John Shirley is one of the original cyberpunk authors.

He has been called 'the Lou Reed of Cyberpunk'; in addition to publishing numerous polemical essays and seminal works of cyberpunk, he has also played in punk-rock bands such as Sado-Nation and is the lead singer [and lyricist] of The Panther Moderns - a San Francisco-based rock band. He's also been the lead singer in the rock bands Terror Wrist and Obsession. Among Cyberpunks, he is perhaps the only genuine Punk. Far be it from us to gossip, but when Shirley writes about rock'n'roll, weird hairstyles, controlled substances, sick violence and tacky sex, one gets the impression of a writer (like Jack London or B.Traven) who draws on his own adventures and has earned the right to a revolutionary stance by serving his season in the Lower Depths. His career as a punk started in high school in Salem, Oregon, where he was expelled for keeping a teacher locked in a closet while he lectured the class on what a nuclear war would be like.

Shirley is the author of numerous works in a variety of genres; his story collection "Heatseeker" was chosen by the Locus Reader's poll as one of the best short story collections of 1989.

John Shirley was born in February 10, 1953 in Houston, Texas, United States. He spent most of his youth in Oregon state. He has also written under the pseudonym of D.B.Drumm (the 'Traveler' series). He's married to Michelina Shirley [aka Micky].

John Shirley's phenomenal first collection of short stories, Heatseeker's stories were originally published from 1975 through 1988 in a wide range of publications including Oui, The Mississippi Review, and OMNI. Chosen by the Locus Reader's Poll as one of the best short story collections of 1989, it was considered (at the time) by Bruce Sterling as Shirley's "most significant and influential work" and an essential volume for the "Well-Appointed Cyberpunk Library Collection." Along with a Foreword by Stephen P. Brown and Introduction by William Gibson, the collection contains the following 19 stories:

What Cindy Saw

Under the Generator

Sleepwalkers

Tahiti in Terms of Squares

Silent Crickets

I Live in Elizabeth

The Almost Empty Rooms

The Gunshot

Equilibrium

Uneasy Chrysalids, Our Memories

Quill Tripstickler Eludes a Bride

Recurrent Dreams of Nuclear War Lead B.T. Quizenbaum into Moral Dissolution

What It's Like to Kill a Man

Triggering

Six Kinds of Darkness

The Unfolding

The Peculiar Happiness of Professor Cort

Ticket to Heaven

Wolves of the Plateau