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Fantasizing about the same or even a stronger emotion with books like Neuromancer?
We can understand why.
Neuromancer was the first cyber-firework-novel that William Gibson “lit” in 1984. Its sparks grew into flames of cyberpunk as a subgenre of sci-fi.
With Neuromancer, William Gibson became a “seer” who turned his science fiction story into the reality of today: globalization, the Internet, artificial intelligence, etc.
No need to tell you. You were there, in the book and in the matrix.
You saw that “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel”.
You met Case, a drug-addicted ex-hacker, and Molly Millions, a cybernetically-enhanced assassin, both hired by Armitage.
Then everything started…
Finally, you watched how Case helped Wintermute and Neuromancer, the yin and yang of cyber reality, join into an almighty entity.
“He never saw Molly again….”
Case didn’t, but you did!
Most probably, your reading retreat continued with the sequels of Neuromancer: Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive (Molly as Sally Shears in it).
If that’s about you and you need books like the Sprawl trilogy and Neuromancer, in particular, here you go! 👇
What To Read After Neuromancer: Best Picks
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
A pizza delivery guy, Hiro Protagonist, lives in LA.
Nothing seems to hint at cyberpunk. Until Hiro, a freelance hacker specializing in software programming gets into the Metaverse (a computer-generated system).
Inside it, a metavirus, Snow Crash, causes real-life neurological damage to hackers’ brains, making them mindless.
How can it possibly alter the brain physically from virtual reality?
Find out here.
P.S.: Stephenson’s play-on-words (Hiro Protagonist) and humour are, as always, brilliant.
Hyperion by Dan Simmons
D’you mind peering into the twenty-ninth century?
Space colonization resulted in above 200 planets interconnected by the WorldWeb and ruled by Hegemony.
Hyperion, a far-away labyrinthine planet, hides its enigmas (mysterious Time Tombs) and dangers (the Shrike or Lord of Pain).
Get inside the novel, join the seven characters in their journeys to Hyperion, discover their secrets, and learn why the destiny of humanity is at stake.
It’s the first instalment of the Hyperion Cantos series – an epic adventure with its philosophy, depth, and massive universe-building.
Halting State by Charles Stross
Written by an ex-programmer, Charles Stross, Halting State is one of the best sci-fi books similar to Neuromancer.
Stross drops you onto captivating and intriguing pages soaked through with AR and multiplayer gaming, hacking, cryptography, and more.
A police sergeant joins forces with a forensic accountant and a geeky computer genius in this thrilling cybercrime conundrum.
The walls between the real and virtual worlds crashed.
See the aftereffects in this book.
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
What if robots could think freely and decide for themselves?
Could they enslave people?
The title itself has undertones of artificial intelligence and its self-identification.
If you’ve watched the same-name film, you’ve got only the tiniest bits of the futuristic, provocative stories narrated by a robot psychologist, Susan Calvin.
There’s so much more for you to discover in the book.
Here’s the link.
Our Lady of the Artilects by Andrew Gillsmith
“It couldn’t be a virus. Like all artilects, Thierry was unhackable.”
Thierry is one of the Artilects (next-gen android robots) that start seeing ominous “hallucinations”.
Who could have taken possession of the AI’s mind?
Serafian is the only man who can find the answer and explain the “hack”.
Published in June 2022, it’s one of the new books like Neuromancer.
Read it and feel its psychedelic effects.
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
Imagine a child leading an army amidst the galactic war?
Andrew Wiggin, aka Ender, along with other kids, get trained via game simulations to stop the anticipated Earth invasion by the alien insectoids.
Meanwhile, Ender’s sociopath-sadist brother and strikingly-compassionate sister are reshaping the Earth’s political landscape in the virtual network, the Nets.
Who of the three will alter the world for good?
Will it be Ender, or is he only a pawn in someone’s hands?
Here’s your copy of Ender’s Game.
Try to play it.
Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan
In several hundred years, human minds will be made immortal thanks to the digitization of consciousness.
One can be saved in a stack and transferred (sleeved) into any body (sleeve).
When one of the wealthy, Laurens Bancroft, dies under weird circumstances, he gets re-sleeved and hires Takeshi Kovacs, an ex-warrior-who-turned-criminal, to uncover the truth behind his death.
Woken from hibernation, Kovacs receives a new body and motivation to perform the task successfully.
Get a wild read with Altered Carbon, a hybrid of cyberpunk and murder investigation, stuffed to the brims with head-spinning intense action.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick
The US has fallen.
Now it’s an authoritarian state ruled by the police.
Jason Taverner is a worshipped-and-rich TV star and one of the “sixes’ (genetically-modified people).
Until he wakes up to see that he’s a “no-person”.
Nobody recognizes him anymore in the society of mass surveillance, where an ID is the only evidence of existence.
Is his previous life just an illusion? You’ll lose the guessing game.
Check it yourself.
Forests of the Night by S. Andrew Swann
What can be a result of military-driven experiments in genetic engineering in the near future?
Some classes of hybrid people are android-like “franks” (Frankensteins).
Some are “moreaus” – the outcomes of gene-tech manipulations with animals and humans.
Nohar Rajasthan is a moreau and a cold-blooded private detective.
Given a task to solve a murder mystery, he’s thrown into the chaos of governmental plotting.
Immerse yourself into a fast-paced, character-driven story with an impeccable noir-cyberpunk atmosphere.
Grab your copy.
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
Climate change… All countries are collapsed ecologically and economically, swallowed by giant corporations that dominate the market with GMOs which cause illnesses and mass deaths.
All except for Thailand possessing disease-resistant DNAs.
Anderson Lake, a megacorporation representative, tries to get one from the Thai seed bank.
In Bangkok, he meets a beautifully-bioengineered creature, Emiko, a windup girl.
What secret potential does she have?
Dive into the book and make the picture of this biopunk-dystopia more vivid in your mind.
The Bohr Maker by Linda Nagata
Would you like to reprogram your genetic code, heal yourself, or even manipulate people’s mood?
You could do that with the Bohr Maker.
It’s a potentially dangerous tool banned by the Commonwealth.
It’s also the last hope for Nikko, a post-human engineered to endure in-space conditions, to remain alive (his lifespan expires).
Meanwhile, Phousita, a woman from the slums, gets the device and gains powers beyond her understanding.
The Bohr Maker is on the loose. What consequences can it lead to?
This overwhelming nanotech thriller is available on Amazon.
Some More Books Like Neuromancer
You don’t choose to read Gibson’s novels like Neuromancer.
They rather pick you, break down your mind’s door, and tell you that you’re already inside his cyberspace.
It’s time to feel another brain defibrillation with The Peripheral by William Gibson, often listed as one of the most similar books to Neuromancer.
If you haven’t done that already, read our review of The Peripheral and grab ten more similar SF novels collected by Booklyst here.
Btw, have you read anything from the above list already?