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Books like Snow Crash that aren't Snow Crash?
Ayulin
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So I just finished rereading Snow Crash, and I decided I love it. The first time I finished it was in the middle of the night when I was half asleep, so pretty much everything flew way over my head; who knew that actually understanding a book can lead to enjoying it? :P
But now I want more. And aside from a reference in The Diamond Age (according to Wikipedia, anyway), there isn't an actual sequel to Snow Crash. Everything was tied up pretty neatly by the end, so I don't know what a sequel would be about anyway, but still.
So in lieu of that, what books are similar? I haven't touched anything else related to cyberpunk, so any recommendations would be much appreciated.
But now I want more. And aside from a reference in The Diamond Age (according to Wikipedia, anyway), there isn't an actual sequel to Snow Crash. Everything was tied up pretty neatly by the end, so I don't know what a sequel would be about anyway, but still.
So in lieu of that, what books are similar? I haven't touched anything else related to cyberpunk, so any recommendations would be much appreciated.
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I read them anyways.
Also 'Jennifer Government' is easier reading, but something I would also recommend.
(and because I always recommend this book) Everyone everywhere should read 'John dies at the end'.
Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Brave New World, Transmetropolitan (comic book series), Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (and tons of other stuff Philip K. Dick wrote), Gun with Occasional Music, Cryptonomicon, Cat's Cradle (and other Vonnegut), Virtual Light, Idoru, All Tomorrow's Parties, Altered Carbon.
Great list, thanks. I'm in the same exact situation as the author. Actually my bigger problem right now is finding these books provided somewhere online. I dug up Snow Crash by accident on some site and just friggin loved it. I'm stuck with a love for strange things, this type of book among them.... had to order in Hitchhikers Guide, and it took 7 months, just to give an example.
PSN - sumowot
Amazon.com typically ships these things within a week and the local library is more or less instant.
I don't - they did need an editor but if you know how to speed read past the boring bits they are really entertaining.
Any good cyberpunk should have the action, tech and badassery from Snow Crash. It's just the humor that I rarely see captured. John Scalzi books have that feel but they're more space opera than cyberpunk, more Heinlein-esque storytelling and action.
It's not cyberpunk, but for scifi and humor I recommend Neal Asher's Spatterjay books - The Skinner, The Voyage of the Sable Keech and Orbus. Great stuff.
edit: wikipedia summarizes his style.
Have you read the Diamond Age?
Oh, good catch! I also enjoy Asher's work, it has some cyberpunk elements with all the transhumanism and AIs running rampant, but you're right it's far more a Space Opera/James Bond in Space (especially the agent Cormac stuff). Asher's non-polity book book about time travel, Cowl is also awesome. You know, you may enjoy Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth saga too. Again it's space opera not cyberpunk, but there's lots of badasses being badass with the aid of gadgetry, cybernetic and otherwise, while overall being really cool, likable and at times quite funny.
You probably should specify what aspects of Snow Crash you're looking for in future reading, lol.
I actually worked at work on Saturday. Also I went out on a date with a real life girl.
Can you like, permanently break the forums?
I make a point of re-reading Neuromancer every couple of years, just for the bit at the end.
And fallaxdraco yeah I'm not totally sorry I read the entire goddamn thing, but it's a mixed bag. There are some really interesting parts for sure. I read the 2nd and 3rd before the first for some reason too. So that was crazy. But I think I liked it better that way.
What's the key difference between Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon? What should I read that falls much closer to the Snow Crash side than the Cryptonomicon side?
Out of the three things TychoCelchuu boiled it down to above (sci-fi, cyberpunk and humour), I guess I'm mainly looking for the latter two. I loved Hitchhiker's Guide too, but that doesn't have the same feel Snow Crash does, obviously.
What I liked specifically about Snow Crash (as in, it's unlikely other books will have these exact elements), spoilered for mild length and minor spoilers:
The narrative. Not all the details are given right off the bat. There are a few chapters early on which aren't in exact chronological order, and nearer to the end of the book (in a rather specific example here) he mentions Hiro and Y.T. having eaten fast food together many times, which is not shown at all. It's like only the extremely important things are shown in the book, with stuff which is less important (but not minor) are left out - another example is how he skips forward quite a bit by ending a particular sequence with words to the effect of "after that it's just a chase scene."
The humour, definitely. It's a not 100% srs business, but it's not the Hitchhiker's Guide. It's a very nice mix.
Similar to my first point, the believability. Technology isn't too far advanced, people still use cars and planes to get around, etc. On the other hand, it isn't so grounded in reality that it seems like it takes place tomorrow.
The characters.
Unfortunately anything from Amazon, or with a value over $10, is instantly stolen in the mail here. It's been getting much better since they reformed their mail system but there's lots that doesn't get through. The joys of post-office boxes and corruption.
PSN - sumowot
What's it like compared to Little Brother? I think LB was written for young adults or youth - I found the style pretty offputting, but the story was good enough. I both love and hate Cory. I blame boingboing.
PSN - sumowot
I haven't read Little Brother, so I can't compare. I've got Cory's "I, Robot" on my Kindle but haven't gotten around to reading it yet - "Down and Out in MK" is the only book of his I've read. I think he did a good job with the setting (similar to Snow Crash and Neuromancer), but I wasn't wild about the characters or the plot - they were OK, but not "OMG I must read more ASAP".
