Why am I passionate about this?

Not only am I a cyberpunk writer, I’m officially a Doctor of Cyberpunk. My Ph.D. thesis, The Dark Century: 1946–2046, looked at hardboiled fiction, film noir, and tech-noir (AKA cyberpunk) traditions across the past, the present, and an imagined future. It was a radical break from my previous career as an aid worker, where I ran poverty alleviation programs throughout Southeast Asia. And yet, I’ve drawn on that experience in my prose, using the experience of the cultures that I lived and worked in to breathe life into the settings for my short stories and novels. 


I wrote

Book cover of 36 Streets

What is my book about?

This book is a cyberpunk thriller shot through with gangsters, gunfights, martial arts, and minding-bending tech weaponised for social control.…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Maltese Falcon

T.R. Napper Why did I love this book?

Dashiell Hammett, more than any other author, created the hardboiled anti-hero. He’s also a damn fine prose writer. I re-read one of his books every year because of this, hoping perhaps to absorb his spare, elegant style. Each sentence is brutally trimmed of any excess and yet resonates with layered meaning. 

Dashiell Hammett himself was a broken hero. He fought in two World Wars for his country and yet was sent to jail by the committee for un-American activities for refusing to name names. He was a communist, who yet, as a young man, worked for the fascist, union-busting Pinkertons.

A complex, troubled individual who created dark and cynical worlds, and none more cynical than that of The Maltese Falcon. Here, we have a femme fatale, a hardboiled detective, gangsters, and conmen, all vying for the titular prize. It is a mean-streets masterpiece. 

By Dashiell Hammett,

Why should I read it?

11 authors picked The Maltese Falcon as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

One of the greatest crime novels of the 20th century.

'His name remains one of the most important and recognisable in the crime fiction genre. Hammett set the standard for much of the work that would follow' Independent

Sam Spade is hired by the fragrant Miss Wonderley to track down her sister, who has eloped with a louse called Floyd Thursby. But Miss Wonderley is in fact the beautiful and treacherous Brigid O'Shaughnessy, and when Spade's partner Miles Archer is shot while on Thursby's trail, Spade finds himself both hunter and hunted: can he track down the jewel-encrusted bird, a…


Book cover of Altered Carbon

T.R. Napper Why did I love this book?

The protagonist of this book is Takeshi Kovacs, a former UN elite soldier turned private investigator. He’s old, or, to be precise, his mind has been around for decades, kept in ‘storage,’ a form of virtual prison. He is ‘decanted’ from storage and put into a body–a ‘sleeve,’ a temporary residence that he may get to keep if he does this one job: solving a seemingly unsolvable murder. 

Fifteen years ago, when I first read it, Altered Carbon showed me cyberpunk still had something to say. I wasn’t a writer then and hadn’t even considered being a writer, but I did think to myself: were I ever to write, it would be in this genre. Fifteen years later, the very same author, Richard Morgan, provided the cover praise for my debut novel. Surreal.

By Richard K. Morgan,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked Altered Carbon as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

MAJOR NEW NETFLIX SERIES

This must-read story is a confident, action-and-violence packed thriller, and future classic noir SF novel from a multi-award-winning author.

Four hundred years from now mankind is strung out across a region of interstellar space inherited from an ancient civilization discovered on Mars. The colonies are linked together by the occasional sublight colony ship voyages and hyperspatial data-casting. Human consciousness is digitally freighted between the stars and downloaded into bodies as a matter of course.

But some things never change. So when ex-envoy, now-convict Takeshi Kovacs has his consciousness and skills downloaded into the body of a…


Book cover of Leviathan Wakes

T.R. Napper Why did I love this book?

Sometimes, I just want to read a good book. A safe pair of hands, immaculate world-building, a setup that pays off. Leviathan Wakes is one of those books. 

While there are several flawed heroes in the series, perhaps the most broken of all is Joe Miller. A detective for a private security company on a space station, he is laden with all the flaws you’d expect. He has a problem with the bottle and a problem with his boss.

With unconventional methods, a jarring personality, and an indifference to all forms of authority, Miller has the dogged (and often opaque) integrity of the hardboiled hero. He never gives up on a case, not even at the potential cost of his own life.

By James S. A. Corey,

Why should I read it?

