Most Read Cyberpunk Books

Meet Murderbot, a SecUnit who has hacked its own core programming and just wants to be left alone to watch its favorite media. But when a mission goes wrong, it finds itself reluctantly protecting a group of humans. Can Murderbot keep its independence while dealing with these messy organic beings and the dangers of space?

• reluctant hero
• anti hero
• survival

In the year 2045, the real world has become a bleak place of energy shortages, poverty, and climate collapse. To escape it, most of humanity plugs into the OASIS, an immersive virtual universe that serves as school, workplace, marketplace, and playground all at once. When its eccentric billionaire creator, James Halliday, dies without an heir, he leaves behind a will announcing that his entire fortune and control of the OASIS itself will pass to whoever can find an Easter egg hidden inside the simulation — a prize guarded by three riddles rooted in Halliday's obsession with 1980s pop culture. Wade Watts, a lonely teenager living in a trailer stack outside Columbus, Ohio, has spent his life studying Halliday's every favorite film, video game, and song in hopes of winning. When he becomes the first "gunter" to solve the opening puzzle, his name rockets to the top of the global scoreboard — and a ruthless corporation called IOI, which wants to seize the OASIS for itself, marks him for elimination. What begins as a game turns into a high-stakes race in which the boundaries between the virtual and the real, friendship and rivalry, begin to blur. Ernest Cline's debut novel is a fast, reference-dense adventure that doubles as a love letter to 1980s gaming and geek culture, while asking what we lose when we choose a perfect simulation over an imperfect world.

• quest
• found family
• mentor figure
• coming of age

A rogue SecUnit that calls itself Murderbot heads back to the mining facility where it supposedly killed fifty-seven people, hitching a ride with an enormous research transport that has opinions about everything. To get down to the surface it needs a cover story, so it hires itself out to three young researchers trying to recover data stolen from them. Second in Martha Wells's Murderbot Diaries.

• anti hero
• reluctant hero
• secret identity
• found family

Murderbot is back and wants nothing more than to be left alone, but its past is catching up. GrayChris Corporation's legal woes are escalating, and questions about Murderbot's own existence are surfacing. To protect its freedom, Murderbot must confront the mess before it becomes too personal.

• reluctant hero
• anti hero

Murderbot, a security android that's supposed to be unfeeling, is starting to question its own programming after helping Dr. Mensah. Now, it must assist her in presenting evidence against the dangerous GrayCris Corporation. Can a rogue SecUnit's testimony be trusted to protect colonists from further harm?

• reluctant hero
• morally grey
• found family
• sacrifice

Murderbot's favorite humans are in trouble, and an old, complicated ally from its past needs help too. The reluctant security unit chooses drastic action in its first full-length adventure.

• reluctant hero
• found family

Murderbot is back, but something is wrong. After a rescue mission, the SecUnit finds itself targeted by a ruthless corporation that will stop at nothing to achieve its goals. With the fate of a new planet at stake, Murderbot and its crew must race against time to fix what's broken before it's too late.

• reluctant hero
• survival

Case was the sharpest data thief in the Sprawl until his employers burned his nervous system and locked him out of cyberspace for good. A mysterious fixer named Armitage offers a cure — in exchange for the most dangerous run of his life, alongside the razorgirl Molly Millions, against an artificial intelligence that has been arranging the whole thing from the start. William Gibson's 1984 debut invented the language of cyberpunk and became the first novel to take the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. Dick awards in a single year.

• heist
• anti hero
• morally grey
• redemption arc

Emika Chen is a notorious hacker who makes a living by betting on the Warcross games. When she hacks into the opening tournament, she accidentally glitches herself into the game and becomes an overnight sensation. But her newfound fame comes with a dangerous secret, as she uncovers a conspiracy that could threaten the entire Warcross empire.

