- A.A. Attanasio, Solis: Compact little journey into post-mortality enlightenment. General post-humanity. Includes a clade aroused by mathematics.
- American Media: an inspiration on what not to be
- Iain (M.) Banks, the Culture novels: occasionally-interventionist society of enlightened hedonists and weirdos. Consider Phlebas, *State of the Art, *Use of Weapons, The Player Of Games, Excession, *Look to Windward - stars are Twin's special suggestions.
- Iain (M.) Banks, Feersum Endjiin: Multiple lives, post-death data-worlds, all in a castle so huge its peak rises into space. Much textual experimentation.
- Clive Barker, The Books of Blood: Strangewarp inspiration; visceral, transformative, and eerie
- Peter S Beagle, A Fine and Private Place: Quiet, gentle, self-contained world that taught me a lot about writing. Calling it magic realist or anything demeans the work, but it has a cemetary, a man who lives there, a cantankerous raven, and ghosts.
- Greg Bear, Blood Music: benign Strangevirus ancestors; theories about effects of consciousness on reality
- William Browning Spencer, Zod Wallop: Drugs changing reality, books coming to life.
- William S. Burroughs, Nova Express: surrealist sci-fi classic, with anti-authoritarian sensibilities; right, Mr. Bradley?
- Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower: triune genders, hormonal manipulation, transformation of an entire race
- Richard Calder, Dead Girls, Dead Boys, Dead Things: sentient automatons and human to doll transformations.
- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland:
- Jack Chalker, Soul Rider (three books: Spirits/Empires/Masters of Flux & Anchor) - the nasty side of transformation and mind control. Counterexamples, not things to imitate, though the mindstate of Spirit throughout much of Empires is worth comparing to Bubble Dolls...
- Tony Daniel, Metaplanetary: posthuman space opera in a megastructured solar system of the far future.
- Philip K. Dick, Ubik:
- Philip K. Dick, Valis: humanistic, schizophrenic fantasy about a pink god beam from space
- Paul diFilippo, Ribofunk: Fables of a gleamingly bizarre biotech near-future. Extreme body mods, weird drugs, highly unconventional family structures, gene-altering subcultures, and a unique furry liberation movement are a mere handful of the gonzo ideas presented.
- Cory Doctorow and Charlie Stross, "Jury Service": Hilarious and mindbending novella: at the end of the 21st century, the mostly-human inhabitants of postscarcity Earth are periodically given prankish gifts of bizarre ultratech by godlike transhumans who inhabit orbital space and the inner Solar System.
- [Russell Edson], The Tunnel: Selected Poems of Russell Edson: Not fiction, but "cubist" prose poetry. Very strange.
- Greg Egan, Quarantine:
- Greg Egan, Permutation City: Thomas' story-thread was an influence on Sosael's evolution. Just sayin'. -Twin
- Greg Egan, Distress - A strange virus turns elite physicists into drooling vegetables. Egan's most accessible book Blue
- Greg Egan, Schild's Ladder - Body-swapping, personalities restored from backups, alternate dimensions... an absolute Mess! Blue
- Greg Egan, Diaspora - Proably Egan's best book. A vision for transhuman existance. Blue
- Harlan Ellison: Cantankerous or lovable performance artist, humanist writings that often strike deep. Particularly: Deathbird, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
- Mick Farren, Last Stand of the DNA Cowboys: surreal space-Western; sentient landscapes; decadent future sex
- Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere:
- William Gibson, Neuromancer: Seminal cyberpunk work. Now dated, nonetheless captures the gritty, hallucinatory sheen and obsession with weird technological and cultural detail that was the essence of the movement.
- Tanith Lee, Biting the Sun:
- Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time: classic of metaphysical science fantasy; Camazotz a source for Upstrange Park?
- Stanislaw Lem, The Cyberiad:
- Jonathan Lethem, Amnesia Moon: (Woo! Selves in a test tube! Lucid dreams as reality! Aliens! A magic, slowly burning San Fransisco Zoe)
- Alan Lightman, Einstein's Dreams: Einstein invents dozens of alternate rules of causality, and daydreams about their effects upon simple, meaningful, ordinary things
- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude:
- Anne Maxwell, Timeshadow Rider: godlike telepathic lovers, societies based on hypnosis, unique take on transcendence
- Ian Mcdonald, The Broken Land:
- Ian Mcdonald, Terminal Cafe:
- Ian Mcdonald, Desolation Road: Mythic and magical take on the colonization of Mars.
