5 ms·

Gibson pioneered the genre - you have to give him that. He is very much off on a lot of details though. For example, in his other books, his descriptions of mer

Gibson pioneered the genre - you have to give him that. He is very much off on a lot of details though. For example, in his other books, his descriptions of mercenaries are comical at best for anyone who has a passing familiarity with the topic. Nonetheless, I place him up there with Stephenson. All this DESPITE the fact that Stephenson stands in a league of his own - he pioneered "post cyberpunk" with Diamond Age and went from having as much style as Gibson to as much scientific grounding as Asimov. With that said, Stephenson's latter books are all science, no char dev, no (interesting) story. I really can't think of an author who can stand with Stephenson. Vernor Vinge comes close, but not there on style. Then there are authors with a single good idea that are worth reading, but nowhere near Stephenson's level (e.g. the author of The Forever War). P.S. Obviously I am not so subtly fishing for people to argue with me and give me book recommendations. Just not the Tri-body Problem please - it falls in with The Forever War - cool concept, cool (very long) intro, not much else.

scrapheap 5y ago
I really enjoyed Stephenson's early works, but his later works I've read have all felt like they needed a bit more editing. Don't get me wrong, they're good, but would have really benefited from cutting some of the filler out or admitting they were multiple works and publishing them as a series.
nurbl 5y ago
Having not managed to finish a Stephenson book since "Snow Crash" (which I liked) i may not be in the best position to recommend something to you, but I really like Greg Egan. Truly idea-driven SF which also has interesting enough characters and story. I also like that his books are pretty short, even his trilogy is probably shorter than any single Stephenson book. Very little "fluff".
- Keyframe 5y ago
  Anything in particular you'd recommend? First time I hear about the guy.
  - mwigdahl 5y ago
    _Diaspora_ and _Permutation City_ are both excellent. If you don't want to commit to a full novel, his short story collections are all fantastic as well.
Apocryphon 5y ago
Bruce Sterling should also be remembered as a major contributor to the formation of the genre, on par with Gibson and Stephenson. Islands in the Net grounded future speculative tech in emerging real-world geopolitics, and Schismatrix took the genre into far future space, introducing the concept of cybernetics vs. biological augmentation.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  Also see Greg Bear's Blood Music, which came out a year before Neuromancer. There was also an early book about VR, which I can't remember the name of. It was about a reviewer of "apples" which gave the people who ate them something like a VR experience. Finally, the grandaddy of all of these was The Machine Stops[1], by E. M. Forster. Written in 1909, it predicted virtual reality, something like the internet, internet addiction, chat rooms, and more. [1] - https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/materials/the%20machine%20stops.pdf https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/materials/th...
- 8bitsrule 5y ago
  Sterling was also editor 'Vincent Omniaveritas' behind the early 80s zine 'Cheap Truth [0] collected here: [https://web.archive.org/web/19970315042849/http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/~erich/cheaptruth/ https://web.archive.org/web/19970315042849/http://www.csdl.t...], where it's described as 'a samizdat' circulated by 'a loose-knit group of SF writers (called by themselves "the Movement")'. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheap_Truth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheap_Truth
gpderetta 5y ago
Personally I think that Gibson is vastly superior to Stephenson. As for recommendations about post-cyberpunk: our own cstross has written plenty of great books (Accelerando in primis); I've liked anything that Peter Watts as written so far (Blindsight is the most famous, but the rifters saga is also good and the Sunflower cycles is excellent). Alastair Reynolds writing is very uneven, but world building is excellent and so are many of his stories (even outside of the Revelation Space universe). More generally, Egan (hard sci-fi), Banks (space opera) are some of my favorites. Vance, Wolfe for something more on the fantasy side.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  Both Egan and Vinge have been very disappointing to me. I read them because they wrote a lot about the singularity, but found them to be extremely boring, dry and unimaginative. Stephenson's Snow Crash was also very underwhelming. I'm more of a fan of Dick, Herbert, and Lem.
  - throw1234651234 5y ago
    I read Lem when I was young and it was a chore. I read him again when I was older and found his stuff to be pretty dated. I couldn't even remember what Herbert wrote, even though I read Dune (not the 1000 follow ups though) recently. It made almost no impression on me. Maybe it's like War & Peace where it has been copied so much that the original doesn't seem that, well, original. Not sure who Dick is. The only overlap we seem to have is our dislike for Egan. I read a LOT of his short stories (recommended by fans of Lem btw), and it was just entirely boring - the only one I remember is about a health-check ring and two aliens deciding to die after being immortal for a while. Nothing new in there, no story. Basically Egan and Lem seem like the worst of Stephenson - intellectual theory with zero story. It's funny - I like relatively hard sci-fi, but I still insist on it not being a science/social theory book. Random note - I don't think Clarke was mentioned yet. I read "Rendezvous with Rama" after all the Ouamuamua comparisons and it came off as pretty dry as well, though very well written. To conclude, I am trying, and having a hard time reconciling why our preferences differ so much. I always think I am missing something, especially about Lem, but I can't tell what.
Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
"Bruce Sterling - Islands in the Net": not as gritty-noir as Neuromancer, not as pop-cynic as Snow Crash but a genre classic imho. T.R.Napper is also worth looking out for. "Neon Leviathan" is not what i would call a masterpiece, but the author seems promising.
the__alchemist 5y ago
Adrian tsicoholsky's Children of Time duo are the only Sci-fi books I've read that can stand with Stephenson. Give it a try! (Assuming you're not an arachnophobe)
soco 5y ago
I loved the Jean le Flambeur trilogy of Hannu Rajaniemi. It's a similar experience to reading Neuromancer in the 80s.

