Does anyone know of any good cyberpunk spy or political thrillers? The setting in question is about an international city that is teetering between being a utopia and a totalitarian police state. The main entity is a version of the UN that is actually a powerful and effective international force that is now located on its own island city/state/nation.
I normally go and watch movies for cyberpunk stuff...so not really knowledgeable on books.
However, you could try Fantasy Flight Games Android books.
There's the identity trilogy, strange flesh, and free fall.
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I heard about a series of books called Neuromancer which is supposed to be some kind of classic cyberpunk. Never read them so I don't know if I can recommend them, though.
The series is called The Sprawl trilogy, Neuromancer is the first book, followed by Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive.
As for being classic cyberpunk... it's THE cyberpunk series. William Gibson is the father of the genre, and while The Sprawl trilogy may not be his first work in the genre, everything before that was either a short story or novella
That said, it's less about politics and more about AIs trying to transcend the limitations placed on them, and the people they use to make it happen
William Gibson and Vernor Vinge should become your saints, if you truly wish to plumb the depths of the Cyberpunk genre.
Sure, you can get into Stephenson and Morgan, and explore the Post Modern Humanist branch of Cyberpunk, but for the good core principles of the genre, these men should be your guiding lights.
Get thee to a library. Go.
I would add Walter Jon Williams for Cyberpunk sainthood (I'd recommend one of his more recent novels, This is Not a Game, as something of a smart techno thriller, but I wouldn't call it overly spy/political - very near future cyberpunk feel though).
There are several Robert J. Sawyer & Charles Stross novels that might also make for good reads for inspiration.
-TimD
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For some film inspiration, you'll have to look more to the gritty futuristic than to cyberpunk as the genre hasn't really taken hold on film. Note some of these are noticeably absent of the computer themes that cyberpunk implies, but still give the feel of the world. Think the part of Neuromancer that takes place in Tokyo (or was it Hong Kong) rather than the part that takes place on the Satellite or in NYC.
Equilibrium
Aeon Flux (movie and animated series)
Ultra Violet (aka Aeon Flux w/o the license)
Minority Report
Blade Runner
Ghost in the Shell series, and any number of animes in this genre
Fringe seasons 2-5, notably alt world in 2-4
A bit more nebulous, but The Lawnmower Man fits the thematics
Hackers
Continuum series
Its light fare, but really The Jetsons is a post-apocalyptic cyberpunk world with sentient robots and vindictive AI (See the Flintstones meet the Jetsons movie)
RE: The Jetsons
The more I think about this, the more it is Cyberpunk years before Gibson birthed the genre. Huge corporate espionage wars between Spacely Sprockets and their competition. The aforementioned film is all about one AI getting jealous of another AI's relationship with a human, and sending the humans back to pre-history. Judy's aesthetic and the imagery of the concerts and rocker types in her stories exude the neon light future that stuff like Shadowrun puts in the pretty places. Also, sentient robots (Rosey), cybernetic organisms (Astro), androgeny (Being a mid-20th century cartoon, there is crossdressing for comedy). It hits all the heavy genre tropes of Cyberpunk. Its just a happy cyberpunk world, rather than a crappy one.
Jean le Flambeur series by Rajaniemi
tough it's far-future cyberpunk
I love the Ghost in the Shell anime, though I do have to admit the franchise seems to suffer from constantly rehashing different interpretations of the same idea. I found its most recent installment, Arise, quite exciting at first but it started to feel stale very quickly. An interesting mix of existentialism and politics but GITS would greatly benefit from stepping outside its comfort zone. Nonetheless I'll probably still pick up Arise once the full set is released dubbed.
The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi
I just finished watching "Automata" (Antonia Banderas, 2014), and I have to say that for emergent/nascent AI-type Cyberpunk (of which GITS is another good example), this one does quite well.
A friend described it as closer to I, Robot than I, Robot.
It's quite good! I have nothing bad to say about it, really.
That totally should have said "Antonio Banderas" and I'm sorry I missed it until just now, otherwise I would have edited it.
Still, good movie.
Thematically, The City & the City by China Mieville fits your city and city stuff.
Richard K. Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs series is real good. Real good.