Rewired The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology

This collection of short fiction curated for post-cyberpunk fiction is very well curated. Though some of the stories weren't my jam, I could tell why they were there because with each selection of short fiction there is a correspondence between two people talking about the genre. Interspersed throughout are quotes from some cyberpunk heavy hitters we know today. Just so, lots off the short fiction are from the same people. Gibson, Sterling, Stross, Bacigalupi, Doctorow, loads of people on most people's radar. Usually post-cyberpunk stuff focuses on the human condition and some of these stories do that, others not. They're just there to put a stark contrast between cyberpunk fiction that was well known and how that focus was shifting before anyone started throwing a different label on them. Overall it's a very good anthology and I think I only skipped one story, which was not to my taste...I'm pretty sure it was Gibson's actually.. "Bicycle Repairman" by Bruce Sterling "Red Sonja and Lessingham in Dreamland" by Gwyneth Jones "How We Got in Town and Out Again" by Jonathan Lethem "Yeyuka" by Greg Egan "The Final Remake of The Return of Little Latin Larry With a Completely Remastered Soundtrack and the Original Audience" by Pat Cadigan "Thirteen Views of a Cardboard City" by William Gibson "The Wedding Album" by David Marusek "Daddy’s World" by Walter Jon Williams "The Dog Said Bow-Wow" by Michael Swanwick "Lobsters " by Charles Stross "What’s Up, Tiger Lily" by Paul Di Filippo "The Voluntary State” by Christopher Rowe "Two Dreams on a Train” by Elizabeth Bear "The Calorie Man” by Paolo Bacigalupi "Search Engine” by Mary Rosenblum "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth” by Cory Doctorow I really enjoyed The Bicycle Repairman, which highlighted some really cool aspects of communal living and just what kind of ingenuity technology could give us and subverted the version of what a "bad guy" in cyberpunk traditionally looked like. Was overall really engaging and good. I also loved The Calorie Man, by Bacigalupi because I JUST finished reading The Windup Girl and it was super interesting to dive back into that world from another perspective. This story coupled with the other anthology I've read with him in it makes it pretty clear he's interested in going straight into some dark places, which I so far have dug very much. While I think all of them were good, Padigan and Gibson's one's were the weakest in my eyes. I think both stories aren't very good reflections of their work and were there to instead highlight an overall concept that were pitted against cyberpunk defaultism. So their purpose is good, but I just weren't into them very much. Otherwise, I'd have given it 5 stars --give it a shot if you're interested in seeing the rise of post-cyberpunk and what was cast aside from "traditional" cyberpunk. It's really interesting and even more compelling with the correspondence between writers introducing and discussing interesting subject matter.

half of the stories were miserable. only a few nuggets. do not recommend.