Sterling is one of the founders of the cyberpunk movement in science fiction, along with William Gibson, Rudy Rucker, John Shirley, Lewis Shiner, and Pat Cadigan.

In the early 1980s, Sterling wrote a series of stories set in the Shaper/Mechanist universe: the Solar System is colonized, with two major warring factions.

[4] In the 1980s, Sterling edited the science fiction critical fanzine Cheap Truth under the alias of Vincent Omniaveritas.

He wrote a column called Catscan for the now-defunct science fiction critical magazine SF Eye.

He contributed a chapter to Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture (MIT Press, 2008) edited by Paul D. Miller, a.k.a.

[5] From October 2003[6] to May 2020 Sterling blogged at "Beyond the Beyond", which was hosted by Wired until the COVID-19 pandemic led Condé Nast to cut back because of an advertising slump.

[7] He has been the instigator of three projects which can be found on the Web: Sterling has coined various neologisms to describe things that he believes will be common in the future, especially items which already exist in limited numbers.