It was brutal. I wasn't that good. But there were many people who were superb. It was such a pleasure watching them perform.

Here are some sci-fi recommendations (you may have read them already, but I thought I'd offer anyway):

Serious Scifi:

Anathem the "multiverse" (multiple realities) and how all that works
Seveneves feminism meets eugenics—watch out!
The Culture series by Iain Banks, esp Book 2, the Player of Games Banks is dead, but wrote some of the best intellectual scifi ever

Brilliant, Visionary:

Accelerando brilliant and hilarious; and it's not a long book
Snowcrash classic
Neuromancer another classic

Tawdry yet Lyrical (in a good way):

Dhalgren beautiful, poetic, urban, stream of consciousness, and more sex than you can believe

Underrated Classics:

Voyage to Arcturus ignore the reviews and the bad cover of this edition (or buy a diff edition); this is the ONE book that every true scifi and fantasy fan should read before they die

Stress Pattern, by Neal Barrett, Jr. I can't find this on Amazon, but it is a book you should track down. It is possibly the WORST science fiction book ever written, and that is why you must read it. It's a half-assed attempt at a ripoff of Dune without any of the elegance or vision that Herbert had, about a giant worm that eats people on some distant planet. A random sample: "A few days later when I went to the edge of the grove to ride the Bhano I found him dead. I asked Rhamik what could have happened and he told me that life begins, Andrew, and life ends. Well, so it does."

> i will have to check out Neuromancer as it seems interesting.

the movie, Johnny Mnemonic, is also based off Neuromancer, but it's not super great at presenting the themes the book develops.

Snow Crash has a lot of Gibson/Neuromancer elements, but also includes some interesting concepts about language and religion.

here's Amazon links for both of them. $20 well spent IMO.

https://www.amazon.com/Neuromancer-William-Gibson/dp/0441569595

https://www.amazon.com/Snow-Crash-Neal-Stephenson/dp/0553380958

General

Neuromancer By William Gibson

Neuromancer spawned the Cyberpunk genre and is responsible for much of cyber culture today, despite being written before the internet entered the public consciousness. Interesting characters, poetic descriptions, and a drug-addled noir atmosphere.


>Goodreads blurb: The Matrix is a world within the world, a global consensus- hallucination, the representation of every byte of data in cyberspace . . .

>Case had been the sharpest data-thief in the business, until vengeful former employers crippled his nervous system. But now a new and very mysterious employer recruits him for a last-chance run. The target: an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence orbiting Earth in service of the sinister Tessier-Ashpool business clan. With a dead man riding shotgun and Molly, mirror-eyed street-samurai, to watch his back, Case embarks on an adventure that ups the ante on an entire genre of fiction.

>Hotwired to the leading edges of art and technology, Neuromancer ranks with 1984 and Brave New World as one of the century's most potent visions of the future. (less)

Sounds like you might enjoy Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age. I think Snow Crash is meant to be in the same universe - it's hilarious but not as dense. You might also like his Cryptonomicon, though it's not technically Sci Fi.

Tad Willams' Otherland Series is Epic Sci Fi with a huge amount of detail. Might be right up your alley.

Dune, Neuromancer and The Enderverse if you haven't already read those.

• Dune by Frank Herbert.
  
  
• Riverworld by Philip Jose Farmer - somewhat of a longshot, but something made me think of it.
  
  
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.
  
  
• Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.
  
  
• Battle Royale by Koushun Takami.
  
  
• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.
  
  
• Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand .
  
  
• Neuromancer by William Gibson.
  
  
• The Running Man by Stephen King.
  
  You might even get a kick out of The Hunger Games or Divergent... And of course 1984 :)

I'm almost always juggling reading material. At the moment I am reading Neuromancer by William Gibson, and Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Just finished reading Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet by John G Turner, which I highly recommend.

Additional notes...

