The biggest caper in the supercity’s history? Cruz has tangled with some of the most dangerous, cunning, and sinister villains around—Blade Gunner, NeuroDancer, Mr. Viper, The Ripper, the “Alien”. But this case is even bigger?

The International Refugee Society has twenty-six cybernetically enhanced “Letters,” and for the right price, they’ll eliminate anyone. They’ve given up their families and their memories for ten years of service with the promise of a life of luxury awaiting them. Agent G is one of these “Letters,” but clues to his past are starting to emerge while he’s on a dangerous mission to infiltrate the Society’s most dangerous competitor. In the midst of all the violence, subterfuge, and deceit, he’ll need to keep his wits about him and trust sparingly.

In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern. On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid — a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is. But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.

Aboard a B-29 bomber soaring high over Europe, the Vice-President of a radioactive America one reality removed from our own is about to nuke all of history as we know it. This is the end.

On Jack’s trail are an unlikely pair: an emotionally shut-down military agent and his partner, Paladin, a young military robot, who fall in love against all expectations. Autonomous alternates between the activities of Jack and her co-conspirators, and Joe and Paladin, as they all race to stop a bizarre drug epidemic that is tearing apart lives, causing trains to crash, and flooding New York City.

In the next installment of the sci-fi/cyberpunk detective series, author Austin Dragon shows you when two forces of evil want to kill each other—get the hell out of the way! The Liquid Cool Series is the sci-fi classic, Blade Runner meets the Old Hollywood classic, Maltese Falcon. There is plenty of gritty action, suspense, thrills, and even a few laughs. It’s the cyberpunk novel reimagined—an ever-rainy world of colossal skyscrapers, hover-cars, flashy neon streets, and futuristic mechanization. Metropolis isn’t a bad place, but it isn’t a good one either. Uber-governments and mega-corporations fight for control of the fifty-million-plus super-city, but so does crime. Sinister secret megacorporations. Savage Cyborg cults. And the Blade Gunner. How does Cruz, our private eye (and unlikely hero), solve this case—let alone survive? Off-worlders will do anything to stop the unknown man called Blade Gunner—even to blow up a supercity from space! The seedy spousal surveillance case doesn’t look so bad after all, but it’s too late to go back. You haven’t read a cyberpunk novel like this.

Atherleah grew up in the gang-controlled suburbs of Brisbane at the end of the twenty-first century. From the age of six, she decided that she wanted more, and with the help of her local gang-leader, Leah learned the skills to escape a life of mediocrity. On her sixteenth birthday, she was inadvertently implanted with a Neural Enhancement Chip instead of the free Government provided basic level chip. This mistake removed the limits placed on the AI that was uploaded, broke some of the Government controls and began making changes to Leah's body. Leah’s life rapidly becomes a battle, both in the virtual-multiverse and in real life.

Within the expansive mediascape of the 1980s and 1990s, cyberpunk's aesthetics took firm root, relying heavily on visual motifs for its near-future splendor saturated in media technologies, both real and fictitious. As today's realities look increasingly like the futures forecast in science fiction, cyberpunk speaks to our contemporary moment and as a cultural formation dominates our 21st century techno-digital landscapes. The 15 essays gathered in this volume engage the social and cultural changes that define and address the visual language and aesthetic repertoire of cyberpunk - from cybernetic organisms to light, energy, and data flows, from video screens to cityscapes, from the vibrant energy of today's video games to the visual hues of comic book panels, and more. Cyberpunk and Visual Culture provides critical analysis, close readings, and aesthetic interpretations of exactly those visual elements that define cyberpunk today, moving beyond the limitations of merely printed text to also focus on the meaningfulness of images, forms, and compositions that are the heart and lifeblood of cyberpunk graphic novels, films, television shows, and video games.

