Restricted Frequency #197
Regimen of a Cyberpunk
“But I thought cyberpunk died in 1999!”
Well, a new forthcoming book will have you believe otherwise:
Yes, that is my name on the cover alongside giants of the genre such as Gibson and Sterling, which I imagine can only be the result of a case of temporary insanity inflicted upon those in charge of bringing forth this fine 1136-page tome into the world.
Yes, I’m looking at you, Jared Shurin.
THE BIG BOOK OF CYBERPUNK drops on Sep 26 courtesy of Vintage, the same publishing powerhouse that brought you THE BIG BOOK OF SCIENCE FICTION (edited by the Vandermeers) and THE BIG BOOK OF ESPIONAGE (edited by Otto Penzler). The complete table of contents has been released on File77, and is clear evidence that Shurin has refrained from pulling any punches, drawing on stories that date back to 1966 (Philip K. Dick) all the way up to 2022 (Janelle Monáe and Alaya Dawn Johnson). I love the surprise of seeing a few beloved contemporaries such as Ales Kot, Corey J. White, and Omar Robert Hamilton also featured in the book. Lauren Beukes is also in there, as is Charles Stross and Samuel R. Delaney!
Given the sheer weight of the thing, one might be inclined to just download it on Kindle, but I should have you know that I actually laid out the story I authored and tailored its design and presentation particularly to the print edition, mainly because it comes with illustrations and required some layout/spacing considerations that I don’t think would work particularly well on Kindle. And given that they let me get away with my peculiar demands (or so I’m told), I can’t imagine I’m the only one who might’ve messed with what should’ve been a pretty standard template. All this to say: you’ll want the print edition. You can most certainly pre-order it through your local bookshop. If however you’re unlucky enough to live in a barren landscape void of such magical establishments, you can always:
Oh, and I should say I had nothing whatsoever to do with the book’s cover art (lest there was any confusion about that).
Speaking of cover art tho.
Finally got around to taking some glamor shots of Sim Kern’s THE FREE PEOPLE’S VILLAGE which I had the tremendous honor of designing the cover(s) and endpapers for, including a dustjacket that unfolds into a protest poster (wait, whaaat?).
Current Media Diet
Audio: 04/09: What Has Sunk May Rise by N Slash A
Book: The Free People’s Village by Sim Kern
Motion Picture(s): Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion by Elio Petri (& various)
Artists don’t have routines, haha.
I’ve always maintained something of a routine, but that routine is usually susceptible to the influence of place. During my time in Mexico City for example, I would walk my son to daycare every day and took to following that up with some exercise around the park situated exactly between said daycare and where we were staying. Houston is a different story. And even within Houston, the way my day goes in my current place of residence differs rather drastically from my previous place. Some of these changes have been organic; the kind of habits you find yourself falling into, and some the result of enforcement: pushing habits based on how you’d like your day to go, and some based on sheer necessity. I decided to keep track of my days over the course of the past two weeks and lay it all out in a timetable to get a good overview of how my days tend to go. By so doing, I’m able to:
Pinpoint areas that could use improvement.
Codify my routine so to speak.
Pencils are back in stock by the way.
Back to my unruly routine. Putting this together has already extended well into time blocked for other things. Oops.
Ganzeer
Houston, TX
