Snow crash and Neuromancer are two well known must reads. I remember once hearing someone compare the 2 authors styles in that Neal Stephenson sounds like a hacker trying to be a great writer, and William Gibson sounds like a great writer trying to write like a hacker.
Neal Stephenson reacts to Facebook name change
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Re: Neal Stephenson reacts to Facebook name change
#42Can anybody recommend authors like Stephenson? He is my favourite author by far and it's going to be a sad day when I exhaust his works.
I would recommend Vernor Vinge. A Fire Upon the Deep / A Deepness in the Sky are both excellent.
Also relevant to this particular thread, his book Rainbow's End features AR/wearable technology.
Re: Neal Stephenson reacts to Facebook name change
#43You think misinformation in the News Feed is bad enough? Wait till they figure out neurolinguistic hacking in the Metaverse.
Oh but they already did.
Did you you really think the former president's manner of speech was just him acting retarded?
He was casting memetic spells across all channels. They're still zapping around as we speak.
Re: Neal Stephenson reacts to Facebook name change
#44Can anybody recommend authors like Stephenson? He is my favourite author by far and it's going to be a sad day when I exhaust his works.
Hrm... some... other suggestions are... not like him at all.
Look to Alastair Reynolds.
Look to 'Mote in God's Eye.'
Re: Neal Stephenson reacts to Facebook name change
#45I don't get why the interviewer suggests that the author deserves some compensation. Did metaverse as an idea did not exist before Snow Crash?
More important is the name itself. A billion dollar company just renamed itself based on a name Stephenson coined.
He’s right that compensation isn’t legally due—but he should be proud!
Re: Neal Stephenson reacts to Facebook name change
#46Obligatory Stephenson vs Gibson battle.
https://slashdot.org/story/04/10/20/1518217/neal-stephenson-...
Re: Neal Stephenson reacts to Facebook name change
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm reminded of the master-class hissy fit Harlan Ellison threw when The Terminator came out. He sued, claiming ownership of the general concept of robots from the future. I'm not sure how it shook out, legally, but to this day the T1 film credits include the producers' "grateful acknowledgement to the works of Harlan Ellison." So there's certainly precedent for Stephenson to claim the moral rights to a "metaverse,"…
I Have No Trademark But I Must Sue!
Oddly, I went to a talk by him once and he mentioned he briefly thought about suing when the Matrix came out based on this story.
Re: Neal Stephenson reacts to Facebook name change
#48We've decided we're going to call them MetaFace. :)
Re: Neal Stephenson reacts to Facebook name change
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here’s some I’ve really enjoyed recently: - Octavia Butler (Everything) - Becky Chambers (Wayfarers) - Martha Wells (Murderbot) - Liu Cixin (3 body problem/ dark forest) - N.K. Jemisin (Broken Earth & and cities we became) - Dennis E. Taylor (Bobiverse)
Thank you for your suggestions! I have read some of N.K Jemisin and enjoyed what I read, the others I have not heard of except for Liu Cixin. I've read the three-body problem but I found it a bit jarring how 'magical' the resolution was - it was speculative but in a bizarre/surreal way rather than in a 'plausible extension of reality' way. Is it worth pushing through to the later books?
I picked up the Three-Body Problem due to the hype, and similarly found myself put off by the wildly fantastic photon magic.
Re: Neal Stephenson reacts to Facebook name change
#50Can anybody recommend authors like Stephenson? He is my favourite author by far and it's going to be a sad day when I exhaust his works.
Nobody's really like Stephenson, but to the extent that he is something of a cyberpunk author, I'd say you might like some of these folks if you're not familiar with them yet: 1. William Gibson - Neuromancer , 'nuff said. The rest of the Sprawl Trilogy is great as well. 2. Rudy Rucker - I haven't read any of his stuff yet, but he is on my short-list of authors to start reading. Gets recommended a lot in these circles…
Stross's Accelerando might be particularly apt