Mirror Shades

by Pat Cadigan, James Patrick Kelly, Tom Maddox, et al.

Book Overview

With their hard-edged, street-wise prose, they created frighteningly probable futures of high-tech societies and low-life hustlers. Fans and critics call their world cyberpunk. Here is the definitive... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0441533825
• ISBN13: 9780441533824
• Release Date: July 1988
• Publisher: Ace Books
• Length: 239 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.2" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

for cyberpunk n00bs and other scifi lovers

A battered copy lives in my nightstand at all times. Between novels, I always come back to this, flipping through the pages until a word catches my eye. Such a diversity of talent, mixed together quite well here.

Best Collection For the Genre

This is simply a fantastic collection of the best stories of my favorite literary subgenre, the Cyberpunk Movement in the 1980s and early 1990s. While I may not like William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, I am not ignorant when it comes to their importance in popularizing and shaping the genre. Also here are Rudy Rucker, the acting grandfather of the genre; and Pat Cadigan, the Queen of Cyberpunk (even though she had very little, if any, real competition). While there are a couple newer Cyberpunk collections, The Ultimate Cyberpunk coming to mind, the first is still the best. Not only are the stories fantastic, but the anthology didn't have to rely on a nostalgia effect, like those that are being published now. A good introduction to the genre, as well as an essential item for one's collection.

A good beginning for those interested in CP lit...

Mirrorshades is a superb collection of works by some of the artists that set the foundation for what would become known as "cyberpunk" literature. (I do wonder why one or two of the stories are there, though.) Since its publication, other writers not included in the anthology have made great strides to further the sub-genre, so this is really just a good place to start. Another great read, though some these stories will overlap with it, is Gibson's Burning Chrome.

A central text of SF's most telling sub-genre

A gorgeous collection bursting with imagination. Eerie extrapolation on biotechnology, space migration and other staple SF fixtures. "Mirrorshades'" stories handle the future in intimate detail. This is a great guide to some of the best writers working today--a telling indication, since "Mirrorshades" is over a decade old. Bruce Sterling's introductory essay is fascinating.

A necessary primer for understanding the "cyberpunk" genre..

Mirrorshades offers a host of short stories that not only give a good read but will acquaint you with the very beginnings of the cyberpunk genre. Included is "Johnny Mnemonic", the short story story that was the inspiration for a somewhat disappointing film adaptation in 1995. The crowning jewel of the collection is "Mozart in Mirrorshades" by Sterling himself. Picture Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ("...call me Wolf, okay?") writing pop music, time travel to paralell universes, mongol warriors on Harleys, Thomas Jefferson catching the hypersonic VTOL to discuss oil drilling in Texas, and Marie Antoinette in a leopard skin bikini screaming for burritos and pizza... This while the Freemasons organize for guerrilla war in Europe to drive out the invaders from the 21st century. "Mirrorshades" is a must-have for anyone interested in science fiction written after 1979.