Basic Background

• All GitS stories start out as abstract and confusing -- they essentially drop you into the middle of a mission and are set in the future, amidst a bunch of tech and terminology that you need to learn and understand on the fly. We're talking spy, cloack-and-dagger, intrigue, conspiracy, mystery. This is a good thing.
  
  
• The movies are dense and the series take some time to weave together. It helps to be patient and pay attention, both to the dialogue and to the details that you see in both the foreground and background.
  
  
• The Matrix was heavily influenced by the first movie, and there are even direct, frame-for-frame visual shout outs to the first GitS film in The Matrix.
  
  
• If you enjoy sci-fi like Children of Men, Blade Runner, The Zero Theorem or even Her, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or the Bourne series then you're in for a treat.
  
  
• Ghost in the Shell, as a whole, is the visual successor to Neuromancer, by William Gibson.
  
  Recommended Viewing Order
  
  Start with the first film. It's the foundation for everything else.
  
  
• The first film is an adaptation that differs from the manga, so if you like the movie and then go back and read the manga you won't be slogging through the exact same thing twice.
  
  
• The original came out on Blu-ray [Amazon] only two days ago (yay!), and the new version will be of much better video and audio quality than the initial 1995 version (although the subtitles are apparently not as good).
  
  
• The dubbed voice acting is, for a change, pretty great, so feel free to watch in English or Japanese. The subtitles might be worth using, as the English dub isn't as clearly worded as the original text (if I remember correctly).
  
  
• After you watch the first film, check this out.
  
  Next, I'd watch the two Stand Alone Complex series
  
  
• Both are fantastic. If you watch the first movie first you'll know all or most of the characters. The pacing is much easier to digest and you get to know the characters a lot better. The story is still abstract, twisting and turning... but it's fun to unravel the mystery with our heroes. Makes for great binge watching.
  
  You can watch the second movie or the four Arise episodes in any order.
  
  
• The second movie is probably the most dense, convoluted story in the series. It also has the best animation and is a lot of fun. Now that I think more about it, I think I'd save this for last. But you can really watch it whenever you want, so long as you've finished the first film (it won't otherwise make much sense).
  
  
• Arise is an origin story reboot. The characters have different backgrounds and how they meet is much different than in the original story. There are a number of homages or references to the original movie as well. Compared to the rest of the GitS stuff, Arise felt like lighter fare in terms of its complexity and sophistication. I enjoyed Arise, but this little mini-series is probably my least favorite content within the GitS universe.
  
  Primer Information About the Wider GitS world (Mild Spoilers)
  
  The below is written in a block so as to make provide optical camouflage against accidentally catching spoilers if you don't want to read them.
  
  The goal of this section is to help ease you into understanding the politics and organization of the GitS world.
  
  The GitS world is set in Japan, but there are also international players. Japan has gone to war against other (made up) nations (sorta like Kazakstan), and we meet some of the ex-soldiers. Cybernetic technology is now well integrated into society, but was most extensively developed, weaponized and used by the military. At the most basic level, almost everyone now has brain implants. These implants are the foundation of most of the philosophical discussion in the GitS world. They're also the foundation for most of the crime, communication and investigation. Some people only have those basic neural implants, while others are entirely or almost entirely cybernetic. Much of the philosophical discussion, then, is about the line between the physical body and the soul (ghost), about what makes us individual and unique.
  
  Americans are not the good guys (in many respects, the series extrapolates on how WWII influenced and continues to influence Japan's development and national identity). The Japanese government is divided into self-contained groups: ministries and sections. We follow Section 9. On the surface these groups all work together, but there's really a lot of backstabbing and secret warfare between the groups.
  
  I think that's enough to get you started.
  
  tl;dr: Definitely watch - one of my favorite creations of everything of all time. Enjoy!

Neuromancer https://www.amazon.com/dp/0441569595/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_i_ixV8AbZ5SWX6N

• William Gibson's Neuromancer and related.
  
  
• Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon and sequels. Also Thirteen.
  
• China Mievlle's The Scar. I can't vouch for his other books - reading in publication order would be to start with Perdito Street Station instead, but I haven't read it myself, yet.
  
