Books like “Neuromancer”

What to read after “Neuromancer” by William Gibson: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
Snow Crash
Neal Stephenson · 1992
From the same world: “Cyberpunk”
- Cyberpunk
- Morally Grey Character
In a future Los Angeles split between franchised city-states, a hacker and a teenage skateboard courier chase a drug that works on both computers and human minds. The trail runs from the neon Metaverse to ancient languages and a plan to reshape civilisation.
2
The Diamond Age
Neal Stephenson · 1995
From the same world: “Cyberpunk”
- Cyberpunk
In a world split between rich enclaves and crowded cities, an engineer builds an interactive book meant to teach his daughter. It changes hands until it reaches Nell, an orphan whose slow education becomes the key to something larger.
3
Schismatrix
Bruce Sterling · 1985
From the same world: “Cyberpunk”
- Cyberpunk
- Morally Grey Character
Abelard Lindsay is a trained diplomat moving between two posthuman factions, the Shapers and the Mechanists, as humanity spreads across space. His long career of alliances and betrayals carries him across a changing solar system.
4
Altered Carbon
Richard K. Morgan · 2002
From the same world: “Cyberpunk” and “Noir”
A prisoner named Takeshi Kovacs is downloaded into a new body and sent to Earth to solve the death of a wealthy man. His search through the powerful Bay City elite uncovers a wider conspiracy about who is allowed to live forever.
5
The Stars My Destination
Alfred Bester · 1956
From the same world: “Cyberpunk”
- Cyberpunk
- Morally Grey Character
Gully Foyle survives a wrecked spaceship and swears revenge on the vessel that left him for dead. His hunt across a future where people can teleport by thought turns him into a wealthy, dangerous man chasing a weapon that could end the war.
6
Ready Player One
Ernest Cline · 2011
From the same world: “Cyberpunk”
- Cyberpunk
In a polluted future, most people escape into the OASIS, a vast virtual world. When its creator dies, he leaves his fortune to whoever finds the hidden egg, and teenager Wade joins a hunt that turns deadly.
7
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Philip K. Dick · 1968
From the same world: “Noir”
- Noir
- Morally Grey Character
In a dust-choked future, a bounty hunter is paid to retire androids that have escaped to Earth and passed as human. As he tracks them down he starts to question what makes a life real, and whether he can trust his own memories.
8
The Windup Girl
Paolo Bacigalupi · 2009
Same genre: “Cyberpunk” and “Science fiction”
- Morally Grey Character
In a flooded, calorie-poor Bangkok kept alive by genetic engineering, an American trader hunts for lost seed banks while a manufactured woman bred as a servant tries to survive. Their paths cross with corporate enforcers and a city about to boil over.
9
The Maltese Falcon
Dashiell Hammett · 1929
From the same world: “Noir”
- Noir
- Morally Grey Character
A woman walks into Sam Spade's San Francisco office with a story about a missing sister, and the case becomes a hunt for a jewel-encrusted black bird. Spade's partner is killed, and he must decide whom to trust among liars, thieves and double-crossers.
10
The Big Sleep
Raymond Chandler · 1939
From the same world: “Noir”
- Noir
Private detective Philip Marlowe is hired by a dying general to deal with a blackmailer, and the case leads him through a family of drifters and gamblers to a missing man and a tangle of secrets. He keeps working even when the general tells him to stop.
11
Double Indemnity
James M. Cain · 1936
From the same world: “Noir”
- Noir
- Morally Grey Character
Insurance salesman Walter Huff is drawn to Phyllis, the alluring wife of a client, and agrees to help her kill her husband and make it look like an accident. Their scheme is carefully plotted, but the company's claims investigator begins to notice details that do not add up.
12
The Postman Always Rings Twice
James M. Cain · 1934
From the same world: “Noir”
- Noir
- Morally Grey Character
A drifter called Frank takes a job at a roadside diner and begins an affair with the owner's unhappy wife. Their plan to be together, a murder made to look like an accident, sets off a chain of events that neither of them can control.