They called it the Star Rust war. A corporate fueled military campaign to recover wreckage from a colossal alien craft. Over-achiever U.S. Army Ranger Michael Keller is caught in the gears of greed once again, thrust into the conflict. Despite his wits, he never comes home, leaving his fiancée,' Vala, behind. Suspicious, Vala begins a trek through a world stricken with debilitating technological diseases, alien salvage mercenaries, and ruthless corporate tycoons to reveal the truth about his disappearance. But the truth is a complex matter, a revelation and reminder that echoes not just through the lives of Michael and Vala, but an unsuspecting man who had lost it all to the sins of the elitists.

HAVING LITTLE HOPE left, Roshike’s friends refuse to give up as they approach the endgame of their effort to take down the power behind the Batsu. Against almost impossible odds, they’re ready to risk their lives to remake the system—but what else are they willing to do, and what are they prepared to lose in order to win?

ROSHIKE AND FRIENDS must work from within the beating heart of Batsu society while enforcers edge ever closer to discovering—and eliminating—at least one of their number. When it comes down to a decision between their own safety and everyone’s future, what will they choose to do?

Bob Johansson didn’t believe in an afterlife, so waking up after being killed in a car accident was a shock. To add to the surprise, he is now a sentient computer and the controlling intelligence for a Von Neumann probe. Bob and his copies have been spreading out from Earth for forty years now, looking for habitable planets. But that’s the only part of the plan that’s still in one piece. A system-wide war has killed off 99.9% of the human race; nuclear winter is slowly making the Earth uninhabitable; a radical group wants to finish the job on the remnants of humanity; the Brazilian space probes are still out there, still trying to blow up the competition; And the Bobs have discovered a spacefaring species that considers all other life as food. Bob left Earth anticipating a life of exploration and blissful solitude. Instead he’s a sky god to a primitive native species, the only hope for getting humanity to a new home, and possibly the only thing that can prevent every species in the local sphere ending up as dinner.

Straight out of school, Griffin, a junior Investigations agent for the North American Trade Union, is put on the case: Find and close the illegal crèches. No one expects him to succeed, Griffin least of all. Installed in a combat chassis Abdul, a depressed seventeen year old killed during the Secession Wars in Old Montreal, is assigned as Griffin's Heavy Weapons support. Nadia, a state-sanctioned investigative reporter working the stolen children story, pushes Griffin ever deeper into the nightmare of the black market brain trade. Deep in the La Carpio slums of Costa Rica, the scanned mind of an autistic girl runs the South American Mafia's business interests. But she wants more. She wants freedom. And she has come to see humanity as a threat. She has an answer: Archaeidae. At fourteen, he is the deadliest assassin alive. Two children against the world.

In the world of Gnomon, citizens are constantly observed and democracy has reached a pinnacle of ‘transparency.’ Every action is seen, every word is recorded, and the System has access to its citizens’ thoughts and memories–all in the name of providing the safest society in history.

Our private detective, Cruz, has dealt with all kinds of criminal crazies—full human, cyborgs and robots—and even crazier clients. But he has never had to deal with…extraterrestrials.

A man battles for his life, two AIs vie for supremacy and a civilization hangs in the balance...

Korea, 22nd Century. Surrender isn’t in Stefan Mendoza’s DNA. So when a traitor betrays his black-ops team, he alone pushes through the torture and escapes with revenge burning in his mind. On the verge of a systems failure, he taps into his underground network for a set of cybernetic limbs. But his high-tech recovery comes at a heavy price—an assassination hit on a rising political star.

When Menrva, a geneticist in the subterranean city of survivors known as Bunker, responds to a call for help from Cowl, her former best friend, and Bas, a renegade cyborg, she makes a vital mistake and places all three of them in danger. As they struggle to escape City guards, cyborg soldiers, desperate scavengers, and ravenous aliens, they find in each other something they never expected: family.

Uploading my virus to make it scream loud. To detonate my bomb in the crowd. The hate loading process is moving on. Sending my rage with one megaton. — Victor Love (Dope Stars Inc.)

As Riko works to rebuild her shattered cred, following the events of Necrotech, she’s stuck fighting off every jerk looking to raise their standing on the streets. But when a corp with some serious influence ups the stakes, Riko’s going to have to take the fight to them, put this nonsense down for good. Nothing is what it seems when corp politics are in play, and another necro blight right where her answers are buried might very well be the end of the life she didn’t know she’d borrowed.

