Customer Reviews

Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

So the editors of this SF anthology believe that cyberpunk became, after more than twenty years, too much of a popular cliche, or brand, to continue as a useful SF subgenre, and present these stories as stories that move beyond cyberpunk to a new paradigm. They feel pretty much like cyberpunk to me, but perhaps a bit off-beat. There are some very memorable stories by famous and less-noted authors, I especially enjoyed Swanwick's "The Dog Said Bow-Wow", Bacigalupi's "The Calorie Man", and Doctorow's "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth". Even the stories that started out slowly and were hard to relate to for a while ended up being very interesting by their ends. I'll definitely hope for a second anthology from these editors.

I only occasionally dip into science-fiction and when I do I'm looking for things that stretch my head, that challenge my world-view and that open realms of possibility. This anthology met those needs and more.

Every story was well worth reading (no duds) and several were excellent.

Admittedly the anthology has a rather dark cast (as expected, given the cyberpunk focus) and some of the auxiliary material has a bit of an attitude (again, a cp staple), but the stories were wholly engrossing.

This is one of the best anthologies I've read in years

I found this an enjoyable collection, but the quality was a bit inconsistent. One story, in particular, was knock-your-socks-off fantastic: "The Wedding Album" by Marusek. Wow!

Charles Stross' "Lobsters" is also here, but so far I've found it in two anthologies, published online, and of course, as part of Accelerando. I'm getting a bit tired of seeing it reproduced everywhere, despite it being very good.

For fans of the Cyberpunk genre only. Everone else should look elsewhere. Some big name writers but just not worth the effort.

I was suckered into buying this by the 'Top' writers in this anthology, Paul di Filippo, Sterling, Gibson, Cadigan.., but I already own all these stories in other collections.
Even the work of most of the lesser known writer I already knew.
The remaining stories were good and enjoyable, but I would not label them cyberpunk or even 'post' cyberpunk in any way.

I should have known from the title (REwired...)that it's trying to ride the long-broken remains of the cyberpunk wave.
Some excellent writing in there, but still flogging a dead horse, IMHO.