- China Mieville, Perdido Street Station:
- The Dancers At The End of Time, anthology by Michael Moorcock
- James Morrow, City of Truth:
- Jeff Noon, Nymphomation: A mysterious corporation tries to control alternate-Manchester with dominoes. Sort of.
- Jeff Noon, Vurt: Future delinquents of five cross-bred, hyperreal races seek the ultimate feathery high.
- Daniel Pinkwater, Lizard Music: Crazy dreamworld conspiracy novel supposedly aimed at kids.
- Tim Powers, Last Call: Tarot archetypes bursting through the surface of consciousnesses, in a Las Vegas-based struggle for the spiritual Kingship of America. (I love his stuff but I don't really see how it relates to PB - enlighten me please? -Twin) (Magical realism in an unexpected setting; lots of battles on metaphysical and symbolic levels. Urban hermeticism. --OR) (I particularly enjoyed: Expiration Date, a whole complex society based around eating ghosts Zoe)
- Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49: The seminal paranoia novel. Puzzlebox is supposed to get this cryptic someday.
- Rjp, free thinker, water brother whom Zoe groks with fullness (especially http://rparizek.ca/24hr_comic/)
- Spider Robinson, Callahan's Crosstime Saloon: Empathic communities and wonderful conspiracies. (Balm against the blues, more important than it may look on the surface, shows how the world really works, the power of empathy and humour. --Zoe) (I keep thinking of Puzzlebox, sometimes, as a similar 'experiment in telepathy' as Callahan's Place is called at one point. Warning, the books are (over)full of puns. - Twin)
- Rudy Rucker, Freeware: Let's not mince words: kinky plastic robot sex.
- Rudy Rucker, Master of Space and Time: How to make having Way Too Much Damn Power into a meaningful story.
- Rudy Rucker, Software: High-brow body-swappin', robot rat implantin', neo-beatnik fun, with a truly alien robot culture.
- Rudy Rucker, Wetware: Head-popping existential crises, ingenious drugs, kinky robot mind-control.
- Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children:
- Geoff Ryman, [253]: "In cyberspace, people become places."
- Geoff Ryman, The Child Garden
- Robert J. Sawyer, Calculating God: Aliens come to earth to explain that God is a universal constant. Interesting musings on faith and the creation of the universe which could inspire Puzzleboxian dogmas.
- John Shirley, Black Butterflies:
- John Shirley, City Come A-Walkin': Despite elements of dark fantasy, this book came as close to "inventing cyberpunk" as you could ask. Gibson and Sterling both admitted to drawing heavily from Shirley's work.
- Cordwainer Smith, Norstrilia:
- Cordwainer Smith, The Rediscovery of Man:
- Michael Marshall Smith, Only Forward:
- S P Somtow, Riverrun Trilogy: A grand romp through many Americas.
- Olaf Stapledon, Last and First Men:
- Neil Stephenson, The Diamond Age: Where we stole the VRC from!
- Neil Stephenson, Snowcrash: Metaviri exploration and more!
- Bruce Sterling, Globalhead:
- Bruce Sterling, Holy Fire:
- Bruce Sterling, Schismatrix Plus:
- Charles Stross, Singularity Sky:
- Michael Swanwick, Vacuum Flowers: Artificial personality addicts. All of Earth is one massive Plural. Persona-sculpture as art. Oh, and sex.
- Michael Swanwyck, Stations of the Tide: Very much magic-realist SF. Multiple levels of transformation, metaphor, and revelation.
- Michael Swanwick, The Iron Dragon's Daughter: Downwarp. With elves.
- Rod Swigart, Portal:
- Walter Jon Williams, Aristoi:
- Robert Anton Wilson & Robert Shea, The Illuminatus! Trilogy (The Eye in the Pyramid, The Golden Apple, Leviathan): A big, paranoid mindfuck. Read in one sitting if at all possible.
- Semiotext(e) SF (ed. Robert A. Wilson):
- Storming the Reality Studio:
- [the Surrealists]: Without these, PB would be so different