Atherleah Carroll grew up in a negative-tax family in the gang-controlled suburbs of Brisbane at the end of the twenty-first century. From the age of six, she decided that she wanted more and with the help of her local gang-leader, she learned the skills to escape the relentless pressure to accept a life of mediocrity. On her sixteenth birthday, she was inadvertently implanted with a Neural Enhancement Chip instead of the free Government provided basic level personal AI. This mistake not only removed the limits placed on the AI but also broke some of the Government instigated control parameters. Leah’s life rapidly became a battle, both in the virtual-multiverse and in real life. On the advice of the local ‘boss’, Leah began playing the virtual fantasy game Dunyanin to earn the money she needed to live at the local POD facility and help with her education. With the help of her rapidly evolving AI, she has not only thwarted attempts by the government to limit her opportunities but evaded kidnapping by virtual slavers. Co-opted by several Virtual Security AI Leah has helped shut down a virtual sweat-shop which used mind-controlled players to farm for resources. The family, which runs the virtual crime syndicate, has cornered Leah in the depths of a virtual-mine and sent twenty player-mercenaries to capture her. Fleeing through a hidden doorway into a mirror mine operated by goblins Leah hopes to escape her pursuers.

What happens when a Hero crosses the thin blue line in Necrotic City and has to fight for survival in a chaotic, decaying world? Adrian is a vat-grown human known as a Hero. Enhanced through genetic engineering and implanted nanotechnology, Heroes serve as the superhumanly resilient, altruistic peacekeepers of the Company’s tightly controlled city. Internal matters like corruption and criminal negligence are strictly outside of a Hero’s jurisdiction; but when Adrian begins to uncover the ugly secrets of the government that created him, his sense of justice forces him to act. Cut loose in a city wracked by civil unrest, hunted by Enforcers and flesh hackers alike, Adrian quickly learns that there is no safe place for a Company man.

In the wired future, how can someone just…disappear Glitch, a retired cybercriminal, wants to stay hidden, but when her neighbor knocks on her door, her whole life changes.

Liquid Cool is a Blade Runner meets the Maltese Falcon. In the next installment of the sci-fi/cyberpunk detective series, author Austin Dragon goes from less frenetic cyberpunk to a smoother, cyber-noir with our hero, Cruz, matching wits with the sultry NeuroDancer. There is always plenty of gritty action, suspense, thrills, and even a few laughs.

The future of democracy is about to implode. After the last controversial global election, the global infomocracy that has ensured thirty years of world peace is fraying at the edges. As the new Supermajority government struggles to establish its legitimacy, agents of Information across the globe strive to keep the peace and maintain the flows of data that feed the new world order. In the newly-incorporated DarFur, a governor dies in a fiery explosion. In Geneva, a superpower hatches plans to bring microdemocracy to its knees. In Central Asia, a sprawling war among archaic states threatens to explode into a global crisis. And across the world, a shadowy plot is growing, threatening to strangle Information with the reins of power.

Atherleah Carroll grew up in a negative-tax family in the gang-controlled suburbs of Brisbane at the end of the twenty-first century. From the age of six, she decided that she wanted more and with the help of her local gang-leader, she learned the skills to escape the relentless pressure to accept a life of mediocrity. On her sixteenth birthday, she was inadvertently implanted with a Neural Enhancement Chip instead of the free Government provided basic level personal AI. This mistake not only removed the limits placed on the AI but also broke some of the Government instigated control parameters. Leah’s life rapidly becomes a battle, both in the virtual-multiverse and in real life. On the advice of the local ‘boss’, Leah began playing the virtual fantasy game Dunyanin to earn the money she needed to live at the local POD facility and help with her education. With the help of her rapidly evolving AI, she has not only thwarted attempts by the government to limit her opportunities but evaded kidnapping by virtual slavers. Co-opted by several Virtual Security AI Leah has helped shut down a virtual sweat-shop which used mind-controlled players to farm for resources. The family, which runs the virtual crime syndicate, has cornered Leah in the depths of a virtual-mine and sent twenty player-mercenaries to capture her. Fleeing through a hidden doorway into a mirror mine operated by goblins Leah hopes to escape her pursuers.

