The Real Cyberpunk Fakebook

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

look out…. it's terribly silly….

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Dear Michael Hart and Project Gutenberg:

This text comes over a little odd in ASCII. Like MONDO2000— the zine we made infamous— this book relies on its wacked layout and bizarre illustrations for much of its meaning, not to say charm.

And it was difficult to figure what should be considered the first chapter, for obvious reasons. I think the first chapter really includes Section II, but never mind. Here it is, the beginning of…

****************************************************** ****************************************************** ****************************************************** ***** ***** THE ***** ***** REAL ***** ***** CYBERPUNK ***** ***** FAKEBOOK ***** ***** ***** ***** By St. Jude, R.U.Sirius, and Bart Nagel ***** ****************************************************** ****************************************************** ******************************************************

Dedication: For all our parents and lovers and housemates and children and friends, for the Cypherpunks, for Kevin Crow, Nesta Stubbs, The Omega, Phiber, and hackers everywhere.

======================================================== | | | INTRODUCTION to The Real Cyberpunk Fakebook | | by Bruce Sterling, | | A Renowned Cyberpunk Writer | | | ========================================================

I like this book so much that I'm thinking of changing my name to St.Erling. You couldn't ask for better guides to faking cyberpunk than these two utterly accomplished Bay Area fraudsters. These two characters are such consummate boho hustlers that they make Aleister Crowley look like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.

I don't believe in smart drugs, and I've never believed in smart drugs, but I do believe the following. It's genuinely useful to society to have some small, contained fraction of reckless fools who are willing to consume untested and unknown devices and substances. Sure, most of them will have their hearts explode or break out into great purple bleeding thalidomide warts. But who knows, maybe someday one of these jaspers will be eating handfuls of psychoactive crap out of some hippie pharmacy and he or she will suddenly learn to read Japanese in the original in six days. That's not at all likely, but it could happen— grant me the possibility.