Sterling, Bruce

1954–

Author

As a science-fiction author, journalist, and social critic, Bruce Sterling has made numerous contributions to the field of new media. He is one of the earliest and most famous writers in the science-fiction genre called cyberpunk, and is credited, along with novelist William Gibson, with coining that term. Sterling also wrote The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier (1992), one of the first non-fiction books on hackers. Currently engaged in a variety of projects relating to new media, science, and society, he continues to write science fiction as well as non-fiction.

Cyberpunk began in the 1980s among a loosely affiliated group of young science-fiction writers. Influenced by and drawing on traditional science-fiction themes, but also critical of the current state of science-fiction writing, cyberpunk authors shared a particular aesthetic that became influential in various computer-related subcultures. This aesthetic includes repeated themes and symbols, such as mirrored sunglasses, black clothing, high-tech body enhancements, and protagonists who are frequently involved in gray-market or outright illegal activities. Cyberpunk works tend to emphasize the role of computer technology in future society, often depict human/computer couplings such as cyborgs or brain/computer interfaces, and are usually dark, dystopic, and graphically violent. Many computer programmers read and are influenced by cyberpunk, while developments in computer and Internet technologies also influence cyberpunk authors.

Using the pseudonym Vincent Omniaveritas, Sterling edited an early 1980s, online cyberpunk fanzine called Cheap Truth. With contributions from other cyberpunk writers, this periodic newsletter (which he has compared to Eastern European “samizdat” underground newspapers) included biting criticism of mainstream science fiction. It also served to promote the work of the cyberpunk authors who contributed to it.

Sterling's most important contribution to cyberpunk culture is the edited volume Mirrorshades (1988). Compiling short stories by William Gibson, Pat Cadigan, Rudy Rucker, and other well-known cyberpunk authors, this anthology of short fiction also included a “state of the genre” introduction by Sterling, which summarized the precursors, contributors, and aesthetic of cyberpunk fiction. For many, this collection continues to define the genre.

Sterling has written several science-fiction novels, and has three collections of short stories in print. He also collaborated with William Gibson on The Difference Engine (1992), an alternative-history novel that explores a nineteenth-century England in which computers already exist, powered by steam.

Sterling's fame among hackers and members of other computer subcultures stems as much from his nonfiction writing as from his fiction. In particular, The Hacker Crackdown cemented his reputation as one of the “digerati,” the people in the know about computer technology and new media. The Hacker Crackdown, which chronicles a variety of law enforcement actions in 1988–90 in the then-new field of computer crime, also describes the formation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), an organization seeking to protect civil liberties online and in relation to computers.

Sterling became interested in cyberliberties in part because of the infamous seizure of computers and equipment belonging to Steve Jackson Games, Inc., which took place in Sterling's home town of Austin, Texas. One of the items seized in that raid was a game book called GURPS Cyberpunk, intended for use in face-to-face role-playing games. Although deemed by law-enforcement agents to provide instructions for the commission of computer crime, this work essentially constituted a form of science fiction. As such, the Steve Jackson Games raid hit close to Sterling's home in more ways than one.

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