I was recommending U.B.I.K by Phillip K. Dick to someone and said it kind of reminded me of Inception. Made me wonder if anyone can think of any other stories like it.
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inception was heavily inspired by paprika https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paprika_(2006_film)
unfortunately it was Satoshi Kons last film before pancreatic cancer took him leaving his next film dreaming machine unfinished
his very last work was a 1 minute short called good morning https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4KIZD1cTJI
Thanks!
Sphere by Michael Crichton is somewhat similar.
I never read it but wouldn’t neuromancer be up there too?
Has been a couple of years since I read it but Neuromancer didn't really have a "losing your grip on reality" theme. At least not for me. It's also tough to read. Really didn't like the writing style of the author.
Like u/YouAreAPirate already suggested Sphere is a good candidate. Blindsight by Peter Watts too.
Currently reading The Peripheral and agree that Gibson can be a tough read. I've read most of his stuff but I'm finding this to be very obtuse and annoying.
I seriously struggled to finish Neuromancer and vowed to never read it again. It was like listening to an incoherent, shitfaced, high as a kite guy in a bar trying to tell you a story. The story itself is good but the way he tells it is painful to read. Just not my cup of tea.
No. Not at all.
Neuromancer is great. It is a book that invented a whole genre. It is nothing like the reality-fuck that is Inception.
Mona Lisa Overdrive is closer, if you want a Gibson novel. There Gibson plays with ... uh. Well, I can't say without it being a spoiler. Anyway, it is closer.
Haven’t read that either but I’ve heard it does. I think I have it on my shelf somewhere
Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson might be compared. Stephenson is a bit bombastic, but he is one of the OG Cyberpunk writers.
The Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons. There is time travel and causality gets bent a lot. It isn't at all obvious who the bad guys are or what they want. Realty gets very squishy in the middle of the series, though it all makes perfect sense after you know what is going on. It is a series that is good for re-reading with a lot of depth.
SPOILER SPACE; Look away now.
Snow Crash is about altered reality and an ancient memetic mind-virus that suborns peoples agency. You can become an enemy agent by hearing or seeing something, which then causes your brain to your biochemistry to make it contagious by blood contamination.
Hyperion is definitely one hell of a trip. Still haven't read Book 3&4. Need to change that.
Have that book in my “books to read” mountain. Sounds very interesting
depends on how broad of a comparison you want. The whole "worlds within worlds within worlds" concept has been around for decades, if not centuries.
Just any stories that jump out to you. UBIK made me think of it
well, one that popped into my head was a book in the Magic of Xanth "trilogy," by Piers Anthony. the book in question is Faun & Games, and if the title didn't clue you in, this is a world infested in puns, so you've been warned.
Basically the faun (think saytr, but not violent and rapacious) in question has to go to a moon orbiting the head of a sorceress, and then to another, and another, and another...(you get the idea) to find someone to replace a fellow faun and friend of his who was swallowed whole by an inescapable abyss to save his lost friends' tree.
Fair warning, the series is a bit on the risque side, though it steers clear of overt sex scenes, although the book has more than its fair share of titillating moments...
I've read some of his books and have a few Xanth books that I haven't read yet. I'll see if I have that one.
the early books are definitely more standard fantasy, though they inevitably take a turn for the tongue-in-cheek in later books. the auther didn't really want to do fantasy, but his publisher basically twisted his arm, lol
"A Madness Of Angels" is interesting, as it is written in first-person-perspective, of someone who is both 1) from a different morality worldview than ours, and 2) actually insane. It's Modern Fantasy rather than Near-Modern Sci-Fi, but there's a reasonable amount of having fun trying to figure out what's happening not in a whodunnit way but in a "peel back the perspective layers" way, which is kinda-sorta like a "peel back the reality/dream layers" way of Inception.
That stated... It's first-person free-writing. While you definitely get used to it as you read it, it's NOT an easy or light reading to get into at the start.
Sounds very interesting. Thanks!