Egan | “Yeyuka”
Pat Cadigan | “The Final Remake of The Return of Little Latin Larry with a
Completely Remastered Soundtrack and the Original Audience”
William Gibson | “Thirteen Views of a Cardboard City”
David Marusek | “The Wedding Album”
Walter Jon Williams | “Daddy’s World”
Michael Swanwick | “The Dog Said Bow-Wow”
Charles Stross | “Lobsters”
Paul Di Filippo | “What’s Up, Tiger Lily?”
Christopher Rowe | “The Voluntary State”
Elizabeth Bear | “Two Dreams on Trains”
Paolo Bacigalupi | “The Calorie Man”
Mary Rosenblum | “Search Engine”
Cory Doctorow | “When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth”
Acknowledgments

WE’D LIKE TO THANK THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE for advice, suggestions, and
recommendations: Wilton Barnhardt, Richard Butner, Matthew Cheney, Gregory
Frost, Eileen Gunn, Rich Horton, Kelly Link, and David Moles.
Our thanks are also due to Jacob Weisman, Jill Roberts, and the other folks at
Tachyon Publications who helped see this project through to completion.
None of these estimable people are responsible for errors of judgment or taste
we committed in assembling this anthology.
Hacking Cyberpunk
“However, I don’t worry much about the future of razor’s edge techno-
punk. It will be bowdlerized and parodized and reduced to a formula, just as
all other SF innovations have been. It scarcely matters much, because as a
‘movement,’ ‘Punk SF’ is a joke. Gibson’s a litterateur who happens to have
an unrivalled grasp of the modern pop aesthetic. Shiner writes mainstream
and mysteries. Rucker’s crazy; Shirley’s a surrealist; Pat Cadigan’s a
technophobe. By ‘95 we’ll all have something else cooking.”
—Bruce Sterling, in a letter to John Kessel, 29 March 1985
shades
The Hugo Award-winning editor David Hartwell tells the story of how Bruce
Sterling approached him in 1983 with a proposal for an anthology of short
stories which would eventually become the classic Mirrorshades. The book was
to be a kind of literary manifesto for the newly emerging cyberpunk movement.
David said he was indeed interested and asked how many writers Bruce expected
would be in Mirrorshades. Bruce said he had five or six in mind. David replied
that five or six was not enough for a movement and that Bruce would need at
least a dozen. So Bruce set out to recruit writers for the movement and his
anthology, even if they were not card-carrying cyberpunks. Among those he
found was one of the editors of this book, who was at the time most closely
associated with the humanist camp, said to be in opposition to cyberpunk.
It is not surprising that the cyberpunk movement, so quick to sneer at other
kinds of science fiction and to strike an attitude of hip self-importance, would be
controversial. To its critics, cyberpunk was all borrowed surface and no
substance: rock and roll Alfred Bester, Raymond Chandler with the serial
numbers filed off. To the cynical, it was nothing but a marketing ploy to advance
the careers of those select few who were permitted to hang their leathers in the
secret Node Zero clubhouse. But as they continued to publish their innovative
stories and novels, readers and — eventually — writers and critics began to
acknowledge that there might be something to cyberpunk. In 1986, the
pseudonymous Vincent Omniaveritas, writing in the cyberpunks’ snarky house
organ, Cheap Truth, brought the classic cyberpunk era to an end. “I hereby
declare the revolution over,” crowed Vince. “Long live the provisional
government.”
And then the real arguing started.