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Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology (1986)

https://www.rudyrucker.com/mirrorshades/HTML/
83•keepamovin•8h ago

Comments

theshrike79•5h ago
This book and the Cyberpunk 2020 RPG ignited my love for Cyberpunk in general when I was a kid and it hasn't waned since :)
loudmax•4h ago
I must be a few years older than you are. It was the original Cyberpunk (set in 2013, published in 1988) that did it for me.

One of the things I remember about the game was that it came with a suggested book and film list. Reading all those books, and tracking down the recommended films was something of a quest for me and my friends. That last part sounds trivial, but if your local video rental store didn't happen to have a copy of 1982's art-house weirdo indie film Liquid Sky, it was a real challenge.

programd•2h ago
Liquid Sky soundtrack:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5UxwohjhHw&list=PL9F0ACA601...

Synth genius. I actually have it on vinyl.

Lio•58m ago
To my shame I'd never heard of that film before but the whole thing is availble on YouTube for free https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyIhqT5bkEM
Michelangelo11•5h ago
> Each story is Copyright (C) 2022 to its original authors, and all rights are reserved. The book is not public domain, nor is it Creative Commons.

How is this "free online edition" distinct from piracy, in that case?

michaelbuckbee•4h ago
It's hosted on one of the author's sites. The collection itself is (as far as I can tell) out of print. It's falling through the cracks of "too complicated for a publisher to figure the rights out of" and "not lucrative enough for anyone to care".
wat10000•4h ago
It’s possible that it’s being distributed with permission of the copyright holders. Given the number of different people involved that seems kind of unlikely, but “free” doesn’t have to imply a permissive license.
mindcrime•2h ago
I think it's normal for the publisher to hold those rights (perhaps shared with the original authors, depending on the details of their agreements), so possibly all that would have been required here would be for the publisher to approve doing this.

Or maybe Rucker and all of the other authors are friends, and keep in touch, and he just literally called all of the up and said "Hey, can I post Mirrorshades online for posterity?" and they all agreed. Who knows?

Filligree•2h ago
But it’s a published work. I wouldn’t expect the author to have rights to post it.
mindcrime•2h ago
Not by default, no. But it seems entirely reasonable that he may have approached the original publisher, requested permission to post this, and received said permission. Considering that the print book has been out of print for some time, and given that the linked page does emphasize the copyright status of the works, this feels like the most likely scenario to me.
specproc•4h ago
He drew hard on his cigarette. Annoyance flickered across his face, like an artefact in the poorly-compressed bootleg movies he sold to his fellow low-lifes at The Pig and Drum.

Some Corpo-type, no doubt. Can't help seeing something good scroll across their feed tube without calling Legal.

He'd worked with a few in the past. Not bad all-in-all, at least they paid on time. That said, he could think of few he'd drink with.

He toyed with the idea of leaving a bitchy comment. Probably get downvoted to oblivion.

The dogs in the yard barked at a passing vehicle.

Irritated by the animal noise and the corpo whining, he thrashed something out. Pulling another cigarette from his pack, he hit "reply".

charlieglass•4h ago
I gigglesnorted.
mindcrime•2h ago
The Pig and Drum.

Please tell me that is a real place! :=)

specproc•2h ago
It was.
Michelangelo11•1h ago
> Some Corpo-type, no doubt.

The opposite. Consider Harlan Ellison's views on piracy: "If you put your hand in my pocket, you’ll drag back six inches of bloody stump."

dfxm12•3h ago
Consider the popular cliche, "free as in beer vs free as in speech".

The rights copyright gives you, briefly, includes: copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work. What suggests there is piracy is going on?

Finnucane•1h ago
In 1986, it was unlikely that the original contract for the book mentioned anything about electronic rights. As it was a reprint anthology, the rights purchased would have only covered the use in the anthology as long as it was in print. Which means that to post the book online, Rucker would have to contact the individual contributors and get new permissions. Did he do that? I make a guess that he did not. It is not clear from what is stated here.
slightwinder•1h ago
It's free to read, not free to use. As it's from one of the involved authors, they probably got permission for this release. The problem with piracy is lack of permission/consent, not the act itself.

