The world of Morgan’s hero Takeshi Kovacs is one of modular minds: during people’s lives, their memories and minds are “backed up” to a cartridge that sits inside their spinal column, and that piece can be used to restore their life to another body or “sleeve.” The book was adapted into a Netflix series beginning in 2018, but before that, it stood out as a callback to “classic” cyberpunk with the flash, surrealism, and pulp-like action that suggests. There are even private corporate military and aerial drones that spy on civilians. As in other important cyberpunk works, charismatic and manipulative religion plays a big cultural role, as do rapidly adapting working-class people who develop their own social structure far beneath the high-level war games. Shirley uses vibrant Cold War colors to posit a dystopian future dominated by the new Soviet Union, and his characters plant and steal memories, plug the biological equivalent of flash drives into their brains, and attempt to resist both an authoritarian invader and an authoritarian government emboldened by the outside threat. But he may be best known for his A Song Called Youth trilogy which began with 1985’s Eclipse. He’s even won a Bram Stoker award for his horror stories. Genre polymath John Shirley has written songs, screenplays ( including The Crow), TV episodes (including peak O’Brien-In-Trouble DS9 episode “Visionaries”), and dozens of novels and collections.
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