Just picked up Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Any recommendations on what to read after this one? I also have Piranesi Susanna Clarke on my backlog, but would like something in a similar technological fashion as Snow Crash
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Neuromancer is great and has a similar tech level, though it's more abstract and a little harder to follow. Ready Player One is also in that vein but not as good as Snow Crash. The video game Cyberpunk 2077 was heavily influenced by Snow Crash and it's sister anime Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is excellent. You don't have to play or know anything about the game to watch the show
I've read all three but in terms of quality Ready Player One shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath as Neuromancer or Snow Crash. Those two was genre defining unique originals that were a departure from sci-fi of that time. Ready Player One was a list of movies the author enjoyed. It can be a funny, silly, relaxing read if you just want junk food, but it's not really comparable to the others.
I read Neuromancer when it came out, in the 80's. It was mindblowing. My parents had just bought our first microwave around then, the cordless phone in the house was like a huge walky talky, I was a huge nerd because I had a Commodore 64...
I tried Ready Player One, but I struggled to get into it, and it's actually what got me on to Snow Crash in the first place
Could not stand Neuromancer. I think it’s historically important for really inventing the cyberpunk genre. But the story is cocaine riddled and most of the characters are flat.
It's one of my favorite books, I personally really enjoyed it.
Yeah I'm with you same for Count Zero. Snow Crash I enjoyed more, but none of them changed my world.
Unrelated, but I can never not recommend Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon .
Magnum opus. ~1000 pages of what-happens-next, unresolved until the very last paragraph of the very last page.
Cryptonomicon is his best work imo. It is such a vibe all the way through, and absolutely hilarious at times. The masturbation analysis and graphs, and the cereal tangent get me every time.
Cryptonomicon is such a good book. Even the audiobook is done really well.
Book was written like it was a wannabe movie script. Predictable and kinda shallow, IMO. Not bad, but not really great either.
I thought the meta-narrative around data structure and patterns (Enoch Root) against the Indiana Jones-esque adventures was absolutely amazing.
Just looked this up and it has gone straight on to my backlog, thanks for the recommendation!
Cheers and enjoy!
Snowcrash is such an entertaining romp, made all the more spectacular considering that when published, ideas like avatar and cyberspace (both terms coined by Stephenson I’m told) were wildly futuristic, bordering on precognitive, considered now passé only a generation later.
Stephenson is a seer.
Diamond Age
Despite loving Neuromancer and a lot of cyberpunk literature I couldn't really get into Snow Crash. It's too ironic and over the top for my taste. I did love Anathem though, it's probably one of my favorite books! Would you say I'd enjoy Diamond Age?
I preferred Anathem over Snow Crash but they're very different, for instance Anathem has a very slow start. I thought the Sprawl sequence (Neuromancer etc) got more and more like Snow Crash with each book.
I loved Anathem, and the fact that it takes 300 pages before anything happens is wonderful. It's been 15 years or so since I read it once and I still remember most of it; while I read Diamond Age twice but don't have much that got retained over a decade later
Oh absolutely. I was kinda disappointed when it turned into a relatively standard action adventure near the end. I was hoping for a couple hundred more pages of slice-of-math-life.
Cyberpunk as a genre is generally self aware that it's a ridiculous noir pastiche and leans into it for camp value even early on.
Snow Crash makes more sense when you realize it was written to be a comic book. The conceits of comics don't translate to a novel unless fully re written.
Here to second a recommendation for Diamond Age.
thanks i loved the other two gonna try this one.
not truly related but scanner darkly kinda in same genre. more related to addictions though.
Funny, in reading Diamond Age right now. So far so good.
Diamond age is great
I much prefered diamond age to snow crash. I liked them both but found that snow crash started strong and didn't quite maintain.
Diamond age
I would go with Accelerando, or Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, if you're ready for slightly lighter fare.
Or Little Brother, which is also by Cory Doctorow.
100%, it just didn't leave as big an impression with me - probably just because I didn't read it when I was young.
