[mindcrime]

Neuromancer - William Gibson

REAMDE- Neal Stephenson

Pattern Recognition / Zero History / Spook Country - William Gibson

The Peripheral - William Gibson

Not exactly the same thing, but I'll also throw in Glasshouse by Charles Stross. And since we're talking Charles Stross, also add Halting State to the list.

Oh, and VALIS by Philip K. Dick. Definitely worth a read.

[stuxnet79]

What I really liked about Neuromancer looking back, is how many black characters it had. Once of the first sci-fi books I read that had characters I could easily identify with.

Maelcum was pivotal in the entire story and was a cool bad boy type. And you can't forget the whole crew in the "Marcus Garvey" spaceship.

Quality stuff. That right there was enough to make me a lifelong Gibson fan.

[gexos]

+1 Neuromancer was a wild ride for me, Gibson practically invented cyberpunk fiction when he wrote this novel.

Ahh, Case will always be in my heart! :)

[V-2]

I agree, but it's not just VALIS. Probably most of his prose dealt with this theme. Personally I liked "Ubik" better.

[mindcrime]

You're probably right, but as of now, VALIS is the only thing I've read by PKD, so it's the only one I can recommend.

I have a big pile of his other works here, waiting to be read, but just haven't gotten to the rest yet. :-(

[V-2]

I know the pain. Well, it would be worth your while once you get to it - as I said, "Ubik" is pretty awesome. "The Man in the High Castle" too, although it's different, not that much of "pure" s-f element, it's political fiction, but still very Dickesque (it depicts a world where nazis won the war - where certain writer gains fame for his alternative history novel in which they actually lost :) ).

[mindcrime]

Sounds good. I'm on book 12 of the "Wheel of Time" series by Jordan now, plus all the non-fiction I'm reading. But maybe after I finish WoT I'll binge on PKD for a while. I did enjoy VALIS quite a lot, even though it was pretty f'in weird. :-)