BASIC ROLEPLAYING is designed to be intuitive and easy to play. While character attributes follow a 3D6 curve, most of the other BASIC ROLEPLAYING mechanics are even simpler. Virtually all rolls determining success or failure of a task are determined via the roll of percentile dice.

    Astrogation officer Gene O'Gwynn, a lady with a plastic face. Weapons officer Akin Darby and Communications officer Miss Cyanta, both with assorted prosthetic parts.These were the officers of the Iwo Jima, one of the two heavy battle-cruiser starships protecting the vast cumbersome Rudolph Cragston, a hospital ship returning to Earth with thousands of wounded in cold sleep.These brutally injured officers had been restored to temporary, artificial life to do this job because no intact man or woman could be spared from the main conflict.But then Breakaway Station, a vital link with Earth, was suddenly threatened..

    All of the evidence points to the megacorp's biggest rival as an amazing communication matrix is taking shape. Staying alive now means defeating a high-tech foe with unlimited powers and absolutely no mercy!

    Cyberpunk writers, serious, smart, and courageous in the face of change, exposed the naiveté of a society rushing headlong into technological unknowns. Technology could not save us, they argued, and it might in fact ruin us. Now, thirty years after The Movement party-crashed the science fiction scene, the cyberpunk reality has largely come to be. The future they imagined is here.Contents: * Introduction (Cyberpunk: Stories of Hardware, Software, Wetware, Revolution and Evolution) • essay by Victoria Blake * Johnny Mnemonic (1981) / short story by William Gibson * Mozart in Mirrorshades (1985) / short story by Lewis Shiner and Bruce Sterling * Interview with the Crab (2005) / short fiction by Jonathan Lethem * El Pepenador / short fiction by Benjamin Parzybok * Down and Out in the Year 2000 (1986) / short story by Kim Stanley Robinson * Getting to Know You [North American Future] (1997) / novelette by David Marusek * User-Centric (1999) / short story by Bruce Sterling * The Blog at the End of the World (2008) / short story by Paul Tremblay * Memories of Moments, Bright as Falling Stars (2006) / short story by Cat Rambo * Rock On (1984) / short story by Pat Cadigan * Blue Clay Blues (1992) / novelette by Gwyneth Jones * The Lost Technique of Blackmail (2009) / short fiction by Mark Teppo * Fall of the House of Escher / short fiction by Greg Bear (variant of The Fall of the House of Escher 1996) * Soldier, Sailor (1990) / short story by Lewis Shiner * The Nostalgist (2009) / short story by Daniel H. Wilson * The Jack Kerouac Disembodied School of Poetics (1982) / short story by Rudy Rucker * Mr. Boy (1990) / novella by James Patrick Kelly * Wolves of the Plateau (1988) / short story by John Shirley * Life in the Anthropocene (2010) / short story by Paul Di Filippo * When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth (2006) / novelette by Cory Doctorow.

    They are the next step in the evolution of mankind. And when they come after you, nothing in the world will save you... Welcome to the year 2095. Society has overcome everything that made human life miserable. It has become perfect -- so perfect that it needs killer cyborgs to hunt down anyone who disagrees with it.Nephilim isn't just any elite death squad member, she is the best. Genetically and cybernetically enhanced, she and others like her strike terror wherever they go. Knowing nothing besides this lifestyle, Nephilim believes that she's part of a righteous cause. But everything changes for her after a hostile EMP attack. She suffers a severe system glitch. Disconnected from the grid, for the first time in her life, she begins doubting the system.Shortly after the attack, she meets Jake, a 100% biological human, and she falls in love with him. Jake helps her discover that everything she had believed in was a lie. But there is no walking away from the system. And soon, Nephilim finds herself hunted by members of her own death squad.In an era of deception, who can she trust? And in this brave new world, is there a place for love between a human and a cyborg?Behind Blue Eyes is a fast-paced, cinematic action story in a dystopian setting. It's a modern-day version of 1984 - on steroids.

    A hustling young artist finds himself on the run from warring tribes, mysterious conspirators, body-swapping hackers and more, as he tries to both survive and strike it rich on the vertical surface of a skyscraper big enough to be its own world.