scrapheap 5y ago

I really enjoyed Stephenson's early works, but his later works I've read have all felt like they needed a bit more editing. Don't get me wrong, they're good, but would have really benefited from cutting some of the filler out or admitting they were multiple works and publishing them as a series.

nurbl 5y ago

Having not managed to finish a Stephenson book since "Snow Crash" (which I liked) i may not be in the best position to recommend something to you, but I really like Greg Egan. Truly idea-driven SF which also has interesting enough characters and story. I also like that his books are pretty short, even his trilogy is probably shorter than any single Stephenson book. Very little "fluff".

Keyframe 5y ago
Anything in particular you'd recommend? First time I hear about the guy.
- mwigdahl 5y ago
  _Diaspora_ and _Permutation City_ are both excellent. If you don't want to commit to a full novel, his short story collections are all fantastic as well.

Apocryphon 5y ago

Bruce Sterling should also be remembered as a major contributor to the formation of the genre, on par with Gibson and Stephenson. Islands in the Net grounded future speculative tech in emerging real-world geopolitics, and Schismatrix took the genre into far future space, introducing the concept of cybernetics vs. biological augmentation.

pmoriarty 5y ago
Also see Greg Bear's Blood Music, which came out a year before Neuromancer. There was also an early book about VR, which I can't remember the name of. It was about a reviewer of "apples" which gave the people who ate them something like a VR experience. Finally, the grandaddy of all of these was The Machine Stops[1], by E. M. Forster. Written in 1909, it predicted virtual reality, something like the internet, internet addiction, chat rooms, and more. [1] - https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/materials/the%20machine%20stops.pdf https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/materials/th...
8bitsrule 5y ago
Sterling was also editor 'Vincent Omniaveritas' behind the early 80s zine 'Cheap Truth [0] collected here: [https://web.archive.org/web/19970315042849/http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/~erich/cheaptruth/ https://web.archive.org/web/19970315042849/http://www.csdl.t...], where it's described as 'a samizdat' circulated by 'a loose-knit group of SF writers (called by themselves "the Movement")'. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheap_Truth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheap_Truth

gpderetta 5y ago

Personally I think that Gibson is vastly superior to Stephenson. As for recommendations about post-cyberpunk: our own cstross has written plenty of great books (Accelerando in primis); I've liked anything that Peter Watts as written so far (Blindsight is the most famous, but the rifters saga is also good and the Sunflower cycles is excellent). Alastair Reynolds writing is very uneven, but world building is excellent and so are many of his stories (even outside of the Revelation Space universe). More generally, Egan (hard sci-fi), Banks (space opera) are some of my favorites. Vance, Wolfe for something more on the fantasy side.

pmoriarty 5y ago
Both Egan and Vinge have been very disappointing to me. I read them because they wrote a lot about the singularity, but found them to be extremely boring, dry and unimaginative. Stephenson's Snow Crash was also very underwhelming. I'm more of a fan of Dick, Herbert, and Lem.
- throw1234651234 5y ago
  I read Lem when I was young and it was a chore. I read him again when I was older and found his stuff to be pretty dated. I couldn't even remember what Herbert wrote, even though I read Dune (not the 1000 follow ups though) recently. It made almost no impression on me. Maybe it's like War & Peace where it has been copied so much that the original doesn't seem that, well, original. Not sure who Dick is. The only overlap we seem to have is our dislike for Egan. I read a LOT of his short stories (recommended by fans of Lem btw), and it was just entirely boring - the only one I remember is about a health-check ring and two aliens deciding to die after being immortal for a while. Nothing new in there, no story. Basically Egan and Lem seem like the worst of Stephenson - intellectual theory with zero story. It's funny - I like relatively hard sci-fi, but I still insist on it not being a science/social theory book. Random note - I don't think Clarke was mentioned yet. I read "Rendezvous with Rama" after all the Ouamuamua comparisons and it came off as pretty dry as well, though very well written. To conclude, I am trying, and having a hard time reconciling why our preferences differ so much. I always think I am missing something, especially about Lem, but I can't tell what.

Jon_Lowtek 5y ago

"Bruce Sterling - Islands in the Net": not as gritty-noir as Neuromancer, not as pop-cynic as Snow Crash but a genre classic imho. T.R.Napper is also worth looking out for. "Neon Leviathan" is not what i would call a masterpiece, but the author seems promising.

the__alchemist 5y ago

Adrian tsicoholsky's Children of Time duo are the only Sci-fi books I've read that can stand with Stephenson. Give it a try! (Assuming you're not an arachnophobe)

soco 5y ago

I loved the Jean le Flambeur trilogy of Hannu Rajaniemi. It's a similar experience to reading Neuromancer in the 80s.