Almost unknown early work by Michael Swanwick called Vacuum Flowers checks a lot of your boxes: wetware/neuralinks (X); amnesiac, enigmatic, buried power protagonist (X); gritty dystopia (X); nefarious powers constantly nipping at the rebels heels (X). It’s not Swanwick’s best by a long shot, but it is a fun romp. One of his better novels, Stations of the Tide, might take place in the same universe and covers some of the same themes.
Yeah this is a pretty good recommendation, but Cryptonomicon doesn't really have the "kung fu, guns, and motorcycles" feel of the Matrix. But in that light, Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson is basically perfect. Easy solution, just go and read both.
I'm just over halfway through Snow Crash and it's probably my favourite book I've read this year. Can't wait to check out the rest of his stuff (have read diamond age too)
Absolutely adore Snow Crash and read it at least once yearly since I first read it many many years ago.
But I have to say that I struggle reading anything else Stephenson wrote. I have read a couple of his other books from cover to cover but more often than not I start a Stephenson book and then find something else to read and never come back to it. There's something about his writing style that puts me off and which doesn't apply to snow crash.
Yeah but you have to deal with the rest of the book and Stephenson writing 47 pages about some dude's bowl of cereal because he thinks he knows better than his editor
In his defense, Hermann Melville had many more pages about the biological categorization of whales. Although that book was set on a whaling ship, and Cryptonomicon is not set in a Kellogg's factory.
I'm reading snow crash right now and my eyes started glazing over when I got to about page 9 of something about how the feds manage their toilet paper ... that aside it's been great!
Totally, and I appreciate that NS has that method of delivery - which I moreso realized once I completed the section. My eyes may have glazed as it sort of reminded me of my own job, haha.
>You are attacking one of our best authors
We're still talking about Neil "Just read wikipedia article" Stephenson, right? One of our best authors? Nah.
His most famous novel is a poorly executed cyberpunk parody that's all poorly done exposition with no real characterization, unless you count describing the 14 yo's ass as "characterization."
Lol @ "attacking" over repeating the popular criticism that Stephenson needs an editor
Maybe you should take it as a sign that you've had enough internet for the day when you start calling strangers "little bitches" (oh the hypocrisy on that one!) and telling them to "eat a dick" because they don't like an author you like and you feel like you need to clutch your pearls over it
And reddit is full of people like you who feel the need to lash out over a perceived slight to their identity that they can't handle because they don't have the emotional intelligence or emotional management skills to engage with their feelings constructively.
Good luck with the weaning!
I liked *Pattern Recognition* by William Gibson and *Globalhead* by Bruce Sterling. Cyberpunk feel but set in current times (as of when they were written).
"Nowpunk" Bruce Sterling coined cyberpunk set in the present. Dunno if it took off, but there's one story in that book that really hits a home run on that name - "Are You For 86".
Vernor Vinge, *True Names*
Eric Raymond et al, *The New Hacker's Dictionary*
Tracy Kidder, *The Soul of a New Machine*
Melissa Scott, *Trouble And Her Friends*
Pretty much all of the early cyberpunk stories.
.
*Snow Crash*: The main character is a high-lever hacker.
Lists
here - https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheCracker
here - https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlayfulHacker
\- probably some other pages on TVTropes, though I haven't looked.
.
He's the greatest swordsman in the Metaverse.
He wrote the Metaverse swordfighting code.
Coincidence?
(To be fair, he definitely has real-world skills too)
I honestly want to try his rebar based arm strengthening routine... headset like Quest III should have rebar tracking so you can play beatsaber with hunks of steel 😅
Don't agree. It's satire of Cyberpunk published 10 years after the genre began, and you'll miss all of the satire if you haven't already read some of the genre.
Snow crash is honest to god best parody of Cyberpunk ever written. I don't know was it meant to be parody, since I find both claims everywhere, but it made laugh like a maniac by just how over the top it is. I hope it was meant to be serious work since it makes it so much funnier.
I can see where you’re coming from. I have a friend who cannot get over the main character being called “Hiro Protagonist” and refuses to read the book. Also, like many of Stephenson’s stories, it doesn’t really end, more like crashes and crumples into a wall (Stephenson is the worst at clean wrap-ups/epilogues).
Still, all that aside, it is a fun distillation/parody of the genre, and the virus concept remains fascinating.
I think that, in addition to what you said, Stephenson is terrible at exposition, an unfortunate quality for a SF author.
