/cyber/ - Cyberpunk & Science Fiction

>>22156

Holy necro-bump, shazbot

>>22156

I got 2/3 of the way through this and quit. I thought it was garbage. Characters were shallow, archetypal and unbelievable, plot was the product of an obsessive 80s nerd who though nothing was cool after 1989, writing was generally poor.

3/10 would not recommend.

I don't think poorly of you because you like it, though. Your taste is your problem.

>>16297

Read that and the sequel, Homeland.

Pretty interesting read, felt too "Young Adult" though, if you know what I mean.

>nobody recommending Peter Watts' books

pls.

rifters.com/real/shorts.htm

you should also read echopraxia, it just came out about a year ago, great book.

>>29254

Seconding Watts.

Blindsight and Echopraxia are amazing. Read them now.

Also not really cyberpunk at all, but still supremely interesting is Stephenson's Anathem. I know people like his other works on here, Anathem is my favorite.

>>28976

Read Little Brother when I was 17, enjoyed the hell out of it. So "young adult" is right.

What's the big deal with Neuromancer? I found it to be just a futuristic heist story, Snow Crash was much more enjoyable.

>>29325

It's the first novel of William Gibson, the "inventor" of cyberpunk.

I'm new. Is there a science-fiction general, or is this it?

I've got City Come a Walkin' by John Shirley coming in the mail soon. Anyone read it? What did you think about it?

>>19224

Fuck off, the book was great.

A very good sci-fi book imo.

Here are the series if anyone is interested;

http://8ch.net/file/res/192.html

Another book I read way back now is called Altered Carbon which is pretty good.

>>22156

I'm usually pretty tolerant to bad books but ready player one is terrible

What are some good /cyber/ audiobooks? My OEM optics are drek and replacement hardware is a long way off.

>>37087

I haven't listen to the whole thing but from what I've heard the BBC neuromancer audio drama is very good

So I'm just done reading a book that recenty got reedited, augmented/updated edition that was so great that I binged read it in two days.

Inner City by Jean-Marc Ligny

It's a french book so I don't know if it is translated/easy to find or anything, but if you can get your hands on it, I strongly advise it.

Deals mostly with virtual reality but all classic cyberpunk aspects are here in a pleasant way. A few things are predictable or a bit overdone, but it doesn't spoil anything, anyway I loved it.

When gravity fails

Long ambling book about a drugged out PI in the cyberpunk middle east who goes drinking all the time and manages to solve the caper only by letting the action come to him. Compared to the game, this book is a wash-out

>>15893

Perfect description of transmetropolitan.

>>16297

First, what other user said, too YA.

Second, after GG it's kinda hard to take seriously

>journos are good, journos are your friends

Watching Snowden documentaries I understand where's author coming from,

but still.

Third, I was reading the http://project.cyberpunk.ru/lib/cyberpunk/ the other day, and it's uncanny how similar premises are. Bruce Bethke's story ends on a more cynical note, though.

http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html

>>36471

Starts off kinda weak.

Entry level history lesson delivered in an edgy tone.

Not sure if I want to sludge on in search for the good parts.

Author being anarcho-commie syndicalist is a big turn-off too.

>>16254

>>16295

On a side-note the guy from transmetropolitan is now a fat fedora-wearing socjus bald fuck who white knights for womyn like mr.brianna wu while talking shit about gaymers while defending the rights of multinational blog conglomerates like gawker to be paid to publish total lies

'Irony' isn't enough to describe this shit, we need a new word for it

>>40931

>it's uncanny how similar premises are.

So dumb sanfran hipster finds obscure story from 1980 and decides to rip it off thinking nobody will find out

Not the first time it happened

>>40951

Yeah no shit, "ideological heritage" of sweden? like making brouzouf off war and misery in other countries? using mercs? selling weapons?

Because thats sweden's history

After watching two Circuit's Edge let's plays, I decided to read the books too.

Overall it's a pretty decent read so far, Muslim parts of the world as a choice for the setting is pretty interesting. Strange choice with modern political climate, but books were written long before 9/11, I guess people looked differently at arabs back then. I wonder how accurate author's descriptions of those places were.

The high-tech part mostly revolves around brain augs, and not really central to the plot.

When Gravity Fails is an okay hardboiled detective that follows all the rules.

Wiki and other sources say Circuit's Edge happens between first two books, but it doesn't follow canon to qualify for that in my opinion.

A Fire in the Sun is a bit weird, I'm not sure what it tries to be. Audrian (protagonist) just goes around visiting his mom, drinking in bars with friends, playing vydia, doing whatever for most of the book, as if it was some slice of life. Then some action happens and then book ends without real closure. Still, pretty readable.

Didn't touch The Exile Kiss yet.

Some things were ruining it for me though, for example:

Transsexuals everywhere.

I know it's somewhat accurate and arabs do indeed have very unusual views on the sex change issue, but it's still kind of jarring and it was hard for me to not think it's just progressive pandering.

On the bright side, his terminology makes way more sense than whatever war crime thumblr did to our modern language. Basically, he has clear distinction between pre-operation and post operation transsexual which I find really laking in IRL terminology.

Ignorance and fear of guns.