There's another trilogy by Gibson set slightly nearer in the future as well Virtual Light, Idoru and All Tomorrow's Parties, but I'm not at all sure about the order there because it's been a while since I read them heh.
I quite enjoyed Makers. I read the print version, but apparently he's released it for free digitally. Not sure I can call it cyberpunk, in which the characters are ... obviously hip? But I don't find that to be a detraction. I will say that initially I didn't find the characters believable, but after 100 pages (which I'll give any work) it either worked itself out or I didn't care. I haven't read any of his other stuff, but probably will since I enjoyed Makers.
Edit: Makers is a Cory Doctorow book. People complain sometimes I do not give sufficient context, to which I reply that they aren't listening closely enough. But whatevs.
Now that I've finished both of them, I am hungry for more Stephenson. I started the sample for Cryptonomicon but if there are better books to read first, I'd love to hear about them.
Woah woah now. Saying Diamond Age and Snow Crash are similar universes is just slapping the books in the face. I would say that the #1 thing Stephenson pulls off so elegantly that makes those books so famous is how comprehensive his universes are.
He doesn't just change the technology and then copy+paste everything else from our current lives into it. He really thinks about how the technologies he writes about change everything about the universe. What's class structure like? Social relations? Conversations? Aspirations? How does morality change in these universes?
The universes are very different in my mind, and that's precisely why I love both books so much. To me, calling them the same is like saying, "Oh yeah, Dune and Star Wars The Phantom Menace are pretty much set in the same universe. You know, they're both science fiction books based in the desert after all."
Quicksilver was pretty much like chewing on gravel and hoping there was a sweet nougaty center somewhere inside (pro-tip: there isn't).
charles stross: accellerando, glasshouse and halting state. traking down more of his books now... a colder war is up online if you search for it.
iain m banks: culture novels.
david j williams: the burning skies/mirrored heavens
peter f. hamilton: nights dawn / void series (beware, he gets paid by weight, so the books are extremely thick... but still entertaining).
why yes, i'm on a cyberpunk/space opera kick, why do you ask?
re:stephenson - i didn't like the quicksilver books. zodiac was pretty damn entertaining. diamond age and snow crash are damn fine books too. but anathem rocked my multiverse. ommmmmmmmmmmmm.
Lol, what? Just because the world and its technology and social structure changed over time doesn't mean it's not the same universe, your Dune vs. Star Wars analogy is flawed, a better example would have been Dune vs. Chapterhouse: Dune, many things have drastically changed but it's still the same universe (but a different setting).
I mean, Y.T. even has a cameo in The Diamond Age, for crying out loud! It's definitely the same universe and that fact doesn't detract from either book in any way.
I also did some poking around Wikipedia and TVTropes (as legitimate a reference as any >.>), and it seems "postcyberpunk" stuff may be more of what I'm looking for. Is that right, or is there no real difference?
Cyberpunk heavily features lawless individuals caught in the shadowy cracks between the faceless megacorporations, fighting back against The Corporate Man - it's all born out of a fear in the 80s of corporations getting more and more power and influence and simply starting to take over. Cyberpunk (post-Gibson at least; I feel that Gibson just extrapolated without wanting to be a rebel about it) was a form of revolution against this, as well as a revolution against a science fiction genre that was turning pretty stale.
Wikipedia sums post-cyberpunk up nicely:
I feel that definition is very spot on. It evolved from the rebels fighting against the faceless megacorps in a dirty, polluted world to a flawed but essentially decent and well-functioning society, with the protagonists often being agents working to protect this society from external forces threatening their way of life.
...but now we're turning to D&D territory. I don't mind continuing in the reading thread over there.
But yeah, postcyberpunk is worth a shot if you want more of this. I'll recommend Neal Asher a third time. :P
Well it's not really a spoiler, basically an old woman remarks about her skateboarding days and everyone who read Snow Crash grins.
Neuromancer: Uh. I think this one completely flew over my head, since I didn't really get it. The beginning I understood, but it went way downhill from there on. The bits near the end had the same kind of action I liked from Snow Crash, but I didn't understand why it was happening. Think I'll have to give this one another go in the future :P
(Clarification: I understood it in bits and pieces, but I don't think I got the full picture as to what was going on or why. Maybe that was intentional, though, as it seemed part of the whole point was that the protagonist himself didn't really know why he was asked to do the things he was.)
The Diamond Age: This one I understood, although it ended pretty abruptly IMO. (Maybe I didn't understand it so well after all, heh.) It just seemed like the very last portion could've been fleshed out a bit more than it was - as it stands it almost seemed like he was running out of space and had to cut it short.
Neither scratched the same itch Snow Crash did, but The Diamond Age came pretty close. Lots of moments where I grinned at the events that were going on, either for the humour or for the situation itself being awesome.
If there's any more recommendations for a) postcyberpunk; b) funny but not a comedy; that haven't already been mentioned, though, I'm still open to suggestions
Edit: and it's funny!
If Neuromancer went over his head, Pynchon's going to go straight through it and leave a gaping cavity, an exit wound the size of postmodernity that will never heal up.
Neuromancer is one of my all time favorite books. That said, I no longer recommend it to people. The reason being that every person I have told to read Neuromancer had the exact same reaction you did. Many of them never even bothered to finish the book, after simply getting lost halfway through.