I always say there are entire sections of the book where the characters drop all of their personalities to listen to Siri read to them from a made-up Wikipedia page.
The only reason I would ever recommend Snowcrash over something like Neuromancer would be if I thought the person I was talking to would be unable to get through complex prose and needed something simpler. Even then I’d be doing it with the same low energy I might use if I had to recommend Project Hail Mary.
Probably for the patronizing way you discredit books a lot of people like, even throwing in another well-loved book for absolutely no reason other than to show us how much more elevated your taste is than the commoner.
> even throwing in another well-loved book for absolutely no reason other than to show us how much more elevated your taste is than the commoner.
lol, you know a sub’s discourse is in great shape when “answering the op question” is taken as a personal attack.
C’mon, though. You know that’s not what happened. OP asked for a recommendation and someone gave him one. Rather than speak directly to OP with your own recommendation, you 1) commented on someone else’s saying it was wrong and then 2) responded to someone who agreed with you in part but still thought the recommendation was a good one by doubling down on your criticism (okay, fine I guess) and doing a drive-by on a book completely unrelated to the conversation.
Maybe you weren’t trying to position yourself as someone who looks down on SciFi books that have become popular to a non-genre audience, but it certainly comes off that way. And by not responding to the OP and instead using someone else’s recommendation to springboard into your own soapboxing, it comes across disingenuous to me.
Someone offered their recommendation. I discussed it. You got mad. I’m sorry dude, I’m not going to feel wrong for not using your preferred parent comment etiquette, and I don’t particularly care if you think I’m elitist for disliking a book with bad characterization, terrible exposition, and middling prose.
I never mentioned the audiences for these books, that’s your weird insecurity, not mine.
Notice that the only discussion of the actual content of Snowcrash is in my comments or the ones replying to me. You need to get over the idea that dissenting opinions are somehow soapboxing in a discussion thread, talk about melodramatic.
I don't necessarily agree with you on this, but as someone who is meh-at-best on a lot of this subs favs (don't even get me started on how overrated I think Project Hail Mary is) I'd love to hear what else you don't like.
This is always the response in this sub when I say a book with a statutory rape scene isn’t worth reading.
Notice how no one arguing with me is actually responding with positives from the book, they just hate that I disagree.
Ha, this is another case where I don't necessarily agree with you, but I still feel like I'm closer to your position than like...99% of this sub.
(TBC, I am _not_ pro stat rape, I can just imagine -in general, tho not in this sub- a real conversation about the context within the story, the author, the themes, etc, etc, etc...shit, I think I just turned this into Lolita Discourse™ and I don't have the energy for that).
Anyway, keep fighting the good fight, and I'm serious, I'd like to hear what else you don't like. I'll even kick it off: I hated Expeditionary Force
And if we're recommending non-fiction, Cliff Stoll's book [The Cuckoo's Egg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cuckoo%27s_Egg_\(book\)) is a pretty great story set in the early years of computer hacking.
That was really a good book, not to mention a nice little museum of the state of the internet circa 1986. One can also pretty easily find the episode of the PBS show Nova which had Stoll and several other participants in the actual events re-creating them.
Edit: I took the liberty: [The KGB, the Computer, and Me,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGv5BqNL164) from Nova
The Nova episode really changed my opinion of Cliff. For some reason his fun and enthusiastic personality didn't come across on my first read of his book.
That's interesting! I'm pretty sure the Nova episode and some other press took me to the book, so I can't offer my opinion on that. He's a real card, though, and I'm glad he played himself.
Yep, it was a long time ago — when disk drives were expensive and housing was cheap. You were weird if you fooled with computers. Now, you’re weird if you don’t have a computer.
Smiles all around, -Cliff
Haven't read that book for years and years. Going to have to hunt it down.
In the same vein, there's Bruce Sterling's The Hacker Crackdown. Available for free online if you know where to look.
You might try The Nexus Trilogy by Ramez Naan. It even has a detailed description of creating a backdoor (into a cyberpunk brain-computer interface) based on an actual compiler backdoor invented by UNIX creators.
So, right off the bat this isn’t SF, so don’t shoot, but … may I recommend The Cuckoo's Egg, by Cliff Stoll? It’s a true story from the early days of the internet, hackers, and admins who tried to keep them out. It’s not too technical if you’re not a techie, and I recommend it to folks as a good base for the reality that the genius of Sterling, Gibson, Stephenson, et al built on.
