:p:u:z:z:l:e:b:o:x: wiki: Media Resources/Books (Fiction)

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

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

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...

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.

[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

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.

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.

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

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:

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.

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.

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

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:

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