If you’re a fan of the slick, neon-drenched aesthetic of Cyberpunk 2077, there are a few books you should add to your reading list. From gritty, techno futuristic tales to beautifully drawn graphic novels, there is something out there for any fan.
Whether you like the game or not, the highly stylized world of Cyberpunk 2077 is very particular. However, it is anything but original and has been around in some form or another for a long time. This means there is a great list of books for avid readers. Try some of these books for Cyberpunk 2077 fans to delve back into the technocentric world of the future.
Neuromancer – William Gibson
This list can only start with one author, and that’s the remarkable William Gibson. His amazing writing style and complex imagination introduced us to some of the most game-changing theories in science fiction. Delving into this book from 1984 reveals just how much of the world he predicted way before it had transpired.
Neuromancer takes us into the mind of what could be compared to a Netrunner. Having been previously removed from accessing cyberspace due to nervous system damage, they are allowed back in with surgery. However, they have to do a job for one of the Corps, and if they start to play around, poison sacks will damage our character’s nervous system again, irreparably removing them from cyberspace.
The book is filled with evil corporations, punk rock underground networks, edgy tech, and illegal activities. The winding, complex story takes us on a breakneck ride through the future world of the internet, cyberspace, and back alley punk dealings. It is an unbelievably slick narrative—a must-read book for any fan of Cyberpunk 2077. If you’re a fan, you’ll be pleased to know that it is part of the Sprawl Trilogy, so get reading.
Ghost in The Shell – Masamune Shirow
When I heard Hollywood had picked up this classic manga to adapt to live-action, my heart dropped. I was not surprised by how badly they massacred it, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t still disappointed. I knew it would be a lot of people’s first look into the manga and the anime, and it might turn them away from one of the best cyberpunk collections available.
Ghost in the Shell works around the theory that if you can replace almost every part of your body with cybernetics, when do you stop being human? Where is the ghost of yourself in the cybernetics shell? This is also broached heavily in Cyberpunk 2077 with the CyberPhychos. Sometimes, you can become too much tech and lose your mind and humanity.
Ghost in the Shell follows a group of crime fighters through the neon streets of a cyberpunk future. They crack down on cybercriminals who like to exploit the world’s obsession with cybernetics. Brains are hacked, robot bodies are commandeered, and the books dig into the philosophies of what makes us human. They are beautifully illustrated and have deeply moving moments of reflection seamlessly blended with page-ripping action.
Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson
Snow Crash is a wonderfully stylish and wild ride through the corporate-owned world of tomorrow. Earth has been split up and divided between corporations. Private militaries vie for international contracts, and human beings have become little more than cogs in giant corporate machines. However, our aptly named lead, Hiro Protagonist, somehow becomes deeply involved in the mafia and international relations. Snow Crash is right on the edge of comedy, sometimes satirizing the whole Cyberpunk genre, sometimes simply wallowing in it.
Through a series of huge, action-packed scenes, we are taken through many wonderful worlds in this Cyberpunk novel. Stephenson produces a lot of the weaponry and environments in his books, which we see clearly copied in Cyberpunk 2077. Pencil-sized weapons of mass destruction, boots-on-the-ground cybernetic brain hackers, and body-mounted miniguns that fire depleted uranium shards through 5-inch-thick steel all make their devastating appearance in the book, clearly mirrored in Cyberpunk 2077.
Reading through Snow Crash reveals many stylistic similarities between Cyberpunk 2077 and the world of Stephenson. As a writer, he is not afraid to paint some pretty dramatic scenes spanning whole continents, and this supplied a lot of the inspiration for the game. The deep and involved politics and economy of the book are an inspiration not just for 2077 but for the cyberpunk genre as a whole.
Akira – Katsuhiro Otomo
If you’re looking to fill a whole shelf with a masterpiece in art and literature, look no further than the six-book set of Akira. This immaculately told work of fiction spans many, many pages and tells the devastating story of post-nuclear Neo-Tokyo and the discovery of just what horrors have been left in its wake.
We follow a biker gang on their journey as they attempt to rescue one of their friends from the corporation that has stolen him. The beautifully illustrated graphic novels are seminal works in the Cyberpunk genre and have heavily impacted all future literary worlds, let alone Cyberpunk 2077.
If the term, every frame a painting, applies to anything, it is the collection of Akira books. Each cell could be blown up to poster-sized and displayed on a wall, and this is why it is taken as such inspiration for cyberpunk on the whole. The bikes, tangled, cable-strew cities, gnarly punk biker outfits, and robot-centric societies are forever mirrored in the genre.
Noor – Nnedi Okorafor
To make a change from cyberpunk, which is always set in either Tokyo or the US, we have Noor written by Nnedi Okorafor. Despite being set in a futuristic Nigeria, the book still carries all the trappings of the classic science fiction novel. Mega corporations control the populace, keeping people under their thumb by selling unimaginatively expensive cybernetic prosthetics to people and keeping them in indentured servitude to pay them off.
Noor takes a novel view of the history and politics not only in Nigeria but also in the rest of the world. A number of potent points are made about the availability of life-changing medical treatments for disabled folks. Okorafor also looks backward through the lens of the future at the history of capitalism throughout Nigeria and the impact of the conflict between farmers and land ownership in the area.
