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FROM THE SHARED SHELF · 2006–2026 SAMPLE

REAMDE

Neal Stephenson

14 readers recommend it across 11 discussions

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THE WORD OF MOUTH

What made it worth passing on?

Original Hacker News comments, in the readers’ own words.

dochtman
Isaac Asimov is one of the classics, of course. I'm particularly fond of the robot novels (all four of the Elijah Baley ones especially) and the entire Foundation series. Of course, you also can't miss the robot short stories. Oh, and The End of Eternity! At some point I found Charles Stross' Accelerando, which is freely available online (along with a bunch of other short stories), and found everything I've read (which is most of it at this point, I think) enjoyably fast-paced. In particular the Laundry series (of which I've bought every iteration as soon as they came out over the past few years) -- though arguably these maybe cross-over from SF into fantasy a bit -- and the Halting State trilogy.…
osullivj
Been a big Stephenson fan since Cryptonomicon. Enjoyed the Baroque Trilogy, Anathem & Reamde, but non of them are as good as Cryptonomicon. It's a bit like be an Umberto Eco fan - nothing since Name of the Rose has been quite as good. Or Wes Anderson for that matter; there's been good stuff, but nothing's touched the heights of Royal Tenenbaums.
mindcrime
Neuromancer - William Gibson REAMDE- Neal Stephenson Pattern Recognition / Zero History / Spook Country - William Gibson The Peripheral - William Gibson Not exactly the same thing, but I'll also throw in Glasshouse by Charles Stross. And since we're talking Charles Stross, also add Halting State to the list. Oh, and VALIS by Philip K. Dick. Definitely worth a read.
macmac
Anything by Iain M. Banks. Start with "The Player of Games" and "Consider Phlebas". Anything by Vernor S. Vinge especially "Zones of Thought" series. "Daemon", "Freedom(tm)", "Kill Decision" and "Influx" by Daniel Suarez. "The Martian" by Andy Weir. Anything by Neal Stephenson, especially "Reamde: A Novel" and "Cryptonomicon". Anything by Hannu Rajaniemi, especially "The Fractal Prince".
DanBC
I really like the ideas from Greg Egan, so any of his books. I still love Gibson, even his later books. I want to say one of my favourite books is "Salt" by Adam Roberts. I love the characters and description of political views and the way the war between factions plays out. Roberts' other books are pretty good too. I loved REAMDE - I could have done with a bit more inside the game and a bit less tramping through the woods. I love Stephenson's other books too. Finally: Bruce Sterling seems to be under-appreciated. Hard to recommend one of his books. This question is perhaps a FAQ. Has anyone on HN ever scraped the answers posted to the various threads, added information about number of mentions or votes; with links to Amazon (and other book sellers)? Having some carefully chosen adds and duplicating all the links with affiliate links would turn this into a mostly passive income project.

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veidr
The trilogy of Neuromancer, Burning Chrome, and Mona Lisa Overdrive is still my favorite work of fiction, and also, to my mind, exemplifies the kind of taut, awesome writing that I would want to do if I wrote novels. It the only series of 3 books I have read more than once. I caught these books at just the right time in my life (age 13 or 14), leading my high-school fascination with Japan and rekindled interest in computing, and probably played an inordinately large role in me ending up as a programmer who lives in Tokyo, two decades later. I like great sci fi best, but I think most of it is crap, including virtually all of the old pulp sci fi and Asimov I grew up reading (which was basically all of it), Star Wars/Trek, etc. Other than Gibson's stuff, some of the truly spectacular sci fi I have read is the very-dense-and-not-at-all-thriller-ish Mars trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars), and the fast-paced-and-awesome Spin by Robert Charles Wilson. That led me to read all of Wilson's books, many of which are also good. Also Haldeman is an author worth reading, though not all of his books hit their mark.…
mindcrime
>> 1. What books are you currently reading? Well, I'm one of those people who has a bookmark in about 15 different books that I'm "currently reading" but some are higher priorities than others, and some will never be finished (probably) and others I'll have to start over since I've forgotten what was happening when I sat it aside, etc. But offhand, I can think of: Crossing The Chasm - Geoffrey Moore - re-reading this one The Prime Solution - Jeff Thull - 3rd Jeff Thull book on selling that I've read lately, and I'll probably reread the entire series when I finish this one The New Solution Selling - re-reading this - can you tell I'm starting to try and move into sales? Selling to VITO - more sales stuff. How to Create A Mind - Ray Kurzweil Godel, Escher, Bach - Douglas Hofstadter - set this aside over a year ago; about halfway through, will probably finish it, but FSM only knows when A New Kind of Science - Stephen Wolfram (see above about GEB) Madame Bovary - Meh. May finish one day, may not. Would have to start it over at this point. REAMDE - Neal Stephenson - set this aside a while back, but intend to finish it eventually. Will probably restart from the beginning.…