Author guide

Bruce Sterling Books in Order

Bruce Sterling is an American science-fiction author, journalist, editor, critic, futurist, and design theorist. A prominent cyberpunk writer and theorist, he has written novels, short fiction, nonfiction, and speculative design works, and has collaborated with William Gibson and Rudy Rucker.

science fictioncyberpunksteampunkspeculative fictionnonfictiondesign criticism

Bruce Sterling's Newest Book

Robot Artists & Black Swans: The Italian Fantascienza Stories

collection · First published 2021

Not sure where to begin?

Start with one of these

Involution Ocean

Start with Sterling's debut novel and early imaginative style.

Schismatrix

Start with his foundational cyberpunk novel and the Shaper/Mechanist universe.

Crystal Express

Start with his major early short-fiction collection.

The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier

Start with his influential nonfiction about hackers, law enforcement, and digital civil liberties.

Read in order

Books by series

shared-universe · complete

Shaper/Mechanist Universe

Bruce Sterling's shared future history of genetically engineered Shapers, machine-oriented Mechanists, and their successor cultures.

Series guide →

1
Schismatrix
Book 1 · novel · 1985
2
Crystal Express
Book 2 · collection · 1989

Outside the series

Bibliography by category

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Novels (16)

Involution Ocean
novel · 1977
The Artificial Kid
novel · 1980
Islands in the Net
novel · 1988
The Difference Engine
novel · 1990
The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier
nonfiction · 1992
Heavy Weather
novel · 1994
Holy Fire
novel · 1996
Distraction
novel · 1998
Zeitgeist
novel · 2000
Tomorrow Now: Envisioning the Next Fifty Years
nonfiction · 2002
The Zenith Angle
novel · 2004
Shaping Things
nonfiction · 2005
The Caryatids
novel · 2009
Love Is Strange: A Paranormal Romance
novel · 2012
The Epic Struggle of the Internet of Things
nonfiction · 2014
Pirate Utopia
novella · 2016