Hackers (short stories)

Hackers (ISBN 0441003753) is a collection of short stories edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois. It contains stories by noted science fiction and cyberpunk writers of the late 1980s and early 1990s about hackers.

"Our Neural Chernobyl"

This story was written by Bruce Sterling, and was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1988. In a bizarre future, free from AIDS and genetic diseases, everyone can be a human genome hacker. One such hacker/scientist, while trying to find a way for the human body to become a cocaine-producing factory, engineers a virus that enriches the dendritic connections of mammalian brains. This virus seems to produce eccentric, absent-minded geniuses, but most humans are immune to this neural Chernobyl. Instead, it is animals that suffer the biggest changes as a result of this virus, leading to more intelligent dogs and cats, as well as a culturally-aware raccoon society.

Related Topics:
Bruce Sterling - The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction - 1988 - AIDS - Genome - Dendritic - Chernobyl - Raccoon

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