What are the best cyberpunk books?

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Feb 23, 2019

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4 Options Considered

Best cyberpunk books	Price	Last Updated
-- Neuromancer	-	Feb 23, 2019
-- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?	-	Jun 8, 2016
-- Snow Crash	-	Jun 8, 2016
-- The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer	-	Jun 8, 2016

Neuromancer

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A seminal work in the cyberpunk genre

Neuromancer lays much of the foundation of Cyberpunk as a genre in terms of language, themes and setting. The term "cyberspace" gained enough significance through this book that it is still being used to describe Internet. Cyberpunk staples such as megacorporations, anti-heroes as protagonists, artificial intelligence and high-tech, low-life neon-filled cities that never sleep take their iconic shape here. Its significance was acknowledged by it becoming the first novel to win the Nebula, the Hugo, and Philip K. Dick Award science fiction awards. See More

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The way technology is described is somewhat dated

To describe technology Gibson uses language that might have been considered futuristic back in the day, but seems out of place in today's technological world and vision of the future. See More

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

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Well-researched, vivid descriptions of people

Philip K. Dick manages to excellently explain what a character feels or is thinking through small tells such as body language or involuntary body responses. He often uses these things to illustrate the warmth of humans and coolness of androids. See More

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Starts out slow

Although it starts out slow with seemingly not much going on, it often manages to pull the reader in without him even noticing it. See More

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In-depth exploration of empathy

Empathy and what it means to be empathetic is the main theme of the book and is something that each character has to deal with in one way or another. The protagonist's belief that the ability to empathise makes one alive and that androids are incapable of true human emotion allows him to due his work as a bounty hunter that retires androids. Once he learns that some androids may be capable of empathy and some people are capable of eliminating empathy, he has to re-evaluate his stance. See More

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Conversational, casual writing style allows easily immersing in the story

Snow Crash

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Sumerian history infodumps might not be for everyone

The book includes a lot of information about Sumerian history that simply might feel like a history lesson to some. See More

Top Pro

More fun than traditional cyberpunk novels

The greatest success of Snow Crash, however, is that it's fun... for a certain type of reader, at least. In defiance of all the rules and protocols of science fiction writing, Snow Crash is like crack for geeks precisely because it doesn't do things the way they're supposed to be done. The break-neck opening chapters, those massive infodumps on Sumerian religion, information theory and everything else were -- from my perspective at least -- a vertiginous rush the first time through, and I still get a kick out of them now after maybe six re-reads. See More

The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

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