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

 

[Pumpy]

I forgot about the vampire! That reviewer seems ridiculously unaware of the wider genre of scifi. I personally don't see how these characters are somehow colourfully designed to appeal to halfwit fanboys. It's scifi and the characters are genetically / surgically altered. We've already suspended disbelief enough to allow space travel and aliens if we're looking at first contact! Oh well to each her own

 

[blig-blug]

I mean, I don't think I would like those books either, but different people have different tastes, and I think @Pumpy was just recommending something he personally likes in the hopes you would like it too, which is something nice to do.

 

[Nydex]

I mean, I don't think I would like those books either, but different people have different tastes, and I think @Pumpy was just recommending something he personally likes in the hopes you would like it too, which is something nice to do.

I never said it wasn't I'm just saying that if I had to make a decision just on the description of this book, I wouldn't touch it. I already have like 10 legendary first contact novels in my to-read list, which is far too long as is already, so it's not like I'm starved of this type of novel to begin with. I appreciate the recommendation though, that's partially what this thread is for after all.

 

[Pumpy]

I'm not married to Blindsight ; it's been sixteen years since someone linked to it on metafilter and i clicked. I remember the story about its publishing(his publisher sucked more or less so he gave away the book for free on his website which led to long term success) more than the book's contents
I do have a candidate for book 11 :

I've been saving this book for a reread having finally found it after forgetting the title for years. It's set in semi rural 1980's Appalachia, if not that somewhere southern US and rural but not remote. The protagonist lives with his brother in a house in the middle of the woods. His brother sells speed or generally drugs or something, has chemicals and maybe a crude lab. The crisis from page 1 is that our man (can't remember his name) has come upon a severely injured unconscious lizard man (v clearly not human) while walking alone through the woods one day. He looks like he was in a car accident or something despite the nearest road being miles away, his body bloody and disheveled. Our caring protagonist nurses the stranger back to health at his home and then... [at some early point i think his brother gets arrested or something, i don't remember him much]

I love this book. It's written in first person, the main character is as naive as the first time reader (or more), and despite changes in scope and tone retains the gritty realism that it starts with. I'm not sure how much more to spoil. I think the cover pic does a little. Turns out that the reptilian looking accident victim was a member of an intergalactic interspecies nation and he decides to, against the protestations of other members of that body, induct our helpful appalachian in as a full independent citizen, which is a process and will take some time. Meanwhile our hero is whisked off earth in a spaceship[think they left in a hurry because of some danger caused by the drug dealer brother / cops chasing him] and will be living around aliens for the foreseeable future.