• secret identity
• found family
• morally grey
• heist

Centuries from now, human consciousness can be digitised and stored on a "stack" implanted at the base of the skull, then re-sleeved into a new body at will. Death is negotiable for those who can afford it; the wealthy are effectively immortal. Takeshi Kovacs — a former Envoy, an elite and dangerous kind of soldier — is killed on his home world and wakes up hundreds of light-years away in a borrowed body on Earth, downloaded into a job he did not choose. His new employer is Laurens Bancroft, one of the near-immortal super-rich, who was found with his head blown off. Bancroft was restored from a backup, but the backup predates his death, so he has no memory of it — and he does not believe the police verdict of suicide. He hires Kovacs to find out who killed him, and why. What follows is a hard-boiled murder investigation set in a neon, rain-slicked future, unfolding through virtual torture, designer drugs, corporate conspiracy, and the philosophical vertigo of a world where the self can be copied, edited, and deleted. Violent, cerebral, and stylish, Altered Carbon is a landmark of modern cyberpunk and the first novel in the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy.

• anti hero
• morally grey
• fish out of water

In a future America where the Metaverse is a virtual reality as tangible as the physical world, a hacker named Hiro finds himself in a race against time. A mysterious digital drug called Snow Crash is infecting users, causing real-world harm, and Hiro must team up with a young courier, YT, to stop a conspiracy that reaches back into ancient history.

• quest
• fish out of water

In a future where crime is predicted and prevented, Commissioner John Anderton is framed for a murder he hasn't committed. He must go on the run to uncover a conspiracy within the very system he helped build. Anderton has only a limited time to find the truth before he is apprehended and his fate sealed.

• reluctant hero
• anti hero
• quest

Emika Chen survived the Warcross Championships, but the truth behind Hideo's NeuroLink algorithm shatters her trust in him. Determined to stop his grim plans, Emika and the Phoenix Riders face a new threat in Tokyo: a bounty on her head. Her only hope lies with Zero and his ruthless Blackcoats, but Zero is not what he seems, and his protection comes at a price. Caught in a web of betrayal, Emika must decide how far she will go to take down the man she loves, with the future of free will hanging in the balance.

• betrayal
• secret identity
• reluctant hero

This novel weaves together two distinct narratives: one following a data scrambler caught in a dangerous corporate conspiracy in a futuristic Tokyo, and the other set in a serene, walled town where a man reads dreams from unicorn skulls. As the two worlds unfold, they reveal a profound exploration of identity, memory, and the nature of reality. Readers will find themselves immersed in a unique blend of hard-boiled mystery and surreal fantasy.

• dual timeline
• mystery box

Eight years after Count Zero, four lives converge in Gibson's neon-lit future: a teenage prostitute drawn into a plot against a Sense/Net sim-star, a yakuza heiress hidden away in London, a reclusive artist scraping by in a poisoned industrial wasteland, and the star herself, wired directly into cyberspace. The concluding novel of Gibson's genre-defining Sprawl trilogy.

• multiple povs
• secret identity

Murderbot—the sardonic, almost-homicidal, media-loving android created by Martha Wells—has proven to be one of the most popular characters in 21 st century science fiction. Everything that makes this protagonist (it would be wrong to call Murderbot a hero) beloved of fans is on display in Compulsory. While trying to watch episode 44 of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, Murderbot is—again, what is it with humans?—distracted by something that is technically outside its purview. A miner is suddenly in danger following a pointless (to Murderbot’s way of thinking) argument, and the choice is to risk discovery and leap into action, which would require hitting the pause button during a very exciting part of SanctuaryMoon, or to follow orders and stay still. This is a tougher choice than it seems. But then, when has Murderbot ever been faced with an easy choice? A shorter version of this story originally appeared in Wired magazine.

Seven years after Neuromancer, three unlikely paths converge as strange new powers begin moving through the world's data networks. Bobby Newmark, a suburban hacker who calls himself Count Zero, is nearly killed on his first serious run into cyberspace — and saved by something that shouldn't exist. Turner, a mercenary who extracts corporate defectors for a living, is hired to pull a scientist out of a rival biotech firm and instead finds himself protecting the scientist's daughter. In Paris, disgraced art dealer Marly Krushkhova is recruited by a reclusive billionaire to track down the maker of a series of uncanny box sculptures. As their stories draw together, all three are pulled toward the same unsettling truth about what happened at the edge of the Matrix.

• multiple povs
• morally grey

In a future Thailand struggling with the harsh realities of climate change and corporate control, genetically engineered 'windup' girls are a stark part of life. When a new plant species emerges, it disrupts the fragile balance, forcing a young woman into a dangerous game of bio-terrorism and corporate espionage. This is a story about fighting for humanity in a world pushed to its limits.

• morally grey
• survival
• anti hero