To condense fact from the vapor of nuance
December 2, 2016 6:52 PM   Subscribe

It’s no accident that many people who appreciate VR and AR are also fans of scifi books, movies, and TV shows. Technology has imitated art and the other way around, with science fiction writers coining terms like “virtual reality” and “the metaverse,” and tech companies using science fiction writers as in-house futurists and advisers.

If you’re looking to immerse yourself in books with significant AR and VR presence, this is the reading list for you. Also on Goodreads.
posted by timshel (15 comments total) 19 users marked this as a favorite
 
I'm counting 3.5 women(*) in the 50 novels?

(*) Donnerjack is by two authors, male and female.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 7:09 PM on December 2, 2016 [4 favorites]


Much of this list I have issues with.
Aliens, nanobots, and the obligatory rape scene, if there is a woman.
Ho hum. Not again.
posted by BlueHorse at 7:48 PM on December 2, 2016 [2 favorites]


Yeah, "Ready Player One" does not get a slot on the same list as Accelerando or anything by Gibson or Banks, much less a #1 slot.

(And no Pattern Recognition from Gibson on either list? Booooo.)
posted by mhoye at 8:09 PM on December 2, 2016 [5 favorites]


Disclosure can fuck itself right off this list, and while it's at it, right into the garbage can.
posted by fleacircus at 8:37 PM on December 2, 2016 [1 favorite]


Does anyone recall the SCOTUS ruling on photoshopped obscenity? Because everyone should. Back in the day of .org, .edu, .gov, .mil, and DOTCOM...back when people more often pronounced www as three distinct letters requiring six syllables instead of simply saying the phrase of world wide web that needs only three...

Some notion of organization was dreamed of...and went to hell, fast. For many years, before the bubbles, people were hesitant and careful to observe how no commercial ventures had proven profitable...What so many would not say in "polite" company was porn made money from Day !...I mean 1.

There's more than technology in play in the long wait of the matter of AR and VR...
posted by lazycomputerkids at 8:59 PM on December 2, 2016 [1 favorite]


I love Neuromancer as much as the next fella but I think that to recommend it over Count Zero is to go for nostalgia over substance.
posted by Pickman's Next Top Model at 12:54 AM on December 3, 2016 [2 favorites]


I still love The Shockwave Rider, or indeed anything from that era of Brunner.

The Bug Life Chronicles, a story collection by Phillip C. Jennings set in a nearish future is also fun, albeit a bit uneven.
posted by allium cepa at 3:08 AM on December 3, 2016


I'm uncomfortable with any reading list that includes Orson Scott Card. Other than that, the list included two that I've been meaning to read.

Anyone else think "Hyperion" should be included?
posted by james33 at 4:24 AM on December 3, 2016 [2 favorites]


Nice title.

Also, not a bad list. Accelerando (by mefi's own!) was on my reading list before an unpleasant skype convo resulted in my ipad turning into a projectile, thanks for the reminder. Also a strong recommendation for Rainbow's End by Vernor Vinge. One of my top five science fiction-ish novels.
posted by iffthen at 4:49 AM on December 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


(yet another advantage for e-readers (above comment)) (needs a :-)



I still love The Shockwave Rider, or indeed anything from that era of Brunner.

I dial nine nines every so often, no one has picked up yet...
posted by sammyo at 4:53 AM on December 3, 2016 [2 favorites]


Being in tech my whole life I've touched VR occasionally, the first one I had to remove my glasses which although a rough gear rotating demo seemed incredibly realistic, because I expected it to be out of focus.

I just had a demo of the game company Harmonix's unreleased VR version of Guitar Hero (AudioShield) on an Oculus Rift. Intensely immersive! Instantly like walking on stage, I was there! It may be the direction of a killer app for the VR headset industry. What does a rock performer do? Stand in one place and watch the audience. Solves a key issue of reality where the gamer does not need to be running through a war zone while sitting in a comfy chair. And I did not step forward because I was at the edge of the stage (although I can imagine the horrific news story of a teen dying from cuts when he dives into the crowd but lands on a glass coffee table)

But the tech is so far from cyberspace, look back at the drummer he nods, but look into the wings and there is nothing because of limits in compute power.
posted by sammyo at 5:16 AM on December 3, 2016


I'm counting 3.5 women(*) in the 50 novels?

On the one hand, SFF lists tend to be highly sexist. There's a reason I call Ursula K LeGuin the "One woman SF Writer required to be on SFF lists".

On the other hand, there's a very strong argument going around that cyberpunk was a more or less deliberate reaction to the increase in women and feminist writers in the 70s. That it represented a "concerted return to the (originary) purity of hard SF". In this context, it's no surprise that the thematic model for much of cyberpunk was the highly masculine noir.

You could also make an argument that VR stories also represent a retreat from actually dealing with real-world feminist issues, so in that context it's no surprise that the list is overwhelmingly male.
posted by happyroach at 10:44 AM on December 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


Not literature, but I thought that this episode of Black Mirror did a pretty solid, if straightforward, look at altered reality (virtual/augmented reality implants - but then who determines what you experience, and why?).
posted by porpoise at 3:59 PM on December 3, 2016


I'm counting 3.5 women(*) in the 50 novels?

You could add Sarah Zettel's _Fool's War_ if you wanted.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:19 PM on December 3, 2016


there's a very strong argument going around that cyberpunk was a more or less deliberate reaction to the increase in women and feminist writers in the 70s.

I'd definitely agree (and what I've heard about the backroom politics involved support that claim). Regardless of what cyberpunk started out as, though, this isn't a list of early-80s novels. Shouldn't the list be a little more gender diverse by now?

I don't have suggestions per se -- VR is very much not my thing -- but the list seems a bit puzzling.

(Having read _How to Suppress Women's Writing_, these sorts of lists definitely feed the problem.)
posted by steady-state strawberry at 4:42 PM on December 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


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