Marisa Carneseca is on the hunt for a mysterious hacker named Grendel when she receives word that her amateur Overworld team has been invited to Forward Motion, one of the most exclusive tournaments of the year. For Marisa, this could mean anything—a chance to finally go pro and to help her family, stuck in an LA neighborhood on the wrong side of the growing divide between the rich and the poor. But Forward Motion turns out to be more than it seems—rife with corruption, infighting, and danger—and Marisa runs headlong into Alain Bensoussan, a beautiful, dangerous underground freedom fighter who reveals to her the darker side of the forces behind the tournament. It soon becomes clear that, in this game, winning might be the only way to get out alive.

The company says Otherworld is amazing like nothing you've ever seen before. They say it's addictive that you'll want to stay forever. They promise Otherworld will make all your dreams come true. Simon thought Otherworld was a game. Turns out he knew nothing. Otherworld is the next phase of reality. It's everything you've ever wanted.

In a world where most of us are just surplus population, certain temptations are acute indeed.

Kellen Hockley usually keeps quiet about his past, but once upon a time he loved a girl named Angela. He hasn't seen her in a decade, but now he has to break the news to her that his team of rogue treasure hunters accidentally killed her husband. He's had better days... It's not the news that's delivered to Angela Neko that breaks her apart--it's the rumbly, Texas drawl delivering it. She can't believe she's hearing Kellen's voice again. But there's no time for distractions. When Angela's own life is threatened, yielding up all of her lies and secrets, she and Kellen must figure out how to reverse the geopolitical firestorm she lit to save the world, to save Kellen's cat...and just maybe to save each other.

Though perhaps most famous as a novelist, Philip K. Dick wrote more than one hundred short stories over the course of his career, each as mind-bending and genre-defining as his longer works. Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams collects ten of the best. In “Autofac,” Dick shows us one of the earliest examples (and warnings) in science fiction of self-replicating machines. “Exhibit Piece” and “The Commuter” feature Dick exploring one of his favorite themes: the shifting nature of reality and whether it is even possible to perceive the world as it truly exists. And “The Hanging Stranger” provides a thrilling, dark political allegory as relevant today as it was when Dick wrote it at the height of the Cold War.

The effects of the Nano Liberation continue to reverberate around the world, bringing down some of the mightiest Corporations and creating further repercussions and victims.

With everyone he cares about either dead or long absent, Cowl Coven has lost interest in life. Despite the endless distractions of a high-profile job as a programmer in the Hub and nightly runs into the chasm below for the black market, he still finds himself looking for a way out. When a hacked piece of data reveals what seems to be human life on the desolate, alien-infested surface of Earth, he thinks he might have just found it.

The network wants a revolution. Thanks to the company that experimented on them, they have the means. But the company is prepared for the coming battle, and have an ace up their sleeve. And one by one, they're taking the network down. As allegiances sway, Sarah finds herself isolated from the group. And her only hope is to find a man that may not exist, in the hope that he can offer them some hope of truly understanding what has been done to them. Root Protocol is a cyberpunk thriller for fans of Neal Stephenson and William Gibson.

Raven’s not adverse to a little heat; she’s got a reputation for being a tour guide who’s also a good-time girl and a killer. After a side hustle goes wrong, she’s on the clock to find a buyer for a stolen data core before the hunting mega-corp finds her.

Persistence. The network that stripped anonymity from its users. Always on, always watching, always recording. Complete access to anyone, at any time, at any location. Your identity distilled to a key created from your genetic makeup. Shift. The drug that modified one's genetic makeup. A tiny piece, an entire strand, entirely up to the user. To Shift one's self was simply a needle away. One poke and it would all change. The price of that injection, however, is to give up your identity, give up your former life. One individual will discover just how costly that price is, to battle the oppression of a true surveillance state.

