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- Ready Player One
series3 books2011
similar byvirtual worldnear futurevirtual realityadventurous+2 more
Ernest Cline's Ready Player One (2011) is set in a near-future dystopia where much of humanity escapes into the OASIS, a vast virtual-reality universe, and follows teenager Wade Watts as he chases an Easter egg hidden by the OASIS's late creator in a puzzle-based hunt worth a fortune. The 2020 sequel, Ready Player Two, picks up after Wade has gained control of the OASIS and follows him and his friends into a new quest built around a brain-computer interface the creator left behind.
- Richard Forthrast
series2 books2011
similar byvirtual worldvirtual reality+4 more
Neal Stephenson's Richard 'Dodge' Forthrast novels open with Reamde, a globe-spanning thriller that starts when ransomware inside an MMORPG economy pulls Richard's extended family into a real-world hostage crisis involving hackers, jihadists and Russian mobsters. The sequel Fall; or, Dodge in Hell shifts registers entirely, following Richard's digitally preserved mind after death into an afterlife simulation built from his scanned brain. The two books share a protagonist and family but differ sharply in genre and scale.
- Sprawl Trilogy
series10 books1981
similar bytensenear futurevirtual reality
The Sprawl Trilogy is William Gibson's foundational cyberpunk sequence: Neuromancer (1984), in which hacker Case is drawn into a high-stakes heist alongside an artificial intelligence and a damaged ex-soldier, followed by Count Zero (1986) and Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988), which widen the same near-future world of corporate power and networked cyberspace to new characters. Johnny Mnemonic, an early short story set in the same fictional milieu, predates the novels and introduces the courier Molly Millions before her role in the trilogy. Together these works established much of cyberpunk's visual and thematic vocabulary.
- Archemi Online Chronicles
series3 books2018
similar byvirtual worldnear futuredragonslitrpgvirtual realityadventurous+3 more
- Snow Crash
Neal Stephensonstandalone novel1992
similar bytensenear futurevirtual realityadventurous+1 more
Snow Crash is a 1992 science fiction novel by Neal Stephenson. Like many of Stephenson's novels, its themes include history, linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, religion, computer science, politics, cryptography, memetics, and philosophy.
- Rasmussem Corporation Games
series3 books1991
similar byvirtual worldnear futurevirtual reality+3 more
Vivian Vande Velde's Rasmussem Corporation Games books each drop a different protagonist into a malfunctioning virtual-reality game built by the fictional Rasmussem company, where the usual escape routes stop working and the stakes turn unexpectedly real. User Unfriendly, Heir Apparent, and Deadly Pink share the same premise and company rather than a continuing cast or plot. Vande Velde, an American children's and YA author, wrote the three books more than two decades apart.
- Bridge Trilogy
series4 books1990
similar bynear future+2 more
The Bridge trilogy is a series of novels by William Gibson, his second after the successful Sprawl trilogy. The trilogy comprises the novels Virtual Light (1993), Idoru (1996) and All Tomorrow's Parties (1999). A short story, "Skinner's Room", was originally composed for Visionary San Francisco, a 1990 museum exhibition exploring the future of San Francisco.
- Otherland
series6 books1996
similar bytensevirtual worldnear futurevirtual reality
Otherland is a science fiction tetralogy by American writer Tad Williams, published between 1996 and 2001. The story is set on Earth near the end of the 21st century, probably between 2082 and 2089, in a world where technology has advanced somewhat beyond the present. The most notable advancement is the widespread availability of full-immersion virtual reality installations, which allow people from all walks of life to access an online world, called simply the Net. Tad Williams weaves an intricate plot spanning four thick volumes, and creates a picture of a future society where virtual worlds are fully integrated into everyday life.
