Media Resources/Books (Fiction)

A

• Attanasio, A.A. Solis: Compact little journey into post-mortality enlightenment. General post-humanity. Includes a clade aroused by mathematics.

B

• Banks, Iain (M.) the Culture novels: occasionally-interventionist society of enlightened hedonists and weirdos. Consider Phlebas, *State of the Art, *Use of Weapons, The Player Of Games, Excession, *Look to Windward - stars are Twin's special suggestions.
• Banks, Iain (M.) Feersum Endjiin: Multiple lives, post-death data-worlds, all in a castle so huge its peak rises into space. Much textual experimentation.
• Barker, Clive. The Books of Blood: Strangewarp inspiration; visceral, transformative, and eerie
• Beagle, Peter S. A Fine and Private Place: Quiet, gentle, self-contained world that taught me a lot about writing. Calling it magic realist or anything demeans the work, but it has a cemetary, a man who lives there, a cantankerous raven, and ghosts.
• Bear, Greg. Blood Music: benign Strangevirus ancestors; theories about effects of consciousness on reality
• Brotherton, Mike. Star Dragon. Lots of gloopy biotech. Full novel readable online for free: http://www.mikebrotherton.com/
• Burroughs, William S. Nova Express: surrealist sci-fi classic, with anti-authoritarian sensibilities; right, Mr. Bradley?
• Butler, Octavia. Parable of the Sower: triune genders, hormonal manipulation, transformation of an entire race

C

• Calder, Richard. Dead Girls, Dead Boys, Dead Things: sentient automatons and human to doll transformations.
• Carroll, Lewis. Alice in Wonderland: Dreamy, absurd children's book. People mad from the outside and sane from the inside. Classic.
• Carroll, Lewis. Through the Looking Glass: Just a bit odder than its prequel, with one of the most frightening existentialist images I've seen. My favorite of the two.
• Chalker, Jack. Soul Rider (three books: Spirits/Empires/Masters of Flux & Anchor) - the nasty side of transformation and mind control. Counterexamples, not things to imitate, though the mindstate of Spirit throughout much of Empires is worth comparing to Bubble Dolls...

D

• Daniel, Tony. Metaplanetary: posthuman space opera in a megastructured solar system of the far future.
• Dick, Philip K. Ubik:
• Dick, Philip K. Valis: humanistic, schizophrenic fantasy about a pink god beam from space
• diFilippo, Paul. Ribofunk: Fables of a gleamingly bizarre biotech near-future. Extreme body mods, weird drugs, highly unconventional family structures, gene-altering subcultures, and a unique furry liberation movement are a mere handful of the gonzo ideas presented.
• Doctorow, Cory; Stross, Charlie. "Jury Service": Hilarious and mindbending novella: at the end of the 21st century, the mostly-human inhabitants of postscarcity Earth are periodically given prankish gifts of bizarre ultratech by godlike transhumans who inhabit orbital space and the inner Solar System.
• Duane, Diane. So You Want To Be A Wizard, Deep Wizardry, and High Wizardry: "Coming to terms with arcane forces" vibe, mainly using bits of scrap and diagrams on the ground to change things and/or convincing inanimate things to change, similar to the Gridshamans.

E

• [Russell Edson], The Tunnel: Selected Poems of Russell Edson: Not fiction, but "cubist" prose poetry. Very strange.
• Greg Egan, Quarantine:
• Greg Egan, Permutation City: Thomas' story-thread was an influence on Sosael's evolution. Just sayin'. -Twin
• Greg Egan, Distress - A strange virus turns elite physicists into drooling vegetables. Egan's most accessible book Blue
• Greg Egan, Schild's Ladder - Body-swapping, personalities restored from backups, alternate dimensions... an absolute Mess! Blue
• Greg Egan, Diaspora - Proably Egan's best book. A vision for transhuman existance. Blue
• Harlan Ellison: Cantankerous or lovable performance artist, humanist writings that often strike deep. Particularly: Deathbird, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

F

• Mick Farren, Last Stand of the DNA Cowboys: surreal space-Western; sentient landscapes; decadent future sex
• Friedman, C. S. This Alien Shore. Interesting hysical/mental differences that develop among mutated spacefaring humans, and the cultures/machines to accept them and/or cope with them. Wetware, hackers, and a deadly Wetware virus. Protagonist is a multiple personality.

G

• Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere: Downy adventures in a strange UnderLondon populated with some of the underpeople of the city, distorted mirrors and chances for real heroism not so easily found in 'the real world'.
• William Gibson, Neuromancer: Seminal cyberpunk work. Now dated, nonetheless captures the gritty, hallucinatory sheen and obsession with weird technological and cultural detail that was the essence of the movement.