People are making books freely available all the time, even those they sell on other platforms. Nothing wrong with this.

aphrax•4h ago
Rudy Rucker - that's a name I've not heard in a while. I still have a copy of White Light kicking about, not sure I understood it mind you...
pavlov•3h ago
Now I remember really liking his novel "Software" as a kid. I had completely forgotten the name of the author.
busfahrer•1h ago
I love Gibson, but I can't get past more than a few pages of Rucker, and I have no idea why
mwexler•4h ago
This one wasn't the one that converted me (Gibson ftw) but Mirrorshades expanded what I thought the genre could be.

Not every story is a winner, but enough try to stretch a bit that it's worth the read.

Helps to put your mind in the time, just before the 90s, before The Matrix but after Blade Runner, before "the metaverse" but after "the net" and "going online" were starting to enter conversations.

benji-york•3h ago
The Information Society song "Mirrorshades" would pair well with this.
girvo•2h ago
As would the Clipping song by the same name on their latest album that is heavily inspired by these stories as well!
eigenrick•1h ago
That whole album is an absolute banger.
hungryhobbit•2h ago
Absolutely brilliant collection of stories from some really great authors!
celticninja•2h ago
If you are looking for a recent anthology of cyberpunk you could do worse than rewired

Rewired: The Post-cyberpunk Anthology

Some great stories in there and no bad ones at all. IMO

patrickscoleman•1h ago
I recently picked up Mirrorshades and The Big Book of Cyberpunk (edited by Jared Shurin) [1]

Will check this one out too!

[1] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/700576/the-big-book...

throwawayoldie•2h ago
Unfortunately for all of us, it turns out that cyberpunk dystopias are a lot more fun to read about than to live in.
rtkwe•1h ago
All the corporate take over and impunity, none of the advanced cybernetics.
shortrounddev2•1h ago
* Dense, walkable cities

* No red tape stopping people from opening small businesses

* Cheap medical procedures available on demand

* Lax immigration rules allowing the free flow of the labor market

Idk just sounds like Bangkok to me

throwawayoldie•1h ago
...note to self, move to Bangkok.
ljf•56m ago
A friend of mine works in Bangkok pretty regularly, so it ended up cheaper to rent an apartment than get hotels (plus he can leave clothes etc behind.)

A nicely sizes 2 double bed apt is £450 a month all in including utilities - plus a pool and huge roof terrace shared with the other people there - looks great.

If you can get a visa to work there, and have the cash, you can have an amazing life out there for sure.

Apocryphon•3m ago
As cool as that would be, most cyberpunk settings don't include a military government ruling the cities.
cyberpunk•1h ago
I really should rename my wifi network to something other than dystopia….
perilunar•2h ago
400 Boys by Marc Laidlaw was turned into an episode of Love, Death & Robots (volume 4) — released this year on Netflix.
sukhavati•1h ago
I got the UK version with foil cover to make the “mirrorshades” shiny and I love it so much. One of the definitive anthologies of the genre
Lio•1h ago
Yep me too. Great to see it freely availible online.

IMHO by far the stangest, most mind bending story in it isn't really cybperpunk though but it's still flipping brilliant.

Petra by Greg Bear. It's about what happens when God dies...

https://www.rudyrucker.com/mirrorshades/HTML/#calibre_link-2...

OhMeadhbh•31m ago
Yeah... Petra haunts me still, 40 years after reading it.
keepamovin•1h ago
Yes! I had that one too. Remembering it and the cover was what prompted me to post.
OhMeadhbh•33m ago
Gernsback Continuum is still my favorite story since Borges' Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius. Physical reality seems pretty solid, but social reality is certainly "flexible." And all the tech I work with is a continuum of different ages smushed together; javascript client apps embedding COBOL apps complied to wasm bytecodes. SQL databases whose schemas predate some of the developers working on the apps that use them. Instruction Set Architectures that were invented when we still thought Raymond Lowey-esque fins and gills were the height of material design.

In a bit of synchronicity, I found my copy of Islands in the Net last week and am re-reading it after 35 years. It's pretty interesting to see which bits Bruce Sterling accurately predicted and which were a bit off the mark.

PortableCode•32m ago
also available in mobi and epub formats (for Kindle and other ebook readers):

https://www.rudyrucker.com/mirrorshades/mirrorshades.epub https://www.rudyrucker.com/mirrorshades/mirrorshades.mobi

solomonb•24m ago
I just checked for my copy of this and its missing. : (

Great book. I like seeing how expansive the original cyberpunk was. I love William Gibson (and Bladerunner) but modern cyberpunk is but a hollow shell of Gibson's aesthetic.

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Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology (1986)

https://www.rudyrucker.com/mirrorshades/HTML/
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