The year is 2045. Nearly thirty years have passed since a devastating nuclear terrorist attack that changed the world forever. The population of Britain is kept in-line by Mother Mind; an advanced artificial intelligence created by the Virtualife Corporation monitoring the lives of its citizens. Machines have become more humanlike, and humans more machine like. The gap between rich and poor has grown ever wider, resulting in a split in the species: humans and cybernetically-enhanced Transhumans. Hatred for the transhumans race has created a monster; Jack-21. A serial killer, dissecting cyborgs for their implants. But his latest victim is not just another street rat, but rather a member of the renegade hacker group; Spiritform. The one's responsible for a cyberattack on Virtualife that has sent shockwaves throughout the corporate world. The secret he was murdered for lie within a collection of stolen files. Now the race is on to uncover those secrets. Two corporate police officers from competing companies work together to hunt down Jack-21. Meanwhile Virtualife hires a private investigator to recover their stolen data, before the surviving members of Spiritform decrypt the files and reveal the truth.

In a megacity on the moon of Dione, Unit Seven and Beta Nine are rescued from certain death by an old man who used to repair units like Seven. Taking them into his home, he reprograms them and gives them a new life, free from the slavery of human laws.

The Cyberpunk Detective Series Goes to London! But in The Electric Sheep Massacre does our detective come back? And, is that before or after someone tries to kill him in the world of virtual reality?!

In 1997, a runaway teenager and her yellow toy robot travel west through a strange USA. The ruins of gigantic battle drones litter the countryside, heaped together with the discarded trash of a high tech consumerist society in decline. As their car approaches the edge of the continent, the world outside the window seems to be unraveling ever faster—as if somewhere beyond the horizon, the hollow core of civilization has finally caved in.

JT is an orc on the way up. He’s got his own boutique robotics shop, high-end clientele, and deep-pocketed investors. He’s even mentoring an orc teen who reminds him a bit too much of himself back in the day. Then Austin shows up, and the elf’s got the same hard body and silver tongue as he did two years ago when they used to be friends and might have been more. He’s also got a stolen car to bribe JT to saying yes to one last scheme: stealing the virtual intelligence called Blue Unicorn. Soon JT’s up to his tusks in trouble, and it ain’t just zombies and Chinese triads threatening to tear his new life apart. Austin wants a second chance with JT—this time as more than just a friend—and even the Blue Unicorn is trying to play matchmaker.

When detective Dhata Mays is called in to investigate a homicide, what he uncovers threatens the serenity of this futuristic society. The gruesome murder means only one thing: someone is ready to incite another war. Now, it's up to Dhata to ensure that the truth stays hidden—to protect both sides of the battle. But can he be unbiased in a black and white world that forces him to take sides?

. . . In a dystopian cyberpunk 2215, the former US was fragmented into multiple small countries. . . . People in the UN proxy state of Homeland are controlled by psychotropic drugs, corrupted education, propaganda and oppressive laws. In this story . . . . . . Computer hacking clones are trying to get rich no matter what they have to do. . . . A garbage collector hates everything about his life and goes rogue. . . . An entire strain of genetically-engineered children is to be culled because of an imperfection. . . . A tyrannical government robot unit is led by a ruthless being hiding behind a synthetic presence. . . . A clone couple is living off of the grid and expecting an illegal child. . . . A series of androids vow to fight for the truth even to the point of war. . . . And a boy asks, “Is God real?” The Lucid series is a unique clean-language novel that has heavy hitting, brutally honest edgy Christian themes and some graphic action.

In a world stripped bare of digital images and promotainment, unveiled with the audiovisual overlay of the ImmaNet, in an exposed world, a naked world, Amon Kenzaki awakens, lost and alone. He must now travel deep into the District of Dreams in search of Anisha Birla, the one person that might help him unravel the mystery of jubilee. But deprived of the apps and informational tools he’s depended on his entire life, traversing the largest bankdeath camp on Earth is no easy task.