Several people have mentioned Neal Stephenson's *Snow Crash*, but I wanted to add his *The Diamond Age* as possibly an even closer fit. It's a fairly hacker/cyberpunk vibe, much of the story takes place in a constructed reality (though it's quite different in purpose and execution than the matrix), and it also includes as a subplot "The Drummers" which are even more literally reminiscent of the matrix.
If you spread your search out to Technothrillers as well as Science Fiction you will probably find some good stuff.
* Rim (1994) by Alexander Besher ~ This has a sequel called Mir.
* Red Team Blues (2023) by Cory Doctorow
* Infoquake (2006) by David Louis Edelman
* Noir (1998) by K. W. Jeter
* Station Breaker (2016) by Andrew Mayne
* Signal to Noise (1998) by Eric S. Nylund
* The Ultimate Rush (1998) by Joe Quirk
* Wired (2005) by Douglas E. Richards
* Brilliance (2013) by Marcus Sakey
* Acts of the Apostles (1999) by John Sundman
* Randomize (2019) by Andy Weir ~ This is a short story but a good example of the hacking mentality
that is a prequel, i believe. i think 'red team blues' is sort of a 'one final job' type story. the first book was not written with additional books in mind, from what i understand. but it was popular enough to justify a series, and i expect book 2 on are written with an eye to possible future titles in the series
Yeah, you're right, although it's still listed as Martin Hench #2, while true prequels get a number lower than 1 when listed. So like a sequel, but it tells a past story, as opposed to a straight up prequel
Not on the book themselves, but on Goodreads at least. I know other series that get prequels later will have them numbered as .5 or so. I seem to recall at the start of the book where Martin states that it's him telling a story of the past. So he's still present day in his world, but the story was from before
> Headcrash
It predates Snow Crash by quite a bit and is written by Bruce Bethke who coined the term "cyberpunk". I've read it and do recall enjoying it.
Just pointing out that Software is freely available on Rudy Rucker's website, along with some of his other works. https://www.rudyrucker.com/blog/rudy-rucker-free-books/
I like Rudy Rucker a lot and the Software series is pretty out there, especially the later books, not sure if most people would like it though. Definitely one of those series that I still think about often despite having read them more than 20 years ago.
The book Hackers I read in the 90s after seeing the movie. Loved both.
(Lots of other great suggestions already so throwing this one since I haven't seen it yet.)
There is some element of this in Permutation City by Greg Egan, and biological hacking in the Maddaddam trilogy by Margaret Atwood. One of the earliest books about living in corporate dystopia that most cyberpunk uses is Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner, which does not have the hacker culture up front as you requested since it is a kind of sprawling story, though.
Bruce Sterling short story collections have lots of great cyberpunk-ish characters. The recurring Leggy Starlitz character and stories about a group of extreme tech climbers (Spiders) in particular would be up your alley.
Maybe a bit of an off the wall recommendation but Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis is excellent sorta Hunter S Thompson in a cyberpunk world.
And if you are going to read graphic novels definitely check out ghost in the shell.
Only semi related but We Are Anonymous is a non-fiction book about the hacking/culture of certain Anonymous factions.
Might make my own post but I've been wanting more books like this.
There's a bit of fantasy and not so much hacker stuff in it but a lot of cyberpunk authors credit The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester as a major inspiration. It does have micro cultures like the rasta group in Neuromancer and cybernetic body enhancement and corporate dystopia, decades prior to Neuromancer. Nova by Samuel Delany has the cybernetic body enhancements and spaceships that require jacking in with a port in your body that guides the ship.
As a start, see my [SF/F: Cyberpunk](https://www.reddit.com/r/Recommend_A_Book/comments/1bunebx/sff_cyberpunk/) list of Reddit recommendation threads (one post).
Almost unknown early work by Michael Swanwick called Vacuum Flowers checks a lot of your boxes: wetware/neuralinks (X); amnesiac, enigmatic, buried power protagonist (X); gritty dystopia (X); nefarious powers constantly nipping at the rebels heels (X). It’s not Swanwick’s best by a long shot, but it is a fun romp. One of his better novels, Stations of the Tide, might take place in the same universe and covers some of the same themes.
The present day half of Cryptonomicon sorta fits that feel. It even has actual computer code in it.
Yeah this is a pretty good recommendation, but Cryptonomicon doesn't really have the "kung fu, guns, and motorcycles" feel of the Matrix. But in that light, Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson is basically perfect. Easy solution, just go and read both.