    The Church preaches that life is too brief to contemplate the mysteries of the universe: eternity is required. In order to achieve this, the converted become Monks -- cyborgs with human brains, enhanced robotic bodies, and virtually unlimited life spans. Enter Avery Cates, a dangerous criminal known as the best killer-for-hire around. The authorities have a special mission in mind for Cates: assassinate Dennis Squalor. But for Cates, the assignment will be the most dangerous job he's ever undertaken -- and it may well be his last.

    What price freedom when government knows all our secrets? WELCOME TO THE NEW BADLANDS Fawn got to the shelter too late for dinner, so she just wanted a safe place to sleep. But a dark stranger offered her more. A ticket to a new world, filled with opportunity. And danger. Welcome, Fawn, to the New Badlands. A place beyond the reach of any government. Without laws or regulations of any kind. Where everyone is free. But no one is safe. This is the story of a young mother's attempt to survive in the new digital underworld. Follow her as she becomes a pioneer, a smuggler, a spy, and a freedom-fighter while dodging forces that threaten to destroy the foundations of the modern nation-state. The characters in this novel are fictional. The place is not. It's growing around you, like cracks in the armor of the new surveillance state. Read about it now, while you still can.

    Cyberpunk freewheels with punk rock energy, careening between the internet, bioengineering, and international politics, its influence saturating entertainment and the mass media. Drawing on the traditions of the pioneering cyberpunk manifesto, Mirrorshades, each story delves into the gritty world of technological change. Legendary Mirrorshades editor and contributor Bruce Sterling is back, alongside such cutting-edge writers as Cory Doctorow, Jonathan Lethem, Gwyneth Jones, Hal Duncan, Charles Stross, and Pat Cadigan. With a daring introduction from James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel, editors of the controversial Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology, this collection is an exhilarating snapshot of a vibrant literary movement.Contents“Introduction: Hacking Cyberpunk” by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel“Bicycle Repairman” by Bruce Sterling“Lobsters” by Charles Stross“The Voluntary State” by Christopher Rowe“When Sysadmins Rules the Earth” by Cory Doctorow“The Wedding Album” by David Marusek“Two Dreams on Trains” by Elizabeth Bear“Yeyuka” by Greg Egan“Red Sonja and Lessingham in Dreamland” by Gwyneth JonesSterling-Kessel Correspondence“How We Got in Town and out Again” by Jonathan Lethem“Search Engine” by Mary Rosenblum“The Dog Said Bow-Wow” by Michael Swanwick“The Calorie Man” By Paolo Bagciaglupi“The Final Remake of The Return of Little Latin Larry With a Completely Remastered ‘Soundtrack’” by Pat Cadigan“What’s Up Tiger Lily?” by Paul Di Filippo“Daddy’s World” by Walter Jon Williams“Thirteen Views of a Cardboard City” by William Gibson

    As the dwindling oil supply plunges the world into chaos, and "Mindlink" technology opens cyberspace to the masses, crippled soldier John Raimey becomes a powerful bionic to infiltrate China and retrieve the King Sleeper: a computer hacker so devastating on-line, he can decimate government infrastructure, subliminally persuade the masses, and even kill.

    

    When Tomo Yoshimoto, the world's pre-eminent virtual reality designer, invites her to become his apprentice, Emmie cannot believe her good fortune.But Emmie's charmed life begins to unravel after Tomo's sudden death, and she finds herself adrift in the real and virtual worlds she once loved. When a strange man reaches out to her, offering his help, Emmie discovers that the worlds she thought she knew are not quite what they seem.

    And so is Aj--the waif, the mind reader, the prophet--when she one day finds a man who wants to stay hidden. In the next few weeks, they will all be swept together to decide the fate of the nation. River of Gods teems with the life of a country choked with peoples and cultures--one and a half billion people, twelve semi-independent nations, nine million gods. Ian McDonald has written the great Indian novel of the new millennium, in which a war is fought, a love betrayed, a message from a different world decoded, as the great river Ganges flows on.