Dhalgren was a great book, overdue for a reread if I could find the time. I read a lot of the Borderland series when I was a kid and Dhalgren had the same feeling about it, sort of blurring the lines between science and magic, but with much greater depth. Like falling down a well. I have had a little trouble getting into Delaney's other work thus far, but I finished Triton and really enjoyed it.
I do love Neuromancer, but a recent reread was a little disappointing, especially compared to Gibson's more recent work. You can see why it endures, as (thanks slashdot) it is probably the only book ever to successfully frame computer programming as sexy and dangerous. I picked up Count Zero again soon after and enjoyed it much more than I had remembered. It's a slower paced, deeper novel, connected to but independent of its predecessor. When I have the time, I'm looking forward to diving into Mona Lisa Overdrive again. The idea of the aleph in that last novel really brings to mind all of that technological singularity nonsense that's gotten everyone so hot lately.
PKD almost goes without saying, and his best writing does hold up, but some of his stuff is pretty god awful. I'm happy I got into it when I did, and so glad that I read A Scanner Darkly and Flow My Tears first.
And lastly, here's another nod to John Brunner: Stand on Zanzibar and Sheep Look Up paint the sort of claustrophobic world I sort of imagined the Sprawl would be like, but more and more are beginning to look like the world around me. |
