Cyberpunk Handbook:: The Real Cyberpunk Fakebook

by St. Jude, R.U. Sirius, Bart Nagel

Blast off into the next millennium with Cyberspace gurus and professed cyberpunks St. Jude and R.U. Sirius--consummate insiders and co-founders of the revolutionary Mondo 2000 magazine, and co-authors of Mondo 2000: A User's Guide to the New Edge--both definitive source guides for members of the electronic underground. Includes Cyberpunk cryptic crossword puzzles and a hipness checklist, plus a true/false "final exam."

Genres: Cyberpunk, Humor, Nonfiction

191 pages, Paperback

First published August 22, 1995

Reviews

[David Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Basically a tongue in cheek ethnography of the people on the bleeding edge of technology circa 1995. Totally adorable in a dorky kind of way and kind of like a time capsule, full of praise for things like beepers and blazing fast 14.4k modems. They insist that smileys are lame and passé and on the way out, and that people who surf the web instead of using BBSes or IRC or USENET are "bourgeois" and totally lame. I wonder how they currently feel about emojis and the fact that most people now think that the world wide web is the entire internet.

I was pleased to see that I'd read all of the top recommended cyberpunk books they listed. Every single website they recommended, on the other hand, is now defunct. It's curious that as a self-identified branch of punk, they eschew drinking, drugs, tattoos, and piercings, all of which they explicitly call stupid. Also curious, they seem to mistake furries for people into bestiality, a distinction that any seasoned netizen would recognize instantly, even back in 1995.

[Alessandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is based on the Preppie Handbook format and is cute. It's trying to be futuristic but it's so out-of-date it has unintentional humor in addition to the original jokes. Imagine the '90s view of hardcore cutting-edge future tech. It has become an amusingly quaint period piece.

[Tara Lynn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Believe it or not, folks----you can actually get this through Gutenberg.org.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I purchased this book on the clearance table of the University of Iowa Bookstore, while visiting Ames to see if I wanted to apply there. I bought this and Hunter: The Strange and Savage Life of Hunter S Thompson together for a couple of bucks. Both turned out to be pretty good books, which is probably why I am totally addicted to purchasing books from bargain tables at University Bookstores now.

While this book appears to be totally lame on the outside. Any programmer is going to balk at the cyberpunk imagery used on the cover/jacket of this book (cyberpunk is so early 80s...) However, this book actually does an excellent job of connecting that science fiction imagery to the actual computer science. It also does a very good job of explaining actual hacker culture.

[Darlene Jepsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a funny and twisted read. What I loved about it was the out-dated references like one part of the the book was discussing about different politics. I loved how they referenced to Beavis and Butthead's the anarchy sign on the side of the house. Then, I really enjoyed the jokes about some religions like " Rastafari is the religion about smoking various kinds of plants and the letter ' I '." I enjoyed it because I would have probably not been allowed to read before now and sort of wished I could have read it back then. However, I would suggest it to people who do not get offended by things easily and no one under the age of 13 read it just because of some of the references.

[Renee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh my god what a riot, total blast from the past...though much of the lingo lingers on. Bought this is a used book store for $4 and I'm SO glad I did. The best part is that this came out the year I graduated from high school, but I wouldn't have gotten most of it at the time. I sure do now though, and it's a crack up.

[Luna Corbden · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little dated now, but still a very funny look at hacker culture of the 90's.

[Michael Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

While about ten years behind the present, the book is still hilarious in its tongue-in-cheek mocking of the cyber-punk subculture.

[Lady Entropy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had fun reading this, even if it's a little (okay, a LOT) dated. This would have been funnier back in the late 80s, but now, it was just a fun little blast to the past, and I regret NOTHING!

[Moon Captain · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hilarious/accurate