Hardwired (1986) by Walter Jon Williams is a classic cyberpunk novel. It hits all the themes of cyberpunk while also taking place in the wasteland, rather than your standard cyberpunk setting of an overgrown city.

I feel like the original cover (left) totally captures what this book is. It’s 80s, it’s cyberpunk, it’s in the wasteland. You might say it’s cheesy now, but I bet It’s a good visual representation of what the author was thinking.

Now look at the reprint (right) from 2006. That’s just awful. I mean, sure, he’s in the wasteland, but that just looks like a cheap photoshop job. Look at those sunglasses, is that a robot eye or a lens flare? What’s with his puffy jacket? Ugh, I’m just so annoyed by it. Especially because the book is good, and I highly recommend it. But if you saw that cover on the right at a store, you definitely wouldn’t think it was a cyberpunk classic from the 80s.

Speaking of which, check out the cover for the audiobook:

I’m not sure which is worse, the 2006 re-print or this audiobook cover. It’s such a shame what they’re doing to this book with these lazy covers.

Anyway, I recommend Hardwired for any cyberpunk fans who haven’t read it. I just wanted to also complain about how lazy the covers are in all the reprints.

  • @Rottcodd
    5•9 months ago

    I think Hardwired is still one of the purest cyberpunk experiences out there, and if anything, the story is actually more relevant now than it was then. We draw closer to that dystopia every day.

    And yeah - that reprint cover is awful.

    The weirdest thing about it to me is that it appears that part of the goal was to try to tone it down a bit and make it more “realistic,” but the original cover, cheesy though it is, is actually the more realistic of the two. Cowboy and Sarah, on the original, actually look pretty much exactly like they were described in the book. Sarah isn’t even on the reprint, and Cowboy looks nothing like the way he’s described.