[prions]

Seeing this list inspired me to write about the list I keep for the books I read, many of them cyberpunk/scifi. After reading so many of these types of books, you can't help notice their elements in other media.

It's interesting in seeing the print inspirations for many of these movies. The term "The Matrix" was first coined in William Gibson's Neuromancer and considered to be the seminal Cyberpunk novel, even predating Ghost in the Shell.

Definitely a must read for any Cyberpunk fan!

[virtualwhys]

Just read Neuromancer this summer. One of the benefits of renting random people's places are the libraries you run across; that was a great read (though somehow disturbing, mystical/mind blowing, and hollow inducing all at the same time).

[prions]

The two other books in the series (Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive) are both great as well, but I found that the first had the most magic.

In the same vein, Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson is great as well. Its essentially a parody of cyberpunk but hilariously well written.

[lakkal]

You might like Vernor Vinge's 'True Names', too. There was a PDF of the story on the web a while back; I'm not sure of its legality so I won't link to it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Names

[MichaelGG]

And for newer stuff, Richard K Morgan's Altered Carbon (2003) and 2 sequels really hit the spot. It's hard to find good gritty cyberpunk these days.

And it's not that old works are bad, just that some of the tech misses distract and take you out of the atmosphere sometimes. Like on Star Trek, when they have to physically deliver email to people on holodiscs.

I'd also note that Asimov's Robot series are great if you like hardboiled type stuff - not cyberpunk, but has a slightly similar ambiance.

[hprotagonist]

meanwhile, i'm waiting for my damn smartwheels and knight visions over here. These sumerian wizards aren't going to defeat themselves, you know!