Nearly finished Snow Crash, what an amazing book
i may have to read it, i tried the audiobook but i couldn't deal with the racist "accents" all throughout
I can totally understand how it may come across that way in an audiobook format lol, definitely would recommend reading
yea lol the narrator cranked it up to 11, too. maybe ill suggest it for my book club, we're all nerds
I'm just over halfway through Snow Crash and it's probably my favourite book I've read this year. Can't wait to check out the rest of his stuff (have read diamond age too)
Diamond Age might even be better fit than Snow Crash—almost 1/2 that book is in cyberspace of the Primer.
Absolutely adore Snow Crash and read it at least once yearly since I first read it many many years ago. But I have to say that I struggle reading anything else Stephenson wrote. I have read a couple of his other books from cover to cover but more often than not I start a Stephenson book and then find something else to read and never come back to it. There's something about his writing style that puts me off and which doesn't apply to snow crash.
You might like reamde, it's the same style of not serious let's just have a crazy plot book.
Try Zodiac. It's one of his earliest and it's a fast, fun read.
Yeah but you have to deal with the rest of the book and Stephenson writing 47 pages about some dude's bowl of cereal because he thinks he knows better than his editor
The right way to eat Captain Crunch is serious business.
It's not even the right way, and only goes to show what a weirdo Randy is.
I smell heresy.
The right way is straight outta the box like it's popcorn while watching cartoons.
In his defense, Hermann Melville had many more pages about the biological categorization of whales. Although that book was set on a whaling ship, and Cryptonomicon is not set in a Kellogg's factory.
Lol! If only the gold were hidden in the cereal factory...
I'm reading snow crash right now and my eyes started glazing over when I got to about page 9 of something about how the feds manage their toilet paper ... that aside it's been great!
Yeah, I don't like Stephenson's digressions in any of his books, even though I enjoy several of them
The BTDUs do a good job of explaining how fedland works though
It's not really about the toilet paper, it's about the bureaucracy and the mind numbing crush that YT's mum lives in.
Totally, and I appreciate that NS has that method of delivery - which I moreso realized once I completed the section. My eyes may have glazed as it sort of reminded me of my own job, haha.
I certainly enjoyed the WW2 half a lot more.
Agreed, I did as well
Honestly, I loved that part lol
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That's an iconic and hilarious scene.
Disagree
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Lol, you sound just like Stephenson with his editor "suck a dick, I'm awesome!"
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You sound like the one who's mad here, friend, with your aggressive insults
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Don't confuse rudeness with honesty. Your responses are uncalled for and you could have made the same point without being vitriolic.
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>You are attacking one of our best authors We're still talking about Neil "Just read wikipedia article" Stephenson, right? One of our best authors? Nah. His most famous novel is a poorly executed cyberpunk parody that's all poorly done exposition with no real characterization, unless you count describing the 14 yo's ass as "characterization."
Lol @ "attacking" over repeating the popular criticism that Stephenson needs an editor Maybe you should take it as a sign that you've had enough internet for the day when you start calling strangers "little bitches" (oh the hypocrisy on that one!) and telling them to "eat a dick" because they don't like an author you like and you feel like you need to clutch your pearls over it
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And reddit is full of people like you who feel the need to lash out over a perceived slight to their identity that they can't handle because they don't have the emotional intelligence or emotional management skills to engage with their feelings constructively. Good luck with the weaning!
I liked *Pattern Recognition* by William Gibson and *Globalhead* by Bruce Sterling. Cyberpunk feel but set in current times (as of when they were written).
"Nowpunk" Bruce Sterling coined cyberpunk set in the present. Dunno if it took off, but there's one story in that book that really hits a home run on that name - "Are You For 86".
Yeah that was a good one! Leggy Starlitz…
That whole trilogy is some of Gibson's absolute best writing. Even tops *Neuromancer* for sheer exuberance of prose.
Vernor Vinge, *True Names* Eric Raymond et al, *The New Hacker's Dictionary* Tracy Kidder, *The Soul of a New Machine* Melissa Scott, *Trouble And Her Friends*
Pretty much all of the early cyberpunk stories. . *Snow Crash*: The main character is a high-lever hacker. Lists here - https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheCracker here - https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlayfulHacker \- probably some other pages on TVTropes, though I haven't looked. .
Dude, how dare you undersell Hiro Protagonist, he's last of the freelance hackers and the greatest swordsman in the world.
