Geeky Books?

[moonndragn]

I'm trying to assemble a list of 'canonical' and smart books that the campus here could buy for the CS students (and others) to read. What are your favorite suggestions? I'm aiming for 'literature' or 'fiction', and remember that there needs to be a bare minimum of 'objectionable content

Comments

[mtolan]

Orson Scott Card - Ender's Game
Asimov - The Robot series

[stuck]

Neuromancer - I forget the author

[ext_37503]

William Gibson is the author. For that matter, you could get the entire Sprawl trilogy which includes

Neuromancer
Count Zero
Mona Lisa Overdrive

I also suggest you get Stephenson's "The Diamond Age" (it's about computer science in a roundabout manner).

Hell, for that matter you need Cliff Stoll's "The Cuckoo's Egg" (don't buy Silicon Snake Oil, it's a total bummer to read).

More books:
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Stephen Levy
Microserfs by Douglas Coupland
Being Digital by Nicholas Negroponte

[pluralofplural]

Clifton Fadiman's "Fantasia Mathematica" is fun: it's a collection of (for wont of better) mathematically-themed science fiction. If that works, there's more of that stuff (Fadiman created a second anthology, and there are other works in the genre).

Ted Chiang's collection "Stories of Your Life, And Others" is really good. I'd also recommend early Greg Egan, again with emphasis on the short story collections (although some of that might be treading too close to the objectionable content line).

You may wish to investigate Barry Hughart.

[_wirehead_]

i was going to say Greg Egan!! either Permutation City or Axiomatic (short story collection).

also, The Cyberiad.

[meshach]

Yes! The Cyberiad for sure.

[whitemage]

Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

I second the recommendation for Asimov's I, Robot collection.

[redglasses]

R. Shea and R. A. Wilson, Illuminatus!
Malaclypse the Younger, The Principia Discordia
Terry Pratchett, pretty much everything
Neil Gaiman, same
Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Good Omens
Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep
Larry Niven, mostly everything

[aleffert]

I'm pretty sure Illuminatus fails the "objectionable content" test. I'm also trying to picture a censored version of Illuminatus, with big black marks through about half the text or possibly 600 pages of thick black lines and the occasional fnord.