Sure, it is a young adult book.
But OP, anything by Cory D would fit the bill, IMO.
Just added Accelerando to my backlog. Thanks for the recommendation 😀
It goes to some weird places, but it's a fun ride.
If you enjoyed Neal Stephenson's 'Snow Crash' ; might I recommend 'Snow Crash' by Neal Stephenson?
Crytonomicon next, then if you want to continue that story (sort of) The Baroque Cycle (three books).
Of his, I also loved Anathem, ReamDe (lots of Washington locations), and Termination Shock. And SeveneveS. (geez, I read a lot of his stuff).
I used to be his neighbor on Lake Washington in Seattle. Nice dude.
Fall; or, Dodge in Hell was also great.
The idea of simulating people's minds and what they would look like from their perspective along with a pile biblical/classic mythology metaphors.
I tried reading that book three times already and had to give up about a third of the way in. I want to like it so much too.
It's a slow burn, but a great one. I'd put it up right behind 'Neuromancer' on the Gibson scale.
Ramez Naam’s Nexus trilogy.
That, then Daemon
It's criminal how few people I talk to know about Daemon/Freedom. So good even if they're starting to age a bit.
The peripheral is great.
Loved this one. The series fizzles out a bit, but this one is great.
Gibson’s books are really good, but they can also be a chore sometimes. He swaps in and out so many different characters I never really feel like I’m getting any continuity.
The Peripheral is one of the better ones with some good characters, but IMO some of his other books don’t flow so well.
Seveneves which is also by Neal was a fascinating premise that kept going unexpected interesting places. If you like Snow Crash I'd recommend that next.
I’ll give that one a so-so rating IMO. It took forever to reach the inevitable catastrophe, it really felt dragged out. However, I found the post-event culture, technology, and societal groups fascinating…and as soon as things got interesting he ended the story. I’d gladly read a series about those cultures, there was tons of room for worldbuilding.
(Sorry about the indirect wording, I don’t want to give up any spoilers)
Honestly, I do agree. The original premise is fairly standard, it's the latter half that truly pops off. I think it's wotth it to go through the setup, but I won't push back on it dragging initially. That future culture would be the most interesting.
Have you read anything from the Imperial Radch series by Ann Leckie? Ancillary Justice? It's high concept world building on a universal scale that delivers. Leckie is my new favorite author.
I‘m literally just starting that one now.
I enjoyed the first half, but the second half was just strange. Like everyone in each gene line has the exact same personality and features? Meh.
Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days
And then the rest of Alastair Reynold's entire bib, tbh
The expanse series was pretty sweet.
Also the ancillary series by Anne Leckie was really good
The Zoey Ashe series by Jason Pargin, some wrote under the pseudonym David Wong.
More a comedic take on the genre, but still a fun read.
More recent, I enjoyed The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport and it is different but somehow a similar vibe, I think you would like that one.
I'd throw The Windup Girl out there too, though it goes more towards biopunk then cyberpunk.
What a wild ride that was. Yeah, do go get
reamde, which is more grounded to our current world.Ironically the book was so much of an influence to the current generation of techbros trying to ruin our reality.
I’m gonna go a slightly different direction.
Try the Firefall series by Peter Watts.
Think a little more like a futuristic Vampire story. It’s supposed to be horror, like Alien I think, but I didn’t find it scary. Just a fun take on the genre.
Perhaps Halting State. Piranesi is a great read though.
I don't understand how tech-bros (neal stephenson included) can look at Snow Crash and be like "hell yeah, I'm the hiro in this story!"
When gravity fails and the rest of the budayeen cycle is one of my favorites.
I fucking loved Piranesi
Thanks everyone for the responses and recommendations! I didn't expect this post to drive so much engagement, and I'm a bit overwhelmed by the responses waking up today haha. I'll try to respond as the day goes on. Thanks again all!
Escapology is one I liked that I don't see mentioned often. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27039139-escapology