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How Gibson wrote Neuromancer and ended up a massive lib is beyond me
he never updated his underlying assumptions, he sees most present events as a consequence of technological development instead of viewing the technological development as a consequence of the same material forces driving every other sociopolitical change
in short, this is what no theory does to a motherfucker
I don't know if it's a "can't put it down" kinda book, but my go-to recommendation is just always The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
This is 100% the most unique novel I've ever read. There's absolutely nothing else quite like it. Everything de Selby does is amazing.
Have you read The Dalkey Archive or anything else by O'Brien?
House of Leaves is the last book that really kept me reading until I finished it.
Ya know, I'm re-reading this right now, and I never know what to think of this book. Is it extremely pretentious? Sarcastic as hell? Love the set-up to the story, though.
I can see where you're coming from, but I think it does what it's intending to do fairly well.
spoiler
Insanity horror is almost never tried, and when it is, it is almost always from the point of view of an onlooker. Never the protagonist.
The font fuckery may come off as pretentious to some, but I'd call that making the most of the medium.
I didn't find it very compelling after a point. It was neat I think but didn't quite do much for me after a while (plus the author says we should think of it as a 'Love Story' in some blog post iirc which I found very funny).
Man, I really wanna read your thoughts on this, but I'm trying to go in with fresh eyes. I'll come back to this or make a thread when I'm done.
I also tend to read mostly non-fiction. Here are a couple fiction books I had trouble putting down:
All The Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy
White Noise - Don DeLillo
Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
These aren't really easy, but they're my favorite novels:
Lanarck by Alasdair Grey
Shikasta by Doris Lessing
The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut Jr
"Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World" by Murakami, his writing style is really captivating and flows really well
I can second this. I didn't love the story, I mean I liked it more as it went on, but mainly there was just something about the writing that kept me wanting to read it.
It was enjoyable.
Brandon Sanderson is good if you really like reading, he's a lib but his heart is in the right place. I'd recommend Elantris or even one of his YA series, like Skyward, if you want to get a feel for him as an author. The Stormlight Archive is shaping up to be the Wheel of Time of our age.
Terry Pratchett is also an excellent author, I could recommend many of his Discworld books, there are many self contained arcs in the series so you don't have to read all 20+ of them
Cosmonaut Keep by Ken MacLeod: a fun sci-fi adventure with flying saucers and communist-occupied Scotland. The sequel Dark Light is pretty good, the third book was disappointing.
Glasshouse by Charles Stross: a post-singularity sci-fi/horror/mystery novel about an amnesiac war criminal who signs up for an experimental recreation of a 20th-century American town.
Walkaway by Cory Doctorow: Semi-Automated Luxury Pansexual Terrestrial Anarcho-Communism.