SFiRAL - Science Fiction I've Read And Loved

[Voidmatrix]

I am revisiting Neuromancer as an audiobook. I really appreciate and love this story, especially as the conceptual and stuctural foundation for cyberpunk as a genre. It resonates deeply with me because I have been playing Shadown Run for nearly 15 years. Shadow Run is a open-book, table-top, role-playing game set in the 2070's with advancements in technology as well as a resurgence of magic. It's a pretty cool world they've created over the last nearly 40 years. It's also engaging because I had read Shadow Run novels before reading Neuromancer, and so reading Neuromancer is similar, being the basis for half the world that is entailed in Shadow Run.

It's like actually witnessing the genesis of something.

One love

 

[Nydex]

I am revisiting Neuromancer as an audiobook. I really appreciate and love this story, especially as the conceptual and stuctural foundation for cyberpunk as a genre. It resonates deeply with me because I have been playing Shadown Run for nearly 15 years. Shadow Run is a open-book, table-top, role-playing game set in the 2070's with advancements in technology as well as a resurgence of magic. It's a pretty cool world they've created over the last nearly 40 years. It's also engaging because I had read Shadow Run novels before reading Neuromancer, and so reading Neuromancer is similar, being the basis for half the world that is entailed in Shadow Run.

It's like actually witnessing the genesis of something.

One love

I've been on the fence about reading Neuromancer for many years now. It seems like the sci-fi community is split dead-center regarding that book - some love it, others absolutely hate it. I might pick it up one day, but for now my to-read list is long enough as is, far longer than reasonable to be precise

If you love this world setting, you definitely need to play Cyberpunk 2077. It's one of the most amazing games I've ever played. It does require a pretty hefty gaming machine to run it well though, so there's that... But in terms of games in the cyberpunk setting, it really doesn't get deeper and more authentic than that. Truly a masterpiece, despite it having a very rough launch.

 

[Pumpy]

I just finished reading Solaris by legendary polish science-fiction author Stanisław Lem, whose work I've been sleeping on for far too long.

Have you read Blindsight by Peter Watts? That book has similar first contact vibes but with a more hard scifi bent. He has it and other books on his website rifters.com to read for free.

Neuromancer

reading Neuromancer

Neuromancer is an era defining classic and an easy read! Gibson writes nice tight little books imo although i haven't read any of his later ones yet. i never hear anyone mention his later stuff

 

[Nydex]

Have you read Blindsight by Peter Watts? That book has similar first contact vibes but with a more hard scifi bent. He has it and other books on his website rifters.com to read for free.

No, I've never even heard of Peter Watts. He does have a fair number of books. Looking at the back cover of this book, I don't think I'll pick it up anytime soon. I'm all for putting regular people in extraordinary circumstances, because this provides a more stable anchor upon which the reader can relate to these characters. The main cast that the author chose for this book sounds, to put it lightly, absurd:

"a linguist with multiple personalities, her brain surgically partitioned into separate, sentient processing cores"
"a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees X-rays and tastes ultrasound, so compromised by grafts and splices he no longer feels his own flesh"
"a pacifist warrior"
"an extinct hominid predator once called “vampire,” recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths"

No, I'm good, thanks. As someone in the reviews put it, "You can smell the desperation. It's like a salesman with his foot in the door shouting that you really need to buy now. A bunch of misfits, each colourfully designed to appeal to halfwit fanboys, all of whom either hate each other or are in love with each other or both?"

 

[Voidmatrix]

No, I've never even heard of Peter Watts. He does have a fair number of books. Looking at the back cover of this book, I don't think I'll pick it up anytime soon. I'm all for putting regular people in extraordinary circumstances, because this provides a more stable anchor upon which the reader can relate to these characters. The main cast that the author chose for this book sounds, to put it lightly, absurd:

No, I'm good, thanks. As someone in the reviews put it, "You can smell the desperation. It's like a salesman with his foot in the door shouting that you really need to buy now. A bunch of misfits, each colourfully designed to appeal to halfwit fanboys, all of whom either hate each other or are in love with each other or both?"

The pejorative and inflammatory use of "voodoo" always drives me nuts .

One love

 

[Nydex]

The pejorative and inflammatory use of "voodoo" always drives me nuts .

One love

Yeah, that and people trying to fit the already ridiculous idea of a vampire into a science fiction setting lmao