• Warren Hammond's Kop and sequels - I feel like this series has been a bit neglected by this subreddit, and I don't know why I rarely see it mentioned here. IMO this series is better than Morgan's sequels to Altered Carbon.

My nomination might be quite a difficult read but it is short in comparison and may leave us invigorated.

Neuromancer by William Gibson [SCIFI,NS]

> * The Matrix is a world within the world, a global consensus- hallucination, the representation of every byte of data in cyberspace . . .
Case had been the sharpest data-thief in the business, until vengeful former employees crippled his nervous system. But now a new and very mysterious employer recruits him for a last-chance run. The target: an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence orbiting Earth in service of the sinister Tessier-Ashpool business clan. With a dead man riding shotgun and Molly, mirror-eyed street-samurai, to watch his back, Case embarks on an adventure that ups the ante on an entire genre of fiction.

Hope you like it.

Other works of fiction that contain the concept of a metaverse;

Books

• The Otherland series, by Tad Williams, beginning with City of Golden Shadow (sidenote, this series also has an MMORPG based on it, currently in closed beta, and recently (October of last year) brought back from the dead)
  
  
• The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons, beginning with Hyperion.
  
  
• The Golden Oecumene, by John C. Wright, beginning with The Golden Age.
  
  
• Accel World, by Reki Kawahara, beginning with Kuroyukihime's Return. (If you are familiar with the manganime Sword Art Online, this is by the same author, and shares the same universe)
  
  
• This Alien Shore, by Celia S. Friedman. (amazon link)
  
  
• The Sprawl Trilogy, by William Gibson, beginning with Neuromancer.
  
  
• Accelerando, by Charles Stross. (free e-book link)
  
  Anime and Manga
  
  
• The .hack series, specifically .hack//SIGN
  
  
• For a lighter feel, there's Summer Wars (available on CrunchyRoll) and the INCREDIBLY similar second Digimon movie, Our War Game!. Also I guess by extension, but not really explored as much, the entire Digimon series, as it takes place in an analogy for the internet.
  
  
• Serial Experiments Lain
  
  
• Okay fine, here's Sword Art Online (CrunchyRoll link)
  
  Film
  
  
• The Singularity is Near, a speculative documentary based on the Ray Kurzweil book of the same name.
  
  
• The Thirteenth Floor, a crime thriller about the owner of a VR simulation company getting murdered.
  
  ----
  
  I know I haven't even begun to scratch the surface of the genre, because if there's one thing humans are good at, it's writing fucktons on what we like.
  
  So feel free to comment additions to this list, or opinions on what I've currently included. I have by no means read/watched all of these, so having someone with actual experience with each of these weigh in would be nice.

Neuromancer by William Gibson.

Do you read cyberpunk? Looking at art is great but I find reading to be the biggest inspiration because how I imagine the world is unique and original to me. Likewise, how you imagin the world will be unique and original too and completely different from how I see it. Check out books like Neuromancer, the book that started cyberpunk.

[edit] One of my favorite quotes from the book

> His eyes were eggs of unstable crystal, vibrating with a frequency whose name was rain and the sound of trains, suddenly sprouting a humming forest of hair-fine glass spines.

Paints a different kind of picture than you can get from images.

Believe it or not there are quite a few good sci-fi books exploring these ideas already. Here is an incomplete list you may want to check out:

• Snow Crash where it's called the 'Metaverse'
  
• Otherland where it's called 'Otherland'
  
• Neuromancer where it's called 'The Matrix' (pre-dates the movie by the same name by more than 10 years, fyi)
  
• Hyperion where it's called the 'data plane'.

Good fiction excites the mind and teaches new concepts. Most future minded scientists are science fiction fans for that reason.

Snow Crash is just a fun ride. Pulp fiction, not more complex or involved than that. Enders Game is the same.

