Cyberpunk isn’t dead. It has just lost some of its more superficial, passé punkishness (the leather jackets and the mirrorshades) and continues to evolve, rather than settling into the wax museum of old trends. The greatest challenge may be generational. Where Gibson and his fellows served as pioneers back in the 20th century, the real world is catching up and this century’s cybernauts feel far more at home in the territory. But what IS “home” in a time of accelerating change and strangeness? In his first collection A PLACE SO FOREIGN AND EIGHT MORE, Cory Doctorow pursues that question through the wild twists and turns of past, present and future, equipped with the literary tools to make it matter.
