Dancing Neurons Phase into a Snow Crash

So, Mentalist acer asks what my favorite science fiction novel is, and presumably "why."

Well, that's a hard one. I read gobs. Not just cutting edge news, but lots of mind grease and literary greats. While I'll admit to splurging on video games, chatting, and watching Netflix--if I'm not doing any of those things but still entertaining myself I'm curled up reading a good book. Or at least an entertaining one.

I can't decide, really, what my favorite is. So I'm going to include an Amazon capsule with a bunch of my favorites. But I will discuss two here in-depth: Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson and Neuromancer by William Gibson.

This book, like my other favorite, exists in the realm of a genre that's best called "It's quasi-futuristic-because-it-is-already-happening." However, due to the long name, it's been shortened to "cyberpunk."

So what makes this novel awesome?

Well, some consider it a satire of cyberpunk. Which means it's absolutely hilarious at times. It's set in the none-too-distant-future whereupon the United States of America as we have known it has fallen for the most part. Many nations have, and we are now faced with a world economy funded by corporate power. Sound familiar?

It's called Snow Crash because of a particular drug that is passed around via interactive three dimensional chat rooms. When someone tears open their free sample of said "drug" their computer invariably freezes and crashes, hence the name.

What exactly Snow Crash is becomes the center stage of the book. However, it's not your standard tek war or "RoboCop" type of thing. This drug has links in Sumerian culture and works most effectively (if only?) on hackers.

Taking place in SouthCali we have two main characters: Hiro Protaganist, a thirty something downtrodden hacker who at the beginning of the book quickly becomes ex-pizza delivery man, and Y.T., a fifteen year old girl who rides a slicked out futuristic skateboard (sorry, no hoverboards yet!) and "poons" herself electromagnetically on the back of different cars so she can quickly speed to delivery after delivery.

She's a Kourier, carrying packages where ever needed as quickly as possible, for the right price. She is, in effect, part of the life blood that is the economic engine in this strange future.

There are no government-ran police, so all police matters are taken care of either by yourself or through private entities. And if someone needs to be detained, they have their choice of two different prison chains. They're not government ran any more, either.

You'll also find almost every housing development is either it's own entity, or part of a larger group of entities. Now not just an association they have their own laws, rules, and constitution. If they're not adhered to, expect to have a cop on your butt.

Of course not everyone gets to live in such a privileged society, Hiro for example occupies one of the best storage units SouthCali has to offer. But there's plenty of places to shower if you have the creds!

Between the prose, the setting, and how well the world is fleshed out Snow Crash makes for an awesome read.

There is a sequel of sorts that I highly recommend, too. And this delves further into the future where products are built up one atom at a time through various size machines known as "M.C.s," or matter compilers.

The story within is at once sweet, unnerving at times, and can even be confusing. But it's an excellent read!

It's considered "post-cyberpunk," and early on in the book you'll catch a snarky glimpse of Neal "killing" off the genre, if you will.

Neuromancer, while still cyberpunk, is a different beast altogether. While it still involves a hacker or two, and exists in the not-so-far-off, the satire in "Snow Crash" is eschewed here for an often nitty-gritty film noire type of theme. While it's not written in that manner, the first line in the book is "Above the seaport the sky was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."

William Gibson, my absolute favorite author (stylistically, futuristically, and substantially) coined the term "cyberspace" with this one book. What is contained therein is a novel of action, murder, mystery, and intrigue. It's a summer blockbuster you'll want to read over and over and over and over again. Well, I do. Mileage may vary.

It involves Case, another downtrodden hacker. He's basically living on borrowed time in the Japanese sprawl putting anything and everything in his body to get him off, when the loose and shifty deals he makes isn't enough.

Ready to die he has found himself in Chibi city because he ripped off the wrong company and has been beat up and drugged with a psycotropic substance used to burn out the pathways in the human brain that allows a human to interface directly with the computer.

In short, our once hacker extraodinare is no longer such.

Invariably as the story moves along he runs into Molly Millions who is after him because her boss--a mysterious Mr. Armitage--wants a good hacker.

Now, you'd think after Case has spent all the money he stole from his previous employer on trying to fix himself he would have tried every cure out there. Not so fast, because Mr. Armitage offer's Case a deal of the life time--we can fix your brain and it will be done free of charge so long as you do us a favor.

That favor becomes the center of the book, with trips to Istanbul, America, and even to outerspace! William Gibson captures each different location with it's own sense of self and fills in the world so completely well I often re-read passages.

Of course, like most of his writings, it's done in threes. While the ending of the first book ties everything up into a neat little package for the most part, you quickly realize that with the mission accomplished the world is never going to be the same again.

It just takes awhile.

But each book is in it's self a great read and they can all be independently read apart from each other. That's why they're a novel and not say..Twilight.

There are background characters present in all three novels, most notably "Molly Millions," who is kinda like Trinity but she has cybernetic eye insets and razors underneath her stylishly varnished nails.

Within the confines of this novel, as well as all of his work, everything is eclectically added to give the reader a sense of streaming live. There's also lots of drugs, some sex (I donated my copy to a high school library, haha!), and telling technology.

"Neuromancer" set the stage for the whole cyberpunk sci-fi subgenre and it's not hard to see why. Consequently, almost everything after it (including my cyberpunk work) is heavily borrowed from much of what it foretold.

But the newer field now is "biopunk," because with recent advances in medical science and stem cell research it becomes more and more feasible to create a plug in your head designed to interface with a computer.

That's a whole other story, though.

What are some of your favorite sci fi epics? Or are you not too into the genre at all? Leave your responses below! Or better yet, answer the question with your own article!

Automation!

How much longer does the public have to wait,

How many years did it take God to create?

Robots!
Where's the robots?!

Clones of myself,
My kids,
My destiny...

Metal organs for the while,

I can't help but smile.

Christ was not an only child,

I can't help but smile!

Automation!

What's the point in achieving only you?
Where's the top of what a man could hope to prove?

Robots!
Where's the robots?!

Clones of myself,
My kids,
My destiny....

Metal organs for the while,
I can't help but smile !
Christ was not an only child,
I can't help but smile!