Storming the Reality Studio: A Casebook of Cyberpunk & Postmodern Science Fiction [Paperback]

Larry McCaffery (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0822311682 | ISBN-13: 978-0822311683 | Publication Date: November 27, 1991

The term “cyberpunk” entered the literary landscape in 1984 to describe William Gibson’s pathbreaking novel Neuromancer. Cyberpunks are now among the shock troops of postmodernism, Larry McCaffery argues in Storming the Reality Studio, marshalling the resources of a fragmentary culture to create a startling new form. Artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, multinational machinations, frenetic bursts of prose, collisions of style, celebrations of texture: although emerging largely from science fiction, these features of cyberpunk writing are, as this volume makes clear, integrally related to the aims and innovations of the literary avant-garde.

By bringing together original fiction by well-known contemporary writers (William Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, Kathy Acker, J. G. Ballard, Samuel R. Delany), critical commentary by some of the major theorists of postmodern art and culture (Jacques Derrida, Fredric Jameson, Timothy Leary, Jean-François Lyotard), and work by major practitioners of cyberpunk (William Gibson, Rudy Rucker, John Shirley, Pat Cadigan, Bruce Sterling), Storming the Reality Studio reveals a fascinating ongoing dialog in contemporary culture.
What emerges most strikingly from the colloquy is a shared preoccupation with the force of technology in shaping modern life. It is precisely this concern, according to McCaffery, that has put science fiction, typically the province of technological art, at the forefront of creative explorations of our unique age.
A rich opporunity for reading across genres, this anthology offers a new perspective on the evolution of postmodern culture and ultimately shows how deeply technological developments have influenced our vision and our art.

Selected Fiction contributors: Kathy Acker, J. G. Ballard, William S. Burroughs, Pat Cadigan, Samuel R. Delany, Don DeLillo, William Gibson, Harold Jaffe, Richard Kadrey, Marc Laidlaw, Mark Leyner, Joseph McElroy, Misha, Ted Mooney, Thomas Pynchon, Rudy Rucker, Lucius Shepard, Lewis Shiner, John Shirley, Bruce Sterling, William Vollman

Selected Non-Fiction contributors: Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Derrida, Joan Gordon, Veronica Hollinger, Fredric Jameson, Arthur Kroker and David Cook, Timothy Leary, Jean-François Lyotard, Larry McCaffery, Brian McHale, Dave Porush, Bruce Sterling, Darko Suvin, Takayuki Tatsumi

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Editor McCaffery here collects over 50 essays, short stories, novel excerpts, literary criticism, poetry, artworks, and a comic strip that illustrate the influences on and of the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction and its distinctive sensibility. Most of the space goes to the two godfathers of cyberpunk, William Gibson (whose Neuromancer , Berkley, 1984, won the science fiction triple crown--Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick awards) and Bruce Sterling ( Schismatrix , LJ 6/15/85), but most other major cyberpunk writers are represented. McCaffery does not limit cyberpunk to science fiction but puts it in the context of postmodern literature and 1980s popular culture. The only flaw is that Sterling's preface to Mirrorshades ( LJ 12/86), often considered a cyberpunk manifesto and constantly referred to in the essays, is not presented until the end of the nonfiction section. An important work; highly recommended for all sf, literature, and pop culture collections. (Illustrations not seen.)-- Keith R.A. DeCandido, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"[A] brilliant new compiliation of fiction and nonfiction . . . that you've just "got" to read. . . . [The] thesis is simple as a whitehot razor blade: we don't "read" science fiction, we "live "it. . . . You can't help getting excited about this collection. You just can't."
--Lance Olsen," Mondo 2000"

Product Details

• Paperback: 405 pages
• Publisher: Duke University Press Books (November 27, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0822311682
• ISBN-13: 978-0822311683
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 5.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #922,664 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Strap yourself in for a great ride..., February 8, 2001

By 

Thomas Fang "blobject oriented" (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Storming the Reality Studio: A Casebook of Cyberpunk & Postmodern Science Fiction (Paperback)

This book is a must-have if you're a fan of anything cyberpunk. There are more than 40 contributors, so not every piece is brilliant, but the book still deserves a five star rating. Highlights: fiction from almost everyone who was important in the cyberpunk movement (Gibson, Rucker, Shiner, Shirley, Sterling, etc.) and some other excellent writers not usually included in the group (Ballard, W. S. Burroughs, Pynchon), along with insightful essays by a diverse selection of writers including Timothy Leary and several important figures in the world of postmodern theory (Baudrillard, Derrida, Jameson, Kroker). Storming the Reality Studio is one book that I am proud to own, and I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very fine anthology--well chosen, November 8, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Storming the Reality Studio: A Casebook of Cyberpunk & Postmodern Science Fiction (Paperback)

I enjoyed this collection of cyberpunk writing immensely. McCaffery chose a fine collection of cyberpunk examples, ranging from the well known to the less known, from fiction to non-fiction ssay. The ordering is near perfection--the arrangement allows the pieces to speak to each other, and of each other (a very cyberpunkean move). Given the above reviewer's apparent distress concerning certain aspects of the book, and some misguided reductions of cyberpunk (basically just SF without hairy aliens; and his basic misunderstanding of the interpolation that occurs within the genre--i.e. his rantings re: Acker and hackdom), I hope this doesn't dissuade you from purchasing this very worthwhile book--it's wonderful. Especially exciting is the "Cyberpunk 101" section where various books and films are listed and shortly (and bitingly witty--see the one for Ballard's _Crash_) are recommended and briefly summarized.

19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Interesting ideas, but very scattershot, November 27, 1999

By 

Al Kihano (Iskandria) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Storming the Reality Studio: A Casebook of Cyberpunk & Postmodern Science Fiction (Paperback)

It's a shame that this book had to be so big, and its excerpts so brief. McCaffery has chosen a good selection of postmodern SF, but the excerpts are too often just a couple pages long. The result is a book a mile wide and an inch deep: it touches on every aspect of postmodern SF without really explaining or clearing up anything at all.

A good way to use this book might be to read through it, choose what strikes your fancy, then buy the complete books attached to those. But I'm afraid if you just read this book, your glimpses of this very exciting genre will be too fleeting for you to get a good picture of it as a whole.

To his credit, McCaffery has chosen an excellent array of writers and subgenres, including many who I did not know were SF or who dealt with SF in ways I hadn't expected. I should also mention that the design of the book is fantastic.