Notes for 'The Difference Engine' by Bruce Sterling and William Gibson. Photo by Anthony Maddaloni.

American science fiction writer Bruce Sterling has donated a collection of materials to the Ransom Center. Sterling, an alumnus of the University, is known as one of the co-founders of the “cyberpunk” movement in the 1980s, with William Gibson, Rudy Rucker, John Shirley, and others. In Sterling’s introduction to Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology (1986), he defines the movement as “an unholy alliance of the technical world of pop culture, visionary, fluidity, and street-level anarchy.” The anthology, which Sterling edited, examines what happens when scientific discoveries push the boundaries of human knowledge.

The bulk of the collection, which spans from the early 1980s to the present, comprises more than 250…