Fifty Key Figures in Cyberpunk Culture

Anna McFarlane is Lecturer in Medical Humanities at the University of Leeds, working on traumatic pregnancy and its expression in science fiction, horror, and fantasy. She is the co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Cyberpunk Culture (2020) and is co-editing The Edinburgh Companion to Science Fiction and the Medical Humanities. Her first monograph is a study of William Gibson’s novels, Cyberpunk Culture and Psychology: Seeing Through the Mirrorshades (2021).Graham J. Murphy is Professor with the School of English and Liberal Studies, Faculty of Arts, Seneca College. He is co-editor of Beyond Cyberpunk: New Critical Perspectives (2010), Cyberpunk and Visual Culture (2018), and The Routledge Companion to Cyberpunk Culture (2020). In addition to numerous book chapters and journal articles, he authored "Cyberpunk and Post-Cyberpunk" for The Cambridge History of Science Fiction (2019) and a chapter on feminist cyberpunk for The Routledge Companion to Gender and Science Fiction (2022).Lars Schmeink is Research Fellow at the Europa-Universität Flensburg and Lead Researcher of the "Science Fiction" subproject of "Future Work," a federally funded research project on labor in the 22nd century. He is also the author of Biopunk Dystopias: Genetic Engineering, Society, and Science Fiction (2016), and the co-editor of Cyberpunk and Visual Culture (2018), The Routledge Companion to Cyberpunk Culture (2020), and New Perspectives on Contemporary German Science Fiction (2022).

• Introduction 1. J. G. Ballard 2. Steven Barnes 3. Jean Baudrillard 4. Lauren Beukes 5. Rosi Braidotti 6. Charlton ‘Charlie’ Brooker 7. Pat Cadigan 8. David Cronenberg 09. Samuel R. Delany 10. Philip K. Dick 11. Cory Doctorow 12. Warren Ellis 13. William Gibson 14. Donna J. Haraway 15. N. Katherine Hayles 16. Nalo Hopkinson 17. Sogo Ishii 18. Ray Kurzweil 19. Jaron Lanier 20. Marshall McLuhan 21. Syd Mead 22. Misha 23. Moebius 24. Janelle Monáe 25. Richard K. Morgan 26. Annalee Newitz 27. Mamoru Oshii 28. Katsuhiro Ōtomo 29. Marge Piercy 30. Sadie Plant 31. Mike Pondsmith 32. Thomas Pynchon 33. Rudy Rucker 34. Joanna Russ 35. Melissa Scott 36. Ridley Scott 37. Lewis Shiner 38. Masumune Shirow 39. Warren Spector 40. Stelarc 41. Neal Stephenson 42. Bruce Sterling 43. Allucquére Rosanne ‘Sandy’ Stone 44. James Tiptree, Jr. 45. Alvin and Wendy Toffler 46. Shinya Tsukamoto 47. Vernor Vinge 48. Lana and Lilly Wachwoski 49. Norbert Wiener 50. Shoshana Zuboff Honourable Mentions

"Fifty Key Figures in Cyberpunk Culture is an excellent introduction to some of the writers, artists, theorists, and scientists whose influence has helped to shape today’s technocultural imaginary. Readers will (re)discover cyberpunk culture’s makers, from J.G. Ballard to Rosi Braidotti, from Marshall McLuhan to Richard K. Morgan, from Rudy Rucker to Joanna Russ, from Vernor Vinge to Norbert Wiener. Fifty Key Figures is both an exciting supplement to MacFarlane, Murphy, and Schmeink’s recently published Routledge Companion to Cyberpunk Culture and an important contribution to cyberculture studies in general."Veronica Hollinger, Editor of Science Fiction Studies and Professor Emerita of Cultural Studies at Trent University, Canada"Fifty Key Figures in Cyberpunk Culture brings together a truly diverse and global array of entries that explodes the limits of cyberpunk’s perceived "monocromatism," and heteronormative, masculine biases. The entries gathered here reveal cyberpunk to be a key cultural formation for investigating the racial, class, gender, and sexual intersections of our increasingly techno-saturated late capitalist present. Your favorite "deep-cut" author might be missing, but you’ll discover far more than you’ll miss."Hugh Charles O’Connell, Assistant Professor of English, University of Massachusetts Boston, USA"From classic Movement sf writers like William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, and Pat Cadigan to key precursors like Samuel R. Delany, Joanna Russ, James Tiptree, Jr., and Philip K. Dick and contemporary practitioners like Charlie Brooker, Lana and Lilly Wachowski, Lauren Beukes, and Janelle Monáe -- with a truly global collection of writers, filmmakers, scientists, and philosophers spanning every field of art and innovation over more than a century -- McFarlane, Murphy, and Schmeink's Fifty Figures lays any possible doubt to rest: cyberpunk still rules our world."Gerry Canavan, President of the Science Fiction Research Association and Associate Professor of English, Marquette University, USA