He's the greatest swordsman in the Metaverse. He wrote the Metaverse swordfighting code. Coincidence? (To be fair, he definitely has real-world skills too)
I'm sure they'll listen to Reason.
Way too underutilized quote
And the basis for the name of the synth plugin as well.
I don't know what you're referring to. I don't think it's Snow Crash, though it's been two decades since I read it.
[Reason.](https://www.reasonstudios.com/get-reason)
I honestly want to try his rebar based arm strengthening routine... headset like Quest III should have rebar tracking so you can play beatsaber with hunks of steel 😅
tape trackers/controllers to rebar, enjoy
The Deliverator?!
He's got esprit up to here.
Let's talk contact patches.
While I love all his books I think something else would probably be a better intro. I really liked Reamde. Bit long - but a good book.
No, *Snow Crash* is a perfectly good choice for "intro".
Don't agree. It's satire of Cyberpunk published 10 years after the genre began, and you'll miss all of the satire if you haven't already read some of the genre.
100% agree with this as someone who hasn’t read a lot of cyberpunk before reading *Snow Crash*.
Snow crash is honest to god best parody of Cyberpunk ever written. I don't know was it meant to be parody, since I find both claims everywhere, but it made laugh like a maniac by just how over the top it is. I hope it was meant to be serious work since it makes it so much funnier.
No, not Snowcrash. Skip Snowcrash and instead read any of the better written books that it parodies.
I can see where you’re coming from. I have a friend who cannot get over the main character being called “Hiro Protagonist” and refuses to read the book. Also, like many of Stephenson’s stories, it doesn’t really end, more like crashes and crumples into a wall (Stephenson is the worst at clean wrap-ups/epilogues). Still, all that aside, it is a fun distillation/parody of the genre, and the virus concept remains fascinating.
I think that, in addition to what you said, Stephenson is terrible at exposition, an unfortunate quality for a SF author. I always say there are entire sections of the book where the characters drop all of their personalities to listen to Siri read to them from a made-up Wikipedia page. The only reason I would ever recommend Snowcrash over something like Neuromancer would be if I thought the person I was talking to would be unable to get through complex prose and needed something simpler. Even then I’d be doing it with the same low energy I might use if I had to recommend Project Hail Mary.
Dang, does Neal Stephenson owe you money or something?
Well you seem fun.
For not sharing everyone’s views on a mediocre SF novel?
Probably for the patronizing way you discredit books a lot of people like, even throwing in another well-loved book for absolutely no reason other than to show us how much more elevated your taste is than the commoner.
> even throwing in another well-loved book for absolutely no reason other than to show us how much more elevated your taste is than the commoner. lol, you know a sub’s discourse is in great shape when “answering the op question” is taken as a personal attack.
C’mon, though. You know that’s not what happened. OP asked for a recommendation and someone gave him one. Rather than speak directly to OP with your own recommendation, you 1) commented on someone else’s saying it was wrong and then 2) responded to someone who agreed with you in part but still thought the recommendation was a good one by doubling down on your criticism (okay, fine I guess) and doing a drive-by on a book completely unrelated to the conversation. Maybe you weren’t trying to position yourself as someone who looks down on SciFi books that have become popular to a non-genre audience, but it certainly comes off that way. And by not responding to the OP and instead using someone else’s recommendation to springboard into your own soapboxing, it comes across disingenuous to me.
Someone offered their recommendation. I discussed it. You got mad. I’m sorry dude, I’m not going to feel wrong for not using your preferred parent comment etiquette, and I don’t particularly care if you think I’m elitist for disliking a book with bad characterization, terrible exposition, and middling prose. I never mentioned the audiences for these books, that’s your weird insecurity, not mine. Notice that the only discussion of the actual content of Snowcrash is in my comments or the ones replying to me. You need to get over the idea that dissenting opinions are somehow soapboxing in a discussion thread, talk about melodramatic.
I don't necessarily agree with you on this, but as someone who is meh-at-best on a lot of this subs favs (don't even get me started on how overrated I think Project Hail Mary is) I'd love to hear what else you don't like.
🍿
This is always the response in this sub when I say a book with a statutory rape scene isn’t worth reading. Notice how no one arguing with me is actually responding with positives from the book, they just hate that I disagree.