>We are the Budayeen

>the den of scum and villianry

>we will kill you for thirty kiam and then spend them on hookers

>firearms? Nooo, that's illegal!

>only completely crazy sociopath use those scary baby-murderers!

>we will stick with seizure- and stun-guns thankyouverymuch, maybe needle-guns if you really need the edge.

Also,

>handguns are so precise, you can shoot across the big street and hit exactly where you want.

Also also,

>clip

Fuck you, /k/, for making me notice all those things and cringe painfully.

Seriously, I thought author was brit until I looked him up in Wiki and no, George Alec Effinger was born in US of A and probably never set his foot on foreign land due to severe health problems. He was born in Ohio and died in New Orleans though, wherever that is. whcih casts additional doubts on accuracy of author's description of Arab World and raises the question of why exactly was he so fascinated by it.

Speaking of Budayeen itself, it seems to be nothing but bars, stripclubs and whorehouses all the way. I doubt such an economy would function in a real world. I know, it's just a small part of a larger city, but still, despite all the world building of second book, the "but what do they eat" question was not answered to my satisfaction.

That's it, I guess. There were other nitpicks, but I don't remember them, so they aren't important.

>>15742

fuck dude, snow crash was shit. SHIT!

>>42845

>>we will kill you for thirty kiam and then spend them on hookers

>>firearms? Nooo, that's illegal!

Meh, this kind of premise can be made to work, if it's a question of money. You have to position it as follows:

we are the lower-class scum, we will kill you with our bare hands and maybe a broken bottle

guns? no, only rich people use those, and cops count as rich to us

>>only completely crazy sociopath use those scary baby-murderers!

Yeah, written for bisexual men with an interest in pozzing Arabs.

>Also,

>>handguns are so precise, you can shoot across the big street and hit exactly where you want.

Given training, practice, favorable weather, the right gun, the right ammo, and experience, that is realistic.

If it shows an amateur hitting targets precisely, that's bullcrap right there.

>>42869

Snow Crash is the shit. Get outta here with your shazzy opinions.

>>16194

>More resouces for poor.

>New rich people.

>New rich people upload.

>Entire population slowly uploads.

Poor people immediately after the invention will be fucked, but their kids might have a good chance in the new economy.

>>15802

>quality>quantity

>being at the top 25 is not important.

Do you still feel the same way?

>>46687

Limitless was based on a novel called The Dark Corridors if I'm not mistaken

Brave New World and the Doors of Perception by Huxley also come into mind regarding Chemical stuff

>>46709

>The Dark Corridors

>Doors of Perception

I'll look into them. I'm familiar with BNW, but never thought it was associated with cyberpunk.

>>46709

>>46717

Dark Fields. Corridors looks like a Japanese game.

>>15742

any other "post-cyber" like stephenson or stross you can recommend?

>>16254

>fuck jim munroe, he's an sjw enabler. he trained zoe quinn to make shitty games.

Oh goddammit. I actually kinda liked his Flyboy novel. Now I just feel dirty. My only consolation is that I bought it secondhand, so he didn't actually get any of my money.

>>16670

>its pretty much a hacker adventure book,

Didn't Stephenson once say that he wrote Snow Crash to basically become the screenplay of a cheesy action movie?

>RALPH WILLIAMS

>Business as Usual, During Alterations

http://www.vb-tech.co.za/ebooks/Williams%20Ralph%20-%20Business%20as%20Usual%20During%20Alterations%20-%20SF.txt

A short story about matter duplicator and it's impact on society, more of a classic sci-fi than cyber though.

I should read more classics.

https://zerohplovecraft.wordpress.com/2018/05/11/the-gig-economy-2/

It begins as a modern take on cyberpunk with social media, altcoins, startups and other buzzwords, but then gets very esoteric really fast.

Pacing is a bit too fast for my liking, but overall it was quite a good read.

>>37568

I really wanted to like this one but I just couldn't justify recommending it to anyone. If you are a big fan of Neals other work you will probably like it fine, but as a normal person coming in off the street I'd recommend almost any of his other work above this one. It was clearly a blow-off work for him, it isn't done nearly as well as his other stuff.

>>40931

>He needed GG to realize that journalists are the enemy

Moldbug was blogging for years before GG, this stuff was kinda common knowledge. Hell, even basic-bitch guys like Noam Chomsky point out that the press wields an extraordinary amount of power over the common man. Journalist hate is bipartisan and universal.

The Dervish House

>>22156

I liked the start of the book but once he started on his journey I stopped reading and i'm a huge scifi/cyberpunk buff and this was cheesy as hell.

>>50854

Note that cyberpunk subculture isn't the same as the cypherpunk movement.

Cyberpunk is about the romanticization of futuristic dystopia, cypherpunk movement is about social change through the means of strong cryptography.

Of the two, I feel the first is naiive and mostly cosmetic, and the latter is "the real deal". We're living in the age of surveillance capitalism by corporations and targeted by the surveillance industrial complex by intelligence agencies and military contractors specializing in intelligence.

