Mirrorshades

I tracked this collection down because I was interested in Cyberpunk beyond William Gibson. There are a couple of Gibson stories that I already had read in his Burning Chrome collection, “Gernsback Continuum” which is one of my favorites, and “Red Star, Winter Orbit.”

The best new (to me) story in this collection was “Petra” by Greg Bear which isn't a Cyberpunk story at all. It's a Weird Fiction apocalypse where reality and rationality break down. Dreams and nightmares become real. Stone statues and gargoyles come to life and buildings become trees, etc. A new world order develops among the new half-stone and half-gargoyle beings. Very imaginative and compelling.

One I liked that was a bit more Cyberpunk in nature was “Stone Lives” by Paul Di Filippo, about a blind man from the slums who is chosen to receive eye implants and an unusual job. It reminds me a lot of all those Gibson stories where a poor underdog gets involved in a mystery and is exposed to how the other half lives.

The most humorous tale is “Mozart in Mirrorshades'' by Bruce Sterling and Lewis Shiner. An unscrupulous company robs, corrupts, and exploits alternate timelines of resources like oil, art, and Mozart for example. I've seen things like this done before in films and other books but this little story was funny and well done.

The other stories were fair to good but it was worth my time to explore a few more authors from the genre.