If you’re looking for the capitalist, gritty criminal, cyber futuristic themes of Cyberpunk 2077 in your books but want a different setting and some hard-hitting views, Noor is a fantastic piece of fiction to pick up.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep – Philip K. Dick
Can I write even one article about science fiction literature without mentioning Dick? Not yet. But there is always due cause to mention his magnificent pieces of writing, be it a novella or a full work of science fiction. In this case, it is the basis for the much-loved cyberpunk-themed film Blade Runner.
Although the book may not be as neon-drenched as many of the others on this list, many of the genre’s core themes are definitely there. Our main character is a detective tasked with hunting down escaped androids and executing them. By performing tests, he is able to determine just who is and isn’t human. This leads to a number of moral conundrums for him to deal with as he begins to show empathy for the almost-human robots.
The themes of capitalist overlords, human reliance on machines, and gritty neo-noir crime fiction are clearly mirrored in Cyberpunk 2077. With the latest update of Phantom Liberty, the storyline takes us to the cliche, shuttered, smokey rooms of the detective’s office. The story pulls the uncertainty and paranoia of Dicks book and combines it with the trademarks of the Marlowe stories. For a look into where a lot of the themes of robotics and the human element began, turn the pages of this cyberpunk deep dive.
Judge Dredd – John Wagner
Perhaps not one to immediately jump to everyone’s mind when thinking of books that relate to Cyberpunk 2007, but certainly one I feel is relevant. The megacities of Judge Dredd are filled with the filth and desperation so commonly painted in the cyberpunk genre. Megacorporations rule the world, and the disparity between the people and the super-rich is an ever-widening gap.
The drugs and cybernetic enhancements of Cyberpunk 2077 are clearly drawn from the ugly worlds of Wagner. People have become obsessed with enhancements and the ease of plastic surgery and technology. The selling of enhancements, black-market organs, and stolen weaponry is rife in the world of Dredd.
Huge monoliths rise throughout the cities of millions amid arid deserts. The wastelands of Cyberpunk 2077 exist in tandem with the dry, nuclear deserts in the world of Judge Dredd. Bombed out and uninhabitable, the only things to exist outside the walls of the cities are mutants and rebels fighting to survive. The parallels between Cyberpunk 2077 and Judge Dredd’s books are clear to see.
Altered Carbon – Richard Morgan
Although the Netflix show has done relatively well, I highly recommend anyone who is a fan of Cyberpunk 2077 to pick the books up. They are wonderfully full of crazy future technology, gritty crime fiction tropes, and some wickedly engaging action scenes that will keep you turning the pages.
Like a number of the books in the list, this cyberpunk novel takes the idea of a detective as the central protagonist. It is up to Kovaks to figure out who murdered the body, or sleeve, of the man who hired him. In the future of Altered Carbon, consciousness is separate from the body, allowing people to essentially live forever.
Kovaks is taken from a forced storage after committing war crimes. He is hired by a man who has lived for hundreds of years to find out who killed his last body. He has no memory of the event and is convinced someone is out to get him.
Altered Carbon is full of all the sex, tech, and danger that comes along with the world of cyberpunk. Kovaks, being a man outside of the law, carries the punk element throughout the books, lacing it with the right levels of criminality. The book looks into a future of immortality if you’re rich enough and the fight to survive if you’re not.
Vurt – Jeff Noon
Here we have a book that I feel Cyberpunk 2077 took inspiration from, but it is certainly not a read for the uninitiated. It is complex, minimalistic, deep, and, at times, confusing, but an unbelievable book nonetheless. It plays with the ideas of reality and shared hallucinations, expanding on mind-altering drugs and a world that has lost touch.
The trips and drugs used in Cyberpunk 2077 push the idea of an alternate reality, shared but outside of the physical world. In Vurt, the drugs taken by the population are completely outside of the physical world but so common they have become almost real. This book expands on what could be in a world with manufactured drugs.
Vert takes us on a trippy ride as the protagonist searches for a rare version of the drug the world loves. His sister has been lost within the hallucinatory world, and he needs to tap back into the trip she was somehow lost to. This is not a book for the casual reader, but there is no denying Noon’s skill for world-building and beautiful writing.
Phillip Marlowe Collection – Raymond Chandler
These books are not directly cyberpunk in the way William Gibson’s are, but I feel they are a must-read for any Cyberpunk 2077 fan. The gritty world of neo-noir crime fiction is a clear influence on the game and the genre in general. These old detective novels have the hard-nosed private investigator punching his way through his cases. Violence, rain-slicked streets, and fantastic femme fatales are all run-of-the-mill in Chandler’s incredibly stylish detective novels.
Although the streets that Marlowe stomps are of the 1920s, they still echo with the same sounds as the Cyberpunk future. Crime is rife, gangs are in full control, and it’s up to our disillusioned, alcoholic protagonist to navigate them. The crime is always much bigger than the initial plot lets on, and the criminals will always try to kill Marlowe.
The dark corners and nasty characters from so long ago are familiar faces in Cyberpunk 2077. If you really want to get into where the genre pulls its characters from, take a read of these classics.
Published: Jul 7, 2024 10:04 am