Try the fanfiction I recommended, or Understand (pdf) by Ted Chiang, or The Last Question by Asimov, or Baby Eating Aliens by Yudkowsky. All of these are free, by the way, and relatively short.

Each have important lessons embedded in good stories, philosphical quandries that we are rapidly approaching, like what will it mean to be human when we are no longer entirely biological?

Also, if you want just a reeeeeaallly good scifi book, I don't think you can go past Neuromancer by Gibson. Less thought provoking but seriously well written.

For sheer 'play in the virtual world' stuff, you MUST read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. You'll blaze through that, so follow it up with Stephenson's The Diamond Age


Good YA dystopic future stuff:
The Windup Girl

Station Eleven


Finally, get into Neuromancer, by William Gibson. It's a fantastic--some would say genre-defining--cyberpunk novel.

Then go devour everything Stephenson and Gibson put out there. That should get you through at least the first half of the summer. Happy reading!

I have several good recommendations for this one. First I will give you two fiction books you MUST read if this subject is a real interest of yours.

Islands In The Net by: Bruce Sterling
https://www.amazon.com/Islands-Net-Bruce-Sterling-ebook/dp/B00PDDKVXK/

Neuromancer by William Gibson
https://www.amazon.com/Neuromancer-William-Gibson/dp/0441569595

For non-fiction the one book that really did it for me was again by Mr. Sterling it's called The Hacker Crackdown and it is so amazing!!
https://www.amazon.com/Hacker-Crackdown-Disorder-Electronic-Frontier/dp/055356370X

Good luck. PM for more recommendations if you need them. This is a genre I am very interested in myself and have read extensively.

What are your top five must-own books?

Mine, in no real order are:
(I'll put in links when I get home)

1. Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain
   
2. Neuromancer - William Gibson
   
3. Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
   
4. Larousse Gastronomique - Prosper Montagné
   
5. Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert Heinlein
   
   edit: with amazon links

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0553380958?pc_redir=1404734999&robot_redir=1

Snow crash

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0441569595/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1404785560&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40

Neuromancer

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0307887448/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1404785598&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40

Ready Player One

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

Neuromancer https://www.amazon.com/dp/0441569595/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_bQNQBbPVB7VPK

That’s the copy I have.

I've recently read two books that I absolutely fell in love with:

1.) Stories of Your Life and Others: http://www.amazon.com/Stories-Your-Life-Others-Chiang/dp/1931520720/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1413578672&sr=8-1&keywords=stories+of+your+life+and+others

2.) Neuromancer (A classic that I've just gotten into): http://www.amazon.com/Neuromancer-William-Gibson/dp/0441569595/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1413578739&sr=8-1&keywords=neuromancer

I'm going to chip in Stephenson's Snow Crash should be on the list, as well as Gibson's Neuromancer.

Careful, if they become sentient they could start subtley creating their own sleeper agents. The Book

After loads of reading on the bus to work every day, here follows my reading list for military aviation:

Modern

• Viper Pilot - memoir of an F-16 Wild Weasel pilot who flew in both Iraq Wars
  
• A Nightmare's Prayer - memoir of a Marine Harrier Pilot flying out of Bagram.
  
• Warthog - Story of the A-10C pilots and their many varied missions in Desert Storm
  
• Hornets over Kuwait - Memoir of a Marine F/A-18 pilot during Desert Storm
  
• Strike Eagle - Story of the brand new F-15C Strike Eagle pilots and their time in Desert Storm
  
  

  Vietnam
  

• The Hunter Killers - look at the very first Wild Weasels, their inception, early development, successes, and failures
  
• Low Level Hell - memoir of an OH-6 Air Cav pilot
  
  

  WWII
  

• Unsung Eagles - various snapshots of the less well-known but arguably more impactful pilots and their missions during WWII (pilot who flew channel rescue in a P-47, morale demonstration pilot, etc.)
  