In a world ruled by faceless, uncaring mega corporations, Frankie, a young woman who has resisted cybernetics, becomes the victim of a lethal “Jacker Gang” attack.

Recruited to the newly formed A.C.T. (Anti-Corporation Taskforce), Frankie, a full body cyborg, leads her team in a fight against the unchecked power of the Corporations in the city of Neo-London in 2124 AD.

The Nano Liberation, instigated by Frankie and her team at the A.C.T. freed billions from the tyranny of the Corporations rule, but the Corporations aren’t going to go down without a fight.

In a futuristic Tampa Bay, skiptracer Dhata Mays and his sidekick, Lur Diaz, are on a job investigating a cheating lowlife. But after a deadly explosion and the woman who hired them disappears, nobody is safe. Suddenly, everyone is under suspicion, and the police are no longer there "to serve and to protect."

In the near future, the elderly have moved online and now live within the computer network. But that doesn't stop them interfering in the lives of the living, whose sole real purpose now is to maintain the vast servers which support digital Heaven. For one orphan that just isn't enough - he wants more for himself and his sister than a life slaving away for the dead. It turns out that he's not the only one who wants to reset the world...

Catarina Agatta is a hacker. She can cripple mainframes and crash through firewalls, but that’s not what makes her special. In Cat’s world, people are implanted with technology to recode their DNA, allowing them to change their bodies in any way they want. And Cat happens to be a gene-hacking genius.

In this photo album, women of adult age (18+) is wearing a cool machine. This book contains the cutting edge of Japanese geeks(otaku) culture. [Author Introduction] Artist: Hiroto Ikeuchi Born in Tokyo in 1990. He has won an excellent work prize at the Media Arts Festival of the Japan Agency for Cultural Affairs. He invited me to the world's best media event "Ars Electronica".

In UbiquiCity, the world is augmented and identity is fluid. Satellite-guided cars drive themselves. Busy drones fill the skies. Cloud-assisted bots perform once-human jobs. Appliances, vehicles, buildings, media devices, products, streetlights, roadsigns and even toilets communicate electronically, all under the watchful eye of the AI CitySystem. For the inhabitants of the UbiComp zones, life is sweet, but not everyone in the city is so blessed. Enter the Fractopian Future with ten stories from the frighteningly likely near-future world of UbiquiCity, from the minds of Niko Carcosa, Antony Copeland, Tod Davies, Tod Foley, DeAnna Knippling, SL Koch, Shariann Lewitt, Adrian McCauley and T Reynolds.

Not far in the future the seas have risen and the central latitudes are emptying, but it’s still a good time to be rich in San Francisco, where weapons drones patrol the skies to keep out the multitudinous poor. Irina isn’t rich, not quite, but she does have an artificial memory that gives her perfect recall and lets her act as a medium between her various employers and their AIs, which are complex to the point of opacity. It’s a good gig, paying enough for the annual visits to the Mayo Clinic that keep her from aging.

Jason Zhou survives in a divided society where the elite use their wealth to buy longer lives. The rich wear special suits that protect them from the pollution and viruses that plague the city, while those without suffer illness and early deaths. Frustrated by his city’s corruption and still grieving the loss of his mother, who died as a result of it, Zhou is determined to change things, no matter the cost. With the help of his friends, Zhou infiltrates the lives of the wealthy in hopes of destroying the international Jin Corporation from within. Jin Corp not only manufactures the special suits the rich rely on, but they may also be manufacturing the pollution that makes them necessary. Yet the deeper Zhou delves into this new world of excess and wealth, the more muddled his plans become. And against his better judgment, Zhou finds himself falling for Daiyu, the daughter of Jin Corp’s CEO. Can Zhou save his city without compromising who he is or destroying his own heart?

Heron Farad should be dead. But technology has made him the man he is today. Now he heads a crew of uniquely skilled outsiders who fight to salvage what's left of humanity: art, artifacts, books, ideas-sometimes even people. People like Mari Vallejo.