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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  3485 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Have you read the 200 'best American novels'? | Art Beat | PBS NewsHour

Huck Finn

Connecticut Yankee

Red Badge of Courage

Call of the Wild

Gatsby

Grapes of Wrath

Mockingbird

Neuromancer

I've read several more that are on that list but found them "eh." That's why I hate lists like these.





thenewgreen  ·  3485 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I've read and enjoyed all of those except for Connecticut Yankee and Neuromancer, which I have not read.

kleinbl00  ·  3485 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Neuromancer defined cyberpunk. It is probably one of my favorite novels of all time. That does not mean it is good. It just means it is a keenly refined flavor that I have an acquired taste for.

Connecticut, meanwhile, is a Bing Crosby musical from 1949 that I was required to watch far too many times.

rob05c  ·  3485 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    I have an acquired taste

Do you have any recommendations?

I like the genre, but I've only really read Neuromancer, Snow Crash, and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

kleinbl00  ·  3485 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Read the other two books in the Sprawl trilogy. They're pretty damn good and the only character they have in common is Molly.

Islands in the Net by Bruce Sterling is a classic, albeit dated, but the whole genre is dated so that's okay.

Mirrorshades is seminal.

Hardwired isn't as good, but it sure is cyberpunk as fuck.

Variation on a theme: The Difference Engine is Patient Zero of Steampunk and, in my opinion, the only book worth bothering with.

I kinda feel like Paolo Bacigalupi picked up the torch where Gibson dropped it; Windup Girl is every bit as cyberpunk as The Sprawl, only the gadgets are biological, not cybernetic.