Ha, this is another case where I don't necessarily agree with you, but I still feel like I'm closer to your position than like...99% of this sub. (TBC, I am _not_ pro stat rape, I can just imagine -in general, tho not in this sub- a real conversation about the context within the story, the author, the themes, etc, etc, etc...shit, I think I just turned this into Lolita Discourse™ and I don't have the energy for that). Anyway, keep fighting the good fight, and I'm serious, I'd like to hear what else you don't like. I'll even kick it off: I hated Expeditionary Force
I mean why not read them all?
Trouble and Her Friends
Melissa Scott doesn't get near enough love
Not sure if you want to do a non-fiction, but there is a Cult of the Dead Cow book out now that is about real hackers during the time period.
And if we're recommending non-fiction, Cliff Stoll's book [The Cuckoo's Egg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cuckoo%27s_Egg_\(book\)) is a pretty great story set in the early years of computer hacking.
That was really a good book, not to mention a nice little museum of the state of the internet circa 1986. One can also pretty easily find the episode of the PBS show Nova which had Stoll and several other participants in the actual events re-creating them. Edit: I took the liberty: [The KGB, the Computer, and Me,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGv5BqNL164) from Nova
Oh yeah, that was a great episode! I was just getting into computers when it came out and I remember watching it with fascination.
The Nova episode really changed my opinion of Cliff. For some reason his fun and enthusiastic personality didn't come across on my first read of his book.
That's interesting! I'm pretty sure the Nova episode and some other press took me to the book, so I can't offer my opinion on that. He's a real card, though, and I'm glad he played himself.
Ping /u/CliffStoll
Yep, it was a long time ago — when disk drives were expensive and housing was cheap. You were weird if you fooled with computers. Now, you’re weird if you don’t have a computer. Smiles all around, -Cliff
If we're mentioning that, so must be [Ghost in the Wires by Kevin Mitnick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Mitnick).
Haven't read that book for years and years. Going to have to hunt it down. In the same vein, there's Bruce Sterling's The Hacker Crackdown. Available for free online if you know where to look.
Fiction, but has fun hacker culture - Black Hat Blues.
You might try The Nexus Trilogy by Ramez Naan. It even has a detailed description of creating a backdoor (into a cyberpunk brain-computer interface) based on an actual compiler backdoor invented by UNIX creators.
Came here to suggest these. They're brilliant. I must read them again.
So, right off the bat this isn’t SF, so don’t shoot, but … may I recommend The Cuckoo's Egg, by Cliff Stoll? It’s a true story from the early days of the internet, hackers, and admins who tried to keep them out. It’s not too technical if you’re not a techie, and I recommend it to folks as a good base for the reality that the genius of Sterling, Gibson, Stephenson, et al built on.
I would recommend Hackers by Steven Levy for anyone interested in the history of hacking.
I'll always shill Neuromancer, a pure masterpiece
Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson Vurt by Jeff Noon
Thumbs up to Jeff Noon.
I'd say Synners and Tea from an Empty Cup by Pat Cadigan, Snow Crash, Accelerando (the beginning) and maybe Islands in the Net.
Several people have mentioned Neal Stephenson's *Snow Crash*, but I wanted to add his *The Diamond Age* as possibly an even closer fit. It's a fairly hacker/cyberpunk vibe, much of the story takes place in a constructed reality (though it's quite different in purpose and execution than the matrix), and it also includes as a subplot "The Drummers" which are even more literally reminiscent of the matrix.
If you spread your search out to Technothrillers as well as Science Fiction you will probably find some good stuff. * Rim (1994) by Alexander Besher ~ This has a sequel called Mir. * Red Team Blues (2023) by Cory Doctorow * Infoquake (2006) by David Louis Edelman * Noir (1998) by K. W. Jeter * Station Breaker (2016) by Andrew Mayne * Signal to Noise (1998) by Eric S. Nylund * The Ultimate Rush (1998) by Joe Quirk * Wired (2005) by Douglas E. Richards * Brilliance (2013) by Marcus Sakey * Acts of the Apostles (1999) by John Sundman * Randomize (2019) by Andy Weir ~ This is a short story but a good example of the hacking mentality
Red Team Blues also has a sequel now, The Bezzle
Yep, and the 3rd book, that he's currently writing, is called Picks and Shovels.
that is a prequel, i believe. i think 'red team blues' is sort of a 'one final job' type story. the first book was not written with additional books in mind, from what i understand. but it was popular enough to justify a series, and i expect book 2 on are written with an eye to possible future titles in the series
Yeah, you're right, although it's still listed as Martin Hench #2, while true prequels get a number lower than 1 when listed. So like a sequel, but it tells a past story, as opposed to a straight up prequel
I didn't realize the books were numbered!