23 authors picked Leviathan Wakes as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Humanity has colonized the planets - interstellar travel is still beyond our reach, but the solar system has become a dense network of colonies. But there are tensions - the mineral-rich outer planets resent their dependence on Earth and Mars and the political and military clout they wield over the Belt and beyond. Now, when Captain Jim Holden's ice miner stumbles across a derelict, abandoned ship, he uncovers a secret that threatens to throw the entire system into war. Attacked by a stealth ship belonging to the Mars fleet, Holden must find a way to uncover the motives behind the…


Book cover of The Heroes

T.R. Napper Why did I love this book?

This book largely takes place over a three-day battle. It showcases the stupidity of war, the cowardice, the luck, the incompetence, and yes, sometimes even the breathtaking courage.

As you’d expect from Abercrombie–the so-called Lord of Grimdark–the ‘heroes’ are no such thing, but rather, flawed and broken individuals who go to war out of obligation or ambition or because they know no other way of life.

Joe Abercrombie writes superb action scenes. Visceral, urgent, bloody. He’s also particularly cruel to his characters. I’m not sure if he’s picking on me particularly or if it’s just the dark alchemy of his literary soul that makes him such a popular author, but he’s always a bit of a bastard to the characters I like the most.

By Joe Abercrombie,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Heroes as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

They say Black Dow's killed more men than winter, and clawed his way to the throne of the North up a hill of skulls. The King of the Union, ever a jealous neighbor, is not about to stand smiling by while he claws his way any higher. The orders have been given and the armies are toiling through the northern mud. Thousands of men are converging on a forgotten ring of stones, on a worthless hill, in an unimportant valley, and they've brought a lot of sharpened metal with them.

THE HEROES

For glory, for victory, for staying alive.


Book cover of Queenpin

T.R. Napper Why did I love this book?

Megan Abbott writes traditional, contemporary crime fiction, but also occasionally takes a deep and dark dive into the pulpy past. Of the latter, this is where I come in.

This book uses noirish tropes and writing traditions–whip-smart dialogue, 1940s American slang and settings, femmes fatale, gangsters, speakeasies, heists, double-crosses, all soaked through with hard liquor–but puts a twist on the old formula by having women as the central characters. 

In this, a young, unnamed ingenue is taken under the wing of Gloria Denton, a mob boss. The young woman wants to be somebody, and boy, Gloria Denton, is the somebody everyone wants to be: sexy, hard-as-nails, chic, smart, and feared. Everything goes swimmingly until a homme-fatale enters the scene, and well, things go downhill from there. 

By Megan E. Abbott,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Queenpin as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

By the author of Dare Me and The End of Everything

A young woman hired to keep the books at a down-at-the-heels nightclub is taken under the wing of the infamous Gloria Denton, a mob luminary who reigned during the Golden Era of Bugsy Siegel and Lucky Luciano. Notoriously cunning and ruthless, Gloria shows her eager young protégée the ropes, ushering her into a glittering demimonde of late-night casinos, racetracks, betting parlors, inside heists, and big, big money. Suddenly, the world is at her feet—as long as she doesn't take any chances, like falling for the wrong guy. As the…


Explore my book 😀

Book cover of 36 Streets

What is my book about?

This book is a cyberpunk thriller shot through with gangsters, gunfights, martial arts, and minding-bending tech weaponised for social control. Most particularly, it’s about Lin Vu, our cynical, angry, damaged protagonist, trying to solve a murder that–as with any good cyberpunk–ends up being at the heart of a global conspiracy. But–again, like any good cyberpunk–there’s deeper themes at play. It’s about the bitter cycle of history, about Vietnam as a pawn of the empire, and the dehumanising potential of technology. 

Lin, our broken hero, must confront the immutable moral calculus of unjust wars. She must choose: family, country, or gang. Blood, truth, or redemption. No choice is easy on the 36 Streets.

Book cover of The Maltese Falcon
Book cover of Altered Carbon
Book cover of Leviathan Wakes

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What is my book about?

Hunted by those who want to study his gravity powers, Jes makes his way to the best place for a mixed-species fugitive to blend in: the pleasure moon where everyone just wants to be lost in the party. It doesn’t take long for him to catch the attention of the crime boss who owns the resort-casino where he lands a circus job, and when the boss gets wind of the bounty on Jes’ head, he makes an offer: do anything and everything asked of him or face vivisection.

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What is this book about?

Hunted by those who want to study his gravity powers, Jes makes his way to the best place for a mixed-species fugitive to blend in: the pleasure moon where everyone just wants to be lost in the party. It doesn't take long for him to catch the attention of the crime boss who owns the resort-casino where he lands a circus job, and when the boss gets wind of the bounty on Jes' head, he makes an offer: do anything and everything asked of him or face vivisection.

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