5. Rainbows End, by Vernor Vinge (2006)
“Robert Gu is a recovering Alzheimer’s patient. The world that he remembers was much as we know it today. Now, as he regains his faculties through a cure developed during the years of his near-fatal decline, he discovers that the world has changed and so has his place in it. He was a world-renowned poet. Now he is seventy-five years old, though by a medical miracle he looks much younger, and he’s starting over, for the first time unsure of his poetic gifts. Living with his son’s family, he has no choice but to learn how to cope with a new information age in which the virtual and the real are a seamless continuum, layers of reality built on digital views seen by a single person or millions, depending on your choice. But the consensus reality of the digital world is available only if, like his thirteen-year-old granddaughter Miri, you know how to wear your wireless access — through nodes designed into smart clothes — and to see the digital context — through smart contact lenses.”
Winner of the 2007 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
6. Daemon, by Daniel Suarez (2006)
“In a near-future run by thousands of autonomous computer programs, a dormant program activates after a legendary game designer’s premature death and launches a sinister effort to dismantle society and enforce a new world order. “
Also read the sequel Freedom™ published in 2010.
7. Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline (2011)
“In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the OASIS, a vast virtual world where most of humanity spends their days. When the eccentric creator of the OASIS dies, he leaves behind a series of fiendish puzzles, based on his obsession with the pop culture of decades past. Whoever is first to solve them will inherit his vast fortune — and control of the OASIS itself.”
A #1 New York Times Bestseller which was adapted into major motion picture directed by Steven Spielberg.
8. Tomorrow and Tomorrow, by Tom Sweterlitsch (2014)
“Pittsburgh is John Dominic Blaxton’s home even though the city has been uninhabitable ruin and ash for the past decade. The Pittsburgh Dominic lives in is the Archive, an immersive virtual reconstruction of the city’s buildings, parks, and landmarks, as well as the people who once lived there. Including Dominic’s wife and unborn child. When he’s not reliving every recorded moment with his wife in an endless cycle of desperation and despair, Dominic investigates mysterious deaths preserved in the Archive before Pittsburgh’s destruction.”
9. Seveneves, by Neal Stephenson (2015)
“A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space. But the complexities and unpredictability of human nature coupled with unforeseen challenges and dangers threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only a handful of survivors remain.”
Seveneves was included on President Obama’s Summer 2016 reading list and was one of five books recommended by Bill Gates as “must reads” for Summer 2016.
10. Armada, by Ernest Cline (2015)
“Zack Lightman has never much cared for reality. He vastly prefers the countless science-fiction movies, books, and videogames he’s spent his life consuming. And too often, he catches himself wishing that some fantastic, impossible, world-altering event could arrive to whisk him off on a grand spacefaring adventure. So when he sees the flying saucer, he’s sure his years of escapism have finally tipped over into madness.”
Wil Wheaton narrates the audiobook version of the book.
(Bonus book that’s more fiction than science fiction but is definitely a must-read!)
11. The Unseen World, by Liz Moore (2016)
“Ada Sibelius is raised by David, her brilliant, eccentric, socially inept single father, who directs a computer science lab in 1980s-era Boston. Home-schooled, Ada accompanies David to work every day; by twelve, she is a painfully shy prodigy. The lab begins to gain acclaim at the same time that David’s mysterious history comes into question. When his mind begins to falter, leaving Ada virtually an orphan, she is taken in by one of David’s colleagues. Soon she embarks on a mission to uncover her father’s secrets: a process that carries her from childhood to adulthood. What Ada discovers on her journey into a virtual universe will keep the reader riveted until The Unseen World’s heart-stopping, fascinating conclusion.”
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