Its been a while, I think its time to go and read it again. I can see my old battered copy of Mirrorshades on the shelf from where I am writing this. Meeting Jim at Clarion was totally awe inspiring as a consequence. I remember that story pretty much scene for scene, despite not having read it for at least a decade. Contributions from Greg Bear and Pat Cadigan also rocked my adolescent world, but it was James Patrick Kelly’s Solstice that really blew my mind. But Tom Maddox Snake-Eyes sticks in my memory as the epitomy of cyberpunk, and a major influence over my story They Leave Him No Voice (workshopped at Clarion and awaiting re-write). Red Star, Winter Orbit still rates for me as one of Gibson’s strongest stories (alongside Hinterlands). As unique and startling as that novel was, without seeing the diversity of writing in the Bruce sterling edited anthology I might not have grasped what SF short fiction was really capable of. I would guess that like many readers I found it in the wake of reading Neuromancer. Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology was the book that woke me up to what science fiction could be. But I was surprised to see my most influential anthology went entirely unmentioned… It’s a list that makes me want to read more, as do the the comments. John Klima sticks his neck out and nominates his top 10 most influential SF / F anthologies over at Tor.com.
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