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Originally Posted by Danost
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Neuromancer: Not bad! The ending was a pretty unfulfilling, but not bad.
Snow Crash: Guh. The writing was awkward (There's moments where characters are in two places at the same time somehow, and other problems), the characters felt one dimensional, and I gave up halfway through when the fifteen gear old girl bonked some guy old enough to be her father.
A Scanner Darkly: Gave up relatively quickly. If I wanted to hear people talk about drugs, how to get more drugs, how they need drugs and what they'll do with drugs- as well as crazy conspiracy junk- I'd listen to my coworkers.
Anyone got any other suggestions? I'm dying here!
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To me, the "punk" in cyberpunk is at least as important as the "cyber". Based on your reactions to the titles you mentioned, I think we may not agree on that. The punk suffix means, in my opinion, that the genre is best expressed in works where morality and the value of human life are examined, and that necessarily leads to things that may seem sleazy - questionable sex, drug use and abuse, violence. If you read Pat Cadigan's stories, you even get rock-n-roll with the sex and drugs.
Anyhow, I second WillAdams' recommendation of Walter Jon Williams' "Hardwired". It can be read simply as a near-future sci-fi action novel with lots of explosions and nifty tech, but it also deals with the human issues.