Bob Magaw
Footballguy
recently became a big fan of phillip **** (i read do androids dream of electric sheep a long time ago, but forgot much of it)... the three stigmata of palmer eldritch was probably the most mind blowing sci fi i have ever read... got the american library edition (four novels - with three novels discussed here plus ubik... i have to finish MITHC & ubik... also have the sequel, five novels sitting on my bookshelf)...mentioned earlier, moon is a harsh mistress is imo definitely heinlein's best (i must have read 20-30 novels by him)... that is saying a lot, because heinlein is arguably the greatest sci fi writer of all time...D_House said:
more recently, i like the cyberpunk genre...
neuromancer - gibson
snow crash, diamond age & cryptonomicon by stephenson
altered carbon (& rest of takeshi kovacs trilogy) by morgan
also, greg egan has some interesting ideas, better conceptually than in terms of his characterization, plotting & as a pure writer, in the thematically similar permutation city & diaspora (may have influenced morgan, though imo morgan a far better overall writer, in terms of building vast, believable, internally self-consistent WORLDS, societies, cultures, ala, for instance, brave new world by aldous huxley)
Last edited by a moderator:
neuromancer imo can absolutely be appreciated on its own merits without needing a PHD in computers from cal tech... it was probably THE seminal work in the cyberpunk genre (though you could say some of the already discussed works by sci fi luminaries heinlein in moon is a harsh mistress, with a central character being a lunar computer that convincingly becomes sentient, and phillip ****, with do androids dream of electric sheep, anticipated it & were loose precursors), and his early imaginings, vision & articulation of a global internet-like virtual reality that could be neurologically jacked into did have a profound influence on the likes of MIT artificial intelligence guru/legend marvin minsky, among many others... but in terms of the narrative vehicle, it has more in common with a raymond chandler hard boiled detective novel or film noir... think of a confluence of the futuristic world & sensibilities of the wachowski bros. matrix trilogy (they MUST have read gibson), with a philip marlowe-like detective set loose & unleashed inside it... gibson handles pacing like nobody's business (among the most relentlessly paced novels i've ever experienced), it reads like an out of control freight train... once you get going, very hard to put down...as to stephenson, personally i would start with snow crash & diamond age, though cryptonomicon is my favorite (just maybe not the best place to start, if dipping your toes into the genre)...scooby gang is adamant that the so called baroque cycle is his best work... for myself, coming from a sci fi background, i prefer the earlier cyberpunk works... i like history, too (baroque cycle historical novels), but i miss stephenson's powerful forward directed imagination in his sci fi genre works, & i also miss his brilliant & wickedly sardonic & droll wit... (admittedly i have never gotten very far into the baroque trilogy, started 2-3 times but keep putting down, but at least in the beginning, it is grimly serious)...cryptonomicon for one thing is huge (something like 1,100 pages?) & is not exactly cyberpunk... it is also historical fiction, but much more recent... it actually has two intertwined timelines & sets of family-related characters that intersect... like every stephenson novel i've read, it is an amazing, mind-expanding & interdisciplinary tour-de-force, that combines cryptography, WW II history, an undersea optical fiber telecom cable laying operation, a cutting edge data "crypt"/haven internet business startup, nazi war gold... its not exactly a prerequisite to have at least some passing knowledge & interest in WW II history & cryptography, but it probably helps... the broader plot can be appreciated on its own merits, & as i think may have been alluded to above, you can skip the crypto parts if they become too dense or tedious... among his cyberpunk works (& again, this is only marginally or tangentially cyberpunk, that would be the contemporary setting half, with the other half set in WW II and being more historical fiction), i would say this is definitely his most mature work & satisfying if you have the patience to make it to the payoff at the end... the way he complexly but deftly interweaves the characters & timelines is astounding and maybe the best narrative structure of its kind i've ever experienced (especially as he builds towards the climax)...it might imo be better to start with the shorter & less demanding snow crash & diamond age (not that they are for dummies, exactly 
)... snow crash is the most like neuromancer, ostensibly about virtual reality (an even hotter topic in the 90s)... but in a typically, characteristic fashion, it is very wide-ranging & interdisciplinary in conception & scope, improbably bringing together strands from linguistics, neurology, babylonian/assyrian mythology... not sure what that sounds like, but i could see how that might sound kind of hokey, but he pulls it off imo... it is set in a near future/quasi-present world which i could best describe as "balkanized", where the US has become splintered & fragmented (not sure if it is stated, but i don't think it is so much in the wake of a nuclear as an economic/social/cultural holocaust)... imo, the beginning IS a bit hokey, as one of the characters is a messenger that travels by "pooning" (as in harpooning) unsuspecting/unwilling cars with a futuristic rollerskates & magnetic lasso-like get up, but it isn't essential to the plot (part of the atmosphere & tone), & it quickly gets going... the villain is a larger than life character named raven, a hulking aleutian islander that has a nuclear bomb strapped to a motorcycle sidecar, and throws a devastating, glass-like spear that is only a molecule thick at the point or tip... maybe this is too much detail, it is much more coherent than it may sound based on my description, but i wanted to include enough detail to pique interest without revealing spoilers... diamond age ostensibly about nanotechnology, set in the slightly further future... i like it better than snow crash & find it a more mature work, but slightly less so in execution than crypto... it is about a futuristic, highly interactive & cutting edge (even for the time - it is a prototype) book of instruction that an engineer has been commisioned to make by a high level executive (in this future, stephenson employs definite echoes that hark back to victorian-era themes & social stratification), which he does, but illegally duplicates for his daughter (i think)... without divulging plot details, it accidentally/unintentionally falls into the hands of a commoner & underpriviliged young girl... what happens from there i found compelling to watch unfold... the heroine becomes profoundly transformed & empowered to effect unexpected societal/cultural changes, in a simultaneously improbable/believable fashion... HIGHLY recommended... all of these works are self contained, so based on whatever descriptions may have piqued your interest more (if any? 
), there is no reason you couldn't read them in any order you want... they don't presuppose previous foundational knowledge, in the sense of learning math, for instance...read all these 2-3 times and not close to tiring of them... guessing i'll read them again in the future (i tend to read favorite books multiple times, interspersed with new stuff, rather than read ALL new stuff just because it is new, because playing the percentages, most new stuff almost by definition highly unlikely to be as good as the stuff at my personal apex)...heinlein for many years was my favorite sci fi author... i still have immense respect for him, & he is still & probably always will be at/near the top (especially his best work, like moon is a harsh mistress, time enough for love, stranger in a strange land, etc), but i have to say in recent years i think stephenson has surpassed him as my personal favorite... probably because he is as or nearly as brilliant in his hard science descriptive powers, it is more contemporary (which probably sounds funny, since heinlein certainly wrote about the future... what i mean by that is stephenson had the benefit of still being alive now, & having the opportunity to be informed by & incorporate into his writing, later, even more cutting edge science), and his far more ascerbic sense of humor, witheringly impaling whatever he trains his societal/cultural lens/sensibilities on (closing with a yogi berra-esque worthy metaphor-mixing salad/collage)...HOT ROD YOUR HEAD WITH CYBERPUNK!
I'll check this out. I just finished a book recently that concentrated heavily on a few men from the 505th 82nd, including Sgt. Jesse Adams and the very famous CG "Slim" Jim Gavin.
LOVE this book.
