Recommend gritty near-future sci-fi novels

Branoic

I'm traditionally more of a fantasy guy when it comes to books, but I've just finished playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and loved the original game too. Also love Blade Runner and Do Andoids Dream of Electric Sheep. I'm on the look out for novels based in these sorts of worlds - gritty, urban, noir, near-future.

I've got the Deux Ex novel, The Icarus Effect, on order, as I've heard pretty good things on it. Can anyone recommend me anything else in this genre?

Delirium

Branoic wrote: »

I'm traditionally more of a fantasy guy when it comes to books, but I've just finished playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and loved the original game too. Also love Blade Runner and Do Andoids Dream of Electric Sheep. I'm on the look out for novels based in these sorts of worlds - gritty, urban, noir, near-future.

I've got the Deux Ex novel, The Icarus Effect, on order, as I've heard pretty good things on it. Can anyone recommend me anything else in this genre?

Haven't really read much of that type of book, but did read one recently that I enjoyed.

Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan.

In a society in which death has been rendered practically obsolete, suicide and murder take on different significances. After a particularly brutal offing, former UN envoy Takeshi Kovacs finds himself "resleeved"--that is, his consciousness has been put in a new body--and hired as a private investigator by Laurens Bancroft, one of twenty-fifth-century society's old rich in Bay City (formerly San Francisco). Bancroft claims he was murdered, but the police say it was a suicide. After Kovacs gets hit at his hotel within hours of being resleeved, he sees the possibility that Bancroft was, in fact, murdered, and that someone wants to keep it very hush-hush. As he investigates, he uncovers a far-reaching conspiracy with ties to the most unsavory characters in his generally unsavory military and criminal past. This far-future hard-boiled detective story is a lovely virtual-reality romp distinguished by a conspiracy whose strands have the potential to generate several successful sequels, which is just what its publicity promises.

johnnyskeleton

Metropolis, We, 1984, Brave New World, The City of Lost Things. Few others on the tip of my tongue but can't recall exactly right now.

mcgovern

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.
Neuromancer by William Gibson (and the sequels).

..Brian..

only forward by michael marshall smith - defo worth a read!

Andy-Pandy

Richard Morgans books and China Mieville's The City and The City

Hatgirl

The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov

Kadongy

William Gibson and Philip K Dick

ixoy

I only read one of his novels, years ago, but Jack Womack specialised in near-future novels (well probably past by now...) that were incredibly bleak. I seem to recall details that had, in certain areas of the future cities, ATMs that killed if you entered the pin code too often and public transport so crammed that people plunged from the roof to their deaths...

Manach

I'd recommend Peter Hamilton dystopic "Mindstar Rising" series.

Kadongy

make room make room by harry harrison, which is dark
incompetence by rob grant, which is funny as well as dark.

morgana

Manach wrote: »

I'd recommend Peter Hamilton dystopic "Mindstar Rising" series.

Seconded. Very intelligent books.

MOH

Richard Morgan was the first name I thought of too, well worth a read.

not as gritty, but Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash is excellent too.

pH

Could also try 2010 Hugo award winner
The Windup Girl (Paolo Bacigalupi)

Hatgirl

pH wrote: »

Could also try 2010 Hugo award winner
The Windup Girl (Paolo Bacigalupi)

Ooh, yes. That's very good.

Doc Ruby

Vienna Blood by Adrian Mathews is a ripping good cyberpunk-noir read. Note: NOT the similarly titled work by Tallis.

Perhaps you could try the laundry & halting state series by Charles Stross?

link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Stross#The_.22Bob_Howard_.E2.80.94_Laundry.22_series

You can get some of his books for free on his site too: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/online-fiction-by-charles-stro.html

me-skywalker

The Man in the High Castle - Philip K Dick and you did like his other work.
This is an alternative history story(not quite near future) but recommending it as you enjoyed Dicks's other work.

Dick's Hugo Award-winning 1962 alternative history considers the question of what would have happened if the Allied Powers had lost WWII. Some 20 years after that loss, the United States and much of the world has now been split between Japan and Germany, the major hegemonic states. But the tension between these two powers is mounting, and this stress is playing out in the western U.S. Through a collection of characters in various states of posing (spies, sellers of falsified goods, others with secret identities), Dick provides an intriguing tale about life and history as it relates to authentic and manufactured reality.

Miguel_Angel

I should say that you might want to read Ready Player One, I wasn't interested in that book but I started to read it and I have to say that is a really pageturner!!.

Cheers!

siobherz

The Running Man by stephen King - got made into a movie with Arnold Schwarznegger seems to fit exactly what you're looking for

Trojan

The Postman from Brin is near future, post-apocalyptic, but not urban. Also made into a so-so movie which usually ruins a good book's rep.