The cypherpunk methodology of privacy for the individual [through strong crypto] and transparency for the government [through anonymous whistleblowing enabled by strong crypto] is an important way to fight for democracy and human rights in our world that is getting more and more coputerized. As Bruce Schneier often puts it everything is a computer these days. Read his books if you want to get grasp on what's going on in the cyber domain.

https://www.schneier.com/books/

If you're into this LARPing thing, Gibson, Stephenson and Dick are probably the way to go.

>>50938

Agreed 100% on your explanation of Cypherpunk vs. Cyberpunk. Cyberpunk is fiction, and frankly, should stay there.

That said, it'd be nice to see a new XXXPunk that took some Cyberpunk ideals, and made them more real-life, and less cosplay.

Cyberpunk doesn't work because you can't have a serious movement, and reference cartoons in the same thread.

Cypherpunk is narrow and limited in scope, not allowing for all the different ways to fight the system with emerging technology.

>>50938

I can't take Shneier seriously, because he is a prolific Windows user.

Also there're rumors of him being NSA shill.

>>50939

I think the two can co-exist as long as dreaming about the futuristic world is productive somehow. The only dangerous effects I see are the time wasted by good people, and the "you've read too many dystopian novels" defense people who have read some of those novels – but clearly not enough leaked NSA documents – throw.

>>50941

I can't take gate keeping, well poisoning comments from random people seriously because they show lack of all intelligence.

>>50955

Nah, you tell people you're into Cyberpunk, and they do a google search. That's pretty much the end of your credibility. I mean, it's fun shit, for comics and movies, but you can't take that and turn it into something serious, calling yourself a Cyberpunk. People will say you're LARPing, and they're pretty much right.

Still, some kind of punk movement about taking back control over our technology should exist, and I feel like Cyberpunk has somehow gotten in the way of that, because every time someone tries to do something real, it swings back around to 'Nah, you're just cosplaying Cyberpunk'.

>>50957

Then don't tell them you're a "cyberpunk". Maybe even avoid calling yourself a cypherpunk so their ignorance won't raise wrong connotations. Tell them whatever they want to hear. Tell them you do cyber-stuff / work in cyber security / are a crypto anarchist or hacktivist / write code / make web sites etc.

When you want to be more specific e.g. call yourself with proper term like cypherpunk and make the needed distinction and discuss implications of your subculture/movement.

Only discuss cyberpunk when you discuss preferred genres of scifi or art. Don't identify yourself as someone who likes to imagine they live in a book or a painting.

>>50958

I would never call myself either, though for two completely different reasons.

While I consider myself reasonably proficient in the use of cypher technologies, I do not consider myself a 'cypherpunk'. I don't feel like I contribute anything to that subculture. I'm just a dev, who sometimes must make use of best practices, and so I've learned to do so.

As for Cyberpunk, I would never call myself that because it has no meaning. At one time, it might have meant someone who writes a certain kind of fiction, but I am not an author. At another time, it was basically hippies+computers, but I was never interested in being a hippy. It seems as though fans of cyberpunk books tried to align themselves with hackers for a while, but the hackers wanted nothing to do with wannabe action heroes with a loose grip on reality.

I like to imagine a new movement … one that aims to use new technology to generally upset the system that seems to close around us more each year. Not focused on any particular technology, and not obsessed with technological mastery (where 'hacking' is mostly hollow chest beating about being good at it, while accomplishing nothing), but, rather, with an aim to actually *DO* something with whatever level of tech and anti-corp intent you can muster.

Of course, no such movement could exist in this climate, but it's fun to think about.

>>41198

fam, do you have any semiotext[e] usa and/or semiotext[e] sf pdfs?

If you have physicals, be a great person and do a scan

Anyone got neuromacer via pdf?

>>54061

it is everywhere online but this audiobook is ace https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ByMa_1vB2s

>>54061

Don't get lazy on me, anon

https://archive.org/details/NeuromancerWilliamGibson

>>54073

Those any good? if they're anything like the writing in the games HR and MD i'd expect them to suck.

>>54079

yeah they kinda suck but at least its /cyber/

they went the route of exploring competing security companies staff operating at stuff with confusing alliances of being pro or anti augs and is about as fun as GitS Stand Alone Complex focus on inter department rivalries (aka boring af). also genders seem to be switched to appeal to the sjw generation and a lot of times makes no sense. jensen usually don't appear in the novels.

>>54083

I mean, those books are literally taking the good parts of the games and leaving only the shitty writing, doubt those were very succesful.

>James Swallow

kek

>genders seem to be switched to appeal to the sjw generation

What do you mean?

>>54087

No doubt having a bunch of the cookie cutter tough guys be women.

Is E.M.Forster's The Machine Stops cyberpunk or does it not capture that feeling?

>>15734

Crypto - Steven Levy

Incredibly, the history of the academic cryptography movement is the history of cypherpunk. Its an incredibly entertaining story.

>>15734

True Names

I just read and wrote a review on G3 http://galaxy3m2mn5iqtn.onion/blog/view/97843/true-names-book-review

>>15734

I don't recommend Shadow Run : Never Deal with a Dragon. Book sucks, the universe of SR might be compelling but the novel focuses to much on the less interesting fantasy elements and not enough is said about the Matrix and Deckers.