• Stuka Pilot - memoir of the most prolific aviator of Nazi Germany (and an unapologetic Nazi) who killed hundreds of tanks with his cannon-armed Stuka
  
• The First Team - more academic historical look at the first US Naval Aviators in WWII
  
  
  

  Overall/Other
  

• Skunk Works - memoir of Ben Rich, head of Lockeed's top secret internal firm and his time working on the U-2, SR-71, and F-117 including anecdotes from pilots of all 3 and accounts of these remarkable planes' exploits.
  
• Lords of the Sky - ambitious attempt to chronicle the rise and evolution of the "fighter pilot" from WWI to the modern day
  
• Red Eagles: America's Secret MiGs - the story of the long-top secret group of pilots who evaluated and flew captured Soviet aircraft against US pilots to train them against these unknown foes.
  
• Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage - story of the US submarine fleet starting at the outbreak of the Cold War and their exploits
  
  
  
  

  Bonus non-military aviation
  

  I highly second the recommendations of Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, and Diamond Age. I would also recommend:
  
  

• Neuromancer - defined the cyberpunk genre
  
• Ghost in the Wires - memoir of prolific hacker Kevin Mitnick
  
• Starship Troopers - nothing like the movie
  
• The Martian - fantastic read
  
• Heir to the Empire - first of the Star Wars Thrawn Trilogy and the book that arguably sparked the growth of the Extended Universe of Star Wars
  
• Devil in the White City - semi-fictional (mostly non-fiction) account of a serial killer who created an entire palace to capture and kill his prey during the Chicago World's Fair
  
• Good Omens - dark comedy story of a demon and an angel trying to stop the end of the world because they like us too much
  
• American Gods - fantastic story about how the old gods still walk among us
  
• Dune - just read it
  

There are a lot of dystopian future books that really aren't that similar to The Hunger Games or Divergent. Did you want books about people competing in cruel games in a dystopian future, or is it just the dystopian aspect you want to explore?

Either way, there's a huge field to choose from. Neuromancer. The Electric Church. The Running Man. Just to name a few.

That was so much fun!

And by the way. You are looking STUNNING today. Like, I can't look away! So... so... beautiful...

(also, I think I would like this from my wishlist)

Here is the mobile version of your link

Slant by Greg Bear

Neuromancer by William Gibson

Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke

• Ursula K Le Guin's Hainish Universe books: Worlds of Exile and Illusion, The Word for World is Forest, and The Left Hand of Darkness
  
• Iain M Banks' Culture Series
  
• Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series
  
• Vernor Vinge's Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky
  
• Charles Stross' Singularity books
  
• Robert A Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Stranger in a Strange Land, Starship Troopers, and Have Space Suit, Will Travel
  
• Michael Marshall Smith's Only Forward and Spares
  
• Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon
  
• William Gibson's Neuromancer
  
• Larry Niven's Ringworld and The Mote in God's Eye
  
• Frank Herbert's Dune series
  
• John Scalzi's Old Man's War series

So far as you know.

https://www.amazon.com/Neuromancer-William-Gibson/dp/0441569595

 

Check out r/cyberpunk

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_Carbon_(TV_series)

 

Neuromancer is coined as the novel that started it all in terms of what is known as cyberpunk today. Altered Carbon is a new show on netflix coming tomorrow and Blade Runner as far as I am concerned is the best sci fi movie ever made. r/cyberpunk is a good place to start your journey but feel free to message me and talk about cyberpunk stuff anytime you want.

I want that cover. All I have is this one. So lame.

Great! My address is 126 Albert Street, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, N2L 3T1. The edition I'm sending is http://www.amazon.com/dp/0441569595, and is in like-new condition.

I choose Neuromancer.

I have never read it but I have been told I need to. Also, Neuromancer is the first novel to win the Sci-Fi triple crown (Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick award). It came out in 1984 and coined the term "cyberspace" for online computer networks. Other terms such as ICE (Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics) were also coined or given significance through this novel. Also the term "Matrix" when referring to a computer network was used here (Suck on that Matrix trilogy).

7 bucks.