From the Wikipedia Cyberpunk page:

Cyberpunk is a science fiction genre noted for its focus on “high tech and low life”. It features advanced science, such as information technology and cybernetics, coupled with a degree of breakdown or radical change in the social order.

Classic cyberpunk characters were marginalized, alienated loners who lived on the edge of society in generally dystopic futures where daily life was impacted by rapid technological change, an ubiquitous datasphere of computerized information, and invasive modification of the human body.

Cyberpunk plots often center on a conflict among hackers, artificial intelligences, and megacorporations. They tend to be set in a near-future Earth, rather than the far-future settings or galactic vistas found in novels such as Isaac Asimov’s Foundation or Frank Herbert’s Dune. The settings are usually post-industrial dystopias but tend to be marked by extraordinary cultural ferment and the use of technology in ways never anticipated by its creators (“the street finds its own uses for things”). Much of the genre’s atmosphere echoes film noir, and written works in the genre often use techniques from detective fiction.

Bladerunner clip from YouTube

I’ve listed some of my favourite Cyberpunk related sites below:

The Cyberpunk Project

William Gibson aleph

Mirrorshades

The official Cyberpunk homepage

The Gentleman Loser

Cyberpunk Review

The Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies

Wikipedia sites:

“Neuromancer” by William Gibson (official Gibson site)

“Snow Crash” by Neal Stephenson

Bladerunner

Johnny Mnemonic film

I’ll finish up with two quotes from the brilliant William Gibson cyberpunk novel, “Neuromancer”.

“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”

“The matrix has its roots in primitive arcade games. … Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts. … A graphic representation of data abstracted from banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding…”

Johnny Mnemonic trailer from YouTube

Anyway…back during the 1990’s i was going through a huge book collecting phase and managed to put together quite a decent collection of spy and thriller novels (amongst other genres), including some first editions, published between 1930 and 1960, and this particular book is still one of my favourites.

“Epitaph for a Spy” was written in 1938 by the one of the most talented authors of the spy genre, Eric Ambler.

It was his third novel and it followed the story of one Josef Vadassy;

From the back cover…
Josef Vadassy was an ordinary man – ordinary, that is, for a refugee. There had been troubles in his past, and there would undoubtedly be troubles in his future. But nothing he had encountered had prepared him to cope with the charge of espionage being levelled at him by the authorities in the South of France.

To prove his innocence Vadassy, inevitably, was forced to prove someone else’s guilt. But with few people eager to believe him, and more than a few seemingly eager to watch him sink quietly into enforced obscurity, he found himself forced to play the game according to rules that could never have been labelled clean.

The book is a classic and not only has a great spy and espionage plot running through it, but it can also be quite humourous…

I was about to argue that the apology, if any was due to Roux, when Mademoiselle Martin, who had been having hysterics in the background, created a diversion by flinging her arms around her lover’s neck and exhorting him to kill. She was removed in floods of tears by Frau Vogel and Mary Skelton. By this time, however, Roux had found tongue and was hurling insults at all and sundry.
‘Species of monkeys !’
Mosieur Duclos’s calm deserted him. He leaped into the breach. ‘Species of impotent goat !’ he retorted hotly.
Mademoiselle Martin screamed. Roux, incensed, focused his attention once more on his enemy.
‘Species of diseased camel !’ he bawled.
‘Misbegotten cretin!’ roared Monsieur Duclos.
Roux licked his lips and swallowed hard. For a moment I thought he was beaten. Then I saw that he was gathering his forces for the coup de grace. His lips worked. He drew a deep breath. There was a fraction of a second’s silence. Then, with the full force of his lungs, he hurled the word in Monsieur Duclo’s face.
‘Communiste !’
Given the appropriate circumstances almost any word denoting a political or religous creed can become a deadly insult. At a conference of Moslem dignitaries the word ‘Christian’ could no doubt be used to devestating effect. At a gathering of White Russians the word ‘Communist’ would probably be reckoned a virulent term of abuse. But this was not a gathering of White Russians.
For a moment there was not a sound. Then someone giggled. It was, I think, Mary Skelton. It was enough. We started to laugh.

Brilliant :)

So…if you like the spy and espionage genre you can’t go wrong picking up a few of Eric Ambler’s books.

The final quote which comes from chapter 10 of the IDEO book “The Ten Faces of Innovation” – Amazon link.

A quote from chapter 9 of the IDEO book “The Ten Faces of Innovation” – Amazon link.

A quote about space from chapter 8 of the IDEO book “The Ten Faces of Innovation” – Amazon link.

A quote from chapter 7 of the IDEO book “The Ten Faces of Innovation” – Amazon link.

Quote from a brialliant film director from chapter 5 of the IDEO book “The Ten Faces of Innovation” – Amazon link.

Quote from chapter 5 of the IDEO book “The Ten Faces of Innovation” – Amazon link.

The brilliant and well known quote from Chapter 4 of the IDEO book “The Ten Faces of Innovation” – Amazon link.

The quote from Chapter 3 of the IDEO book “The Ten Faces of Innovation” – Amazon link.

Another quote, from chapter 2 this time, out of the IDEO book “The Ten Faces of Innovation” – Amazon link.

IDEO books have by far the best quotes in them…this quote is from chapter 1 of The Ten Faces of Innovation – buy it at Amazon today..