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A few years ago I read an excellent little Cyberpunk short story, and now I can't remember what it was called, where I found it or who wrote it.
The basic premise is that a gang of small time teenage thieves start off stealing small items from containers in a freight yard. The containers have a weight sensor so they can only take very light items without setting off alarms.
The enwest member of the gang comes up with a better plan, and they start hacking into the freight transfer computers and diverting entire containers to themselves.
Anyone know what this story is called, who wrote it and what collection it's published in?
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It is a cool little story, and the above part doesn't really get into the really cool parts. For me it was one of those stories that starts out with a good characters and an interesting premise, and then anifty idea comes into it that makes it even better, and then something happens that imroves it a little more, and it just keeps on getting better until the last sentence.
(Okay, I admit it, this is just an excuse to bump the thread again)
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It's not in Burning Chrome, I'm pretty sure. I found a synopsis of all the shorts in that one on Wiki. I read it about 15 years ago...
Is it in Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology? I couldn't find synopses of that one anywhere, just titles.
Also Wiki had a list of anthologies under cyberpunk; maybe a book title would ring a bell...
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I'm in one of those whacky zones where I can only view Heathy's post from the preview in the forums (which means I can only read part of it).
It's definitely not in Buning Chrome, and it's not Gibson. I have read all of Burning Chrome (many years ago), and I went to see William Gibson speak the other night. Cool Guy. Well, actually he's a big geek, but you know what I mean.
IIRC correctly it is a by a big name SF author, but not one normally connected with Cyberpunk.
EDIT: Found Heathy's post in his profile under recent posts, still not showing in this thread.
I don't believe I've read "Mirrorshades" but I'll take a look. I think it was in a general SF anthology. Maybe with another story about a washed up author who travels to another dimension where he kept writing.
The story doesn't sound familiar to me, and I have read Mirrorshades. Although my memory isn't what it used to be.
Bruce Sterling was the editor of that and he had at least one other anthology of cyberpunk I'm pretty sure.
There were alot of different authors in that book (Greg Bear, Mary Gentle-I think)that didn't normally write cyberpunk. Maybe it was one of them but in a different anthology.
The story doesn't sound familiar to me, and I have read Mirrorshades. Although my memory isn't what it used to be.
Bruce Sterling was the editor of that and he had at least one other anthology of cyberpunk I'm pretty sure.
There were alot of different authors in that book (Greg Bear, Mary Gentle-I think)that didn't normally write cyberpunk. Maybe it was one of them but in a different anthology.
Bruce Sterling has an antholgy called A good Old Fashioned Future but it's not in that. The story Scribe describes sounds familiar to me, but that may be just because it's a good idea and sounds like a real story.
The thing is I've read some older stories in general anthologies which are not classified as cyberpunk simply because they were written in the 70s, 60s or earlier, but which are similar in tone to cyberpunk stories. Maybe it's like that, and you read it in a general anthology rather than a specific cyberpunk anthology. Unfortunately unless you get all strict and say "cyberpunk means Gibson, Sterling, Bear and the other 80s writers and nothing else," then it's like a needle in a haystack.
PS Sorry that was pretty unhelpful...