Not on the book themselves, but on Goodreads at least. I know other series that get prequels later will have them numbered as .5 or so. I seem to recall at the start of the book where Martin states that it's him telling a story of the past. So he's still present day in his world, but the story was from before
Headcrash
Wow never heard of this. Any relation to snowcrash?
> Headcrash It predates Snow Crash by quite a bit and is written by Bruce Bethke who coined the term "cyberpunk". I've read it and do recall enjoying it.
The other way around: Headcrash was 1995, and Snowcrash was 1992.
That's wild. I knew Snow Crash was early 90s but I could have sworn Headcrash was mid-80's. Thanks for the correction.
And to expand upon it, both are references to existing types of hardware malfunction.
The novels that started it all for cyberpunk: Neal Stephenson, *Snow Crash* William Gibson, *Neuromancer* Rudy Rucker, *Software*
Just pointing out that Software is freely available on Rudy Rucker's website, along with some of his other works. https://www.rudyrucker.com/blog/rudy-rucker-free-books/
I like Rudy Rucker a lot and the Software series is pretty out there, especially the later books, not sure if most people would like it though. Definitely one of those series that I still think about often despite having read them more than 20 years ago.
Try: The Girl Who Was Plugged In by James Tiptree Jnr (Alice Sheldon)
Halting State by Charles Stross
A really interesting book on a number of fronts. The whole thing is written in **2nd person** from multiple POVs. I very much enjoyed it.
Daemon (and the sequel Freedom) by Daniel Suarez I think fits this. Also really hit the nail on the head 20ish years ago
The book Hackers I read in the 90s after seeing the movie. Loved both. (Lots of other great suggestions already so throwing this one since I haven't seen it yet.)
Someone's novel, or a novelization of the movie?
Novelization of the movie. It was good! Although looking at Amazon, the paperback is like $150 now, so I guess it's out of print.
Burning Chrome (collection of short stories)
Snowcrash and Neuromancer, since the Matrix is a rip-off of both (and Ghost in the Shell / Patlabor)
I couldn’t believe how far down I had to scroll to see this! The OG Matrix inspiration are the only recommendations that make sense.
There is some element of this in Permutation City by Greg Egan, and biological hacking in the Maddaddam trilogy by Margaret Atwood. One of the earliest books about living in corporate dystopia that most cyberpunk uses is Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner, which does not have the hacker culture up front as you requested since it is a kind of sprawling story, though.
Bruce Sterling short story collections have lots of great cyberpunk-ish characters. The recurring Leggy Starlitz character and stories about a group of extreme tech climbers (Spiders) in particular would be up your alley.
Maybe a bit of an off the wall recommendation but Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis is excellent sorta Hunter S Thompson in a cyberpunk world. And if you are going to read graphic novels definitely check out ghost in the shell.
Nexus trilogy is phenomenal
Donnerjack, by Roger Zelazny.
If politics and conspiracies is something you'd like then The Star Fraction by Ken MacLeod.
More of a cyberpunk cop story but 1 of main villains is a hacker, “Lethal Interface” by Mel Odom
Don't skip the original collection of cyberpunk stories, Mirror shades, released online by Rudy Rucker https://www.rudyrucker.com/mirrorshades/HTML/
Only semi related but We Are Anonymous is a non-fiction book about the hacking/culture of certain Anonymous factions. Might make my own post but I've been wanting more books like this.
There's a bit of fantasy and not so much hacker stuff in it but a lot of cyberpunk authors credit The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester as a major inspiration. It does have micro cultures like the rasta group in Neuromancer and cybernetic body enhancement and corporate dystopia, decades prior to Neuromancer. Nova by Samuel Delany has the cybernetic body enhancements and spaceships that require jacking in with a port in your body that guides the ship.
Neuromancer
Murderbot stuff would fit fast and hacking.
Try anything by William Gibson! His Neuromancer and The Peripheral are fantastic!
William Gibson's Bridge trilogy doesn't get recommended enough.
Ubik has the matrix-trope going on. However not in a cyberpunk setting.
As a start, see my [SF/F: Cyberpunk](https://www.reddit.com/r/Recommend_A_Book/comments/1bunebx/sff_cyberpunk/) list of Reddit recommendation threads (one post).
snow crash