The RP1 1-Star Club discussion

If anyone here knows of virtual-reality themed books that suck much less than RP1, please feel free to suggest

I'll post one, which was an interesting read for me:
Neuromancer, by William Gibson.

It does quite a few things right:
- It is sexy and gritty.
- The gal has backbone and is nobody's trophy.
- It is a lot more imaginative. When Gibson says "future", he means FUTURE. No youTube. However, the more things change, the more they stay same. People are still motivated by the same primal desires.
- It was written 30 years ago and still kicks ass.

I never read any other book by Gibson, will try one soon.

I think Neuromancer is considered the end-all-be-all when it comes to VR/cyberpunk. I haven't read anything else of his either, but I've heard good things about the other books in his "Sprawl" cycle. They take place in the same world as Neuromancer. There are three shorts and two books other than Neuromancer. Shorts: Johnny Mnemonic (apparently nothing like the movie), New Rose Hotel, Burning Chrome. Books: Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive.

A lot of people recommend "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson but there are plenty of detractors saying it's sophomoric and, like RP1, has long infodumps. Replace the 80's with Sumerian mythology, apparently. I'm staying away from that one.

Yup. Neuromancer was indeed something else. I only found that "Sprawl" is a thing through GoodReads, and so the other two are on my to-read list, near the top.

Do you want to add Neuromancer to the bookshelf?

Might not be a bad idea. I read the book when I was a teenager, so I'm thinking of re-reading to see how much I didn't understand at that age.

:) I do that a lot.

Sometimes (e.g. Asimov robot novels) I'm aghast at how clueless I used to be.

But sometimes (Neuromancer, The Stars My Destination) I'm amazed that I had my shit well enough together in order to appreciate them.

I just recently picked up "Count Zero", a sequel for Neuromancer.

By odd happenstance, somewhere in the first chapters there's a hapless hacker that goes where he shouldn't, gets found, and his residence is bombed. (Not a significant spoiler)

What a difference in writing ability...

So far (20% through) it's like coming back home. (If you can call Gibson's visual boxing arena that)

I couldn't get past the first few pages of Snow Crash. Like an even more self-important RP1, if you can imagine.

Not quite VR, but I really like M.T. Anderson's Feed. It's a YA novel about what might happen if Google Glass went from over your eyes to inside your brain.

Ouch.

I'll look up "feed". Just re-read Cat's Cradle (which was awesome again) and looking for something fresh.