I don’t think I’ve ever read an original novel set in the future. I’m not knocking SF authors here, I’m actually commending them. More than in any other genre, SF authors build on one another. Instead of creating a whole new world from the core out every single time, there are various givens of the genre (including the given that readers will be hip to the latest developments in real science and tech) that lead to a kind of Genre Knowledge (read: Racial Knowledge or Species Knowledge) as well as an elaborate lexicon and root system that allows authors to effortlessly utilize words like “metapolitics,” “slashdotted,” “computronium” and “metacortex” and still be certain that readers of the genre won’t be as lost as Jin, Sun and Mr. Echo.
Soon-to-be MG3K authors (ages 16 to 64) are asking me what *my* future (the MG3K future) looks like. Is everyone at least somewhat wired? Yes (religious antitech puritans being the exception). Have there been any nuclear incidents? Yes (didn’t anyone else watch ‘Jericho’?!). Contact from alien life forms? Most likely (space, another dimension, AI, whatever). What kind of tech, slang, and pop culture exists? What do people do for work? Fun? Terrorism? Politics? Love? Marriage? Death?
To answer these questions fully and in detail, I’ll provide a reading list. The books on the list will paint a picture of the MG3K future and also offer up nine excellent SF reads. They’ve certainly shaped the way I see the world and I think, if you’re reading this blog, you’ll get a wicked kick out of them too.
The books are in a specific order. They grow in complexity. Start at the beginning of the list because they build on one another. Just like knowing your multiplication tables ultimately helps with long division and beyond, you’ll need “Virtual Rock” to fully appreciate “Snow Crash” or “accelerando.” It will show you how far the genre has come and how 1 led to 2 which led to 3,ooo.
I’m not going to provide buy links for the books because I’m not an affiliate junkie. Beg, borrow, or buy the books wherever. The only book on the list published by Windstorm is “Virtual Rock,” so if you can’t get it from your local library, then it's 20% off at http://www.windstormcreative.com/windstorm/73971.htm. Or, I did a price check (as of today), and there are used copies of all nine books at Amazon. You can score the whole list for under $25.
1. Virtual Rock (Cris DiMarco)
2. The Demolished Man (Alfred Bester)
3. Armageddon Blues (Daniel Keyes Moran)
4. Virtual Death (Shale Aaron)
5. Virtual Light (William Gibson)
6. Diamond Age (Neal Stephenson)
7. Dead Girls (Richard Calder)
8. Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson)
9. accelerando (Charles Stross)
One last note about the books in general: There's swearing, pretty much any four-letter word. There’s sex, though not explicit. Some violence, but not heinous. I would rate them for 17+ mature readers that understand that not everyone in the world talks pretty or plays fair. The only exception is “Dead Girls.” This book is brilliantly written, rich in language and imagery and conceptual ideas, but it is utterly raw. It has brutal lexicon, explicit sex and torturous violence. If it were a movie, it would be rated somewhere south of an NC-17 rating (you know, NC-17, that rating *after* R). Go ahead and skip "Dead Girls" if this type of content would be too unsettling... though, at the pace our world is progressing, our future may very well be way south of “unsettling.”
E.J.