L

• Tanith Lee, Biting the Sun: A girl's conflict with her excessively decadent postmortal society and its lack of meangingful work that rewards creative initiative. Victorian Retrotech Collective propaganda.
• Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time: classic of metaphysical science fantasy; Camazotz a source for Upstrange Park?
• Stanislaw Lem, The Cyberiad:
• Jonathan Lethem, Amnesia Moon: (Woo! Selves in a test tube! Lucid dreams as reality! Aliens! A magic, slowly burning San Fransisco Zoe)
• Alan Lightman, Einstein's Dreams: Einstein invents dozens of alternate rules of causality, and daydreams about their effects upon simple, meaningful, ordinary things

M

• Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude:
• Anne Maxwell, Timeshadow Rider: godlike telepathic lovers, societies based on hypnosis, unique take on transcendence
• Ian Mcdonald, The Broken Land:
• Ian Mcdonald, Terminal Cafe:
• Ian Mcdonald, Desolation Road: Mythic and magical take on the colonization of Mars.
• Ian McDonald, Out On Blue Six: A little of everything. Indescribable. (one of my favorite elements is an art terrorist group, the Raging Apostles--Coalesce)
• China Mieville, Perdido Street Station: Bug-headed women (and sex with thus), dream-eating moths, utterly alien and powerful spiderthing, physics consisted of magic, and more. Gritty.
• Moorcock, Michael. The Cornelius Chronicles
• The Dancers At The End of Time, anthology by Michael Moorcock
• James Morrow, City of Truth:

N

• Jeff Noon, Nymphomation: A mysterious corporation tries to control alternate-Manchester with dominoes. Sort of.
• Jeff Noon, Vurt: Future delinquents of five cross-bred, hyperreal races seek the ultimate feathery high.

P

• Daniel Pinkwater, Lizard Music: Crazy dreamworld conspiracy novel supposedly aimed at kids.
• Tim Powers, Last Call: Tarot archetypes bursting through the surface of consciousnesses, in a Las Vegas-based struggle for the spiritual Kingship of America. (I love his stuff but I don't really see how it relates to PB - enlighten me please? -Twin) (Magical realism in an unexpected setting; lots of battles on metaphysical and symbolic levels. Urban hermeticism. --OR) (I particularly enjoyed: Expiration Date, a whole complex society based around eating ghosts Zoe)
• Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49: The seminal paranoia novel. Puzzlebox is supposed to get this cryptic someday.

R

• Spider Robinson, Callahan's Crosstime Saloon: Empathic communities and wonderful conspiracies. (Balm against the blues, more important than it may look on the surface, shows how the world really works, the power of empathy and humour. --Zoe) (I keep thinking of Puzzlebox, sometimes, as a similar 'experiment in telepathy' as Callahan's Place is called at one point. Warning, the books are (over)full of puns. - Twin)
• Rudy Rucker, Freeware: Let's not mince words: kinky plastic robot sex.
• Rudy Rucker, Master of Space and Time: How to make having Way Too Much Damn Power into a meaningful story.
• Rudy Rucker, Software: High-brow body-swappin', robot rat implantin', neo-beatnik fun, with a truly alien robot culture.
• Rudy Rucker, Wetware: Head-popping existential crises, ingenious drugs, kinky robot mind-control.
• Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children:
• Geoff Ryman, [253]: "In cyberspace, people become places."
• Geoff Ryman, The Child Garden

S

• Spencer, William Browning. Zod Wallop: Drugs changing reality, books coming to life.
• Robert J. Sawyer, Calculating God: Aliens come to earth to explain that God is a universal constant. Interesting musings on faith and the creation of the universe which could inspire Puzzleboxian dogmas.
• Robert Sheckley (how could we have forgotten him?)
• John Shirley, Black Butterflies:
• John Shirley, City Come A-Walkin': Despite elements of dark fantasy, this book came as close to "inventing cyberpunk" as you could ask. Gibson and Sterling both admitted to drawing heavily from Shirley's work.
• Cordwainer Smith, Norstrilia:
• Cordwainer Smith, The Rediscovery of Man:
• Michael Marshall Smith, Only Forward:
• S P Somtow, Riverrun Trilogy: A grand romp through many Americas.
• Olaf Stapledon, Last and First Men:
• Neil Stephenson, The Diamond Age: Where we stole the VRC from!
• Neil Stephenson, Snowcrash: Metaviri exploration and more!
• Bruce Sterling, Globalhead:
• Bruce Sterling, Holy Fire:
• Bruce Sterling, Schismatrix Plus:
• Charles Stross, Singularity Sky:
• Michael Swanwick, Vacuum Flowers: Artificial personality addicts. All of Earth is one massive Plural. Persona-sculpture as art. Oh, and sex.
• Michael Swanwyck, Stations of the Tide: Very much magic-realist SF. Multiple levels of transformation, metaphor, and revelation.
• Michael Swanwick, The Iron Dragon's Daughter: Downwarp. With elves.
• Rod Swigart, Portal:

W

• Walter Jon Williams, Aristoi:
• Robert Anton Wilson & Robert Shea, The Illuminatus! Trilogy (The Eye in the Pyramid, The Golden Apple, Leviathan): A big, paranoid mindfuck. Read in one sitting if at all possible.

• Semiotext(e) SF (ed. Robert A. Wilson):
• Storming the Reality Studio:
• [the Surrealists]: Without these, PB would be so different