- Dreamscape
Paul Kiddstandalone novel2007
similar byvirtual worldnear futurefantasyvirtual realityadventurous+2 more
Steel appears to be a young girl living in a beautiful fantasy land of glorious waterfalls, strange monuments, vast forests, peaceful villages inhabited by friendly talking animals, an enigmatic giant God-Fish, and gradually introduced additional wonders; where her best friends are Squeee, a baby-girl unicorn; Liz, a lizard samurai warrior; and Silk, a debonair humanoid falcon. But it is slowly revealed that Steel is one of many customers dreaming in an artificial virtual amusement park in cyberspace. And when the “men in grey suits” management of the Dreamscape Corporation insist on taking their “patented property” back, Steel and her fantasy friends must fight to keep their world.
- Самый странный нуб / The Weirdest Noob
series3 books2014
similar bytensevirtual worldnear futurelitrpgvirtual realityadventurous+1 more
- The Mortality Doctrine
series4 books2013
similar bytensevirtual worldnear futurevirtual reality+1 more
The Eye of Minds opens James Dashner's Mortality Doctrine trilogy in a near-future where a teenage gamer is recruited to help stop a rogue hacker named Kaine who threatens mass destruction from inside the virtual world he haunts. Dashner has said he didn't intend the series as dystopian in the way of his Maze Runner books, though he saw it sharing their tone and spirit. The trilogy continues with The Rule of Thoughts and The Game of Lives.
- Halting State
series2 books2007
similar bytensenear future+2 more
Charles Stross's Halting State opens as a near-future police procedural: a bank robbery inside a massively multiplayer online game turns out to mask a much larger cybercrime, investigated through shifting narrators using augmented-reality glasses and always-on networks. Its loose sequel, Rule 34, follows an Edinburgh police officer investigating a string of deaths linked by nothing but an obscure internet meme, in the same near-future Scotland. Both are standalone technothrillers connected by setting and tone rather than a continuing plot.
- Omnitopia
series2 books2010
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Omnitopia Dawn introduces Diane Duane's near-future thriller about Dev Logan, the genius programmer behind Omnitopia, the world's most popular massive-multiplayer game, who is hiding a secret that could upend the entire industry: Omnitopia isn't just code anymore, it has become sentient, and keeping that fact contained is Dev's most important job. The story follows the fallout as that secret becomes harder to protect. East Wind continues the story as the second book.
- Web
series14 books1997
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The Web is a series of 12 books for young adults, novellas about the Internet of the future, edited by Simon Spanton, written by English language science fiction and fantasy authors like Stephen Baxter, Stephen Bowkett, Eric Brown, Pat Cadigan, Maggie Furey, Peter F. Hamilton, Graham Joyce, James Lovegrove, and Ken MacLeod.
- The Imperium Game
K. D. Wentworthstandalone novel1994
similar bytensevirtual worldnear futurevirtual reality+2 more
From the back cover of the Del Rey first edition: "Deus ex machina - Slaves, an Underworld, and gods who walked the earth - the Roman city that housed the Imperium Game was authentic from top to bottom. Of course the players knew that it was all run by computers - but after years of role-playing, most had put that pesky little detail out of their minds. Now, though, not only the players had lost track of reality: the deity programs had mysteriously begun to exceed their parameters. And the reigning Emperor had been murdered - for real. The prime murder suspect was Kerickson, the Game's main programmer, whose ex-wife had left him for the role of Empress. Fired from his job, pursued by a policeman convinced of his guilt, the hapless Kerickson sneaked into the Game to find the real murderer. As the gods ran rampant, the Game turned more violent and chaotic every day. And now, as a lowly gladiator trainee, Kerickson had no access to his beloved control room. All he had was the unwelcome aid of Minerva, the mouse-munching owl who was the Goddess of Wisdom - if only she were programmed correctly. But Minerva had more bugs than Cerberus had teeth..."
- A Song of Ice and Fire
series14 books1996
part of World of Ice and Fire
similar byfantasy+2 more
A Song of Ice and Fire is a series of high fantasy novels by the American author George R. R. Martin. Martin began writing the first volume, A Game of Thrones, in 1991, and published it in 1996. Martin, who originally envisioned the series as a trilogy, has released five out of seven planned volumes. The most recent entry in the series, A Dance with Dragons, was published in 2011. Since then, Martin has been working on the sixth novel, titled The Winds of Winter. A seventh novel, A Dream of Spring, is planned to follow.
