See You In the Metaverse! A Sci-Fi Reading List
"Metaverse"—an immersive online world—is a word we're hearing more and more, but what exactly it will be is unclear and unwritten. However it does seem certain that our online experiences will continue to evolve in both expected and unexpected ways. In the thirty years since Neal Stephenson coined the word in his classic novel Snow Crash, writers have run with the concept and envisioned both optimistic and bleak outcomes. The books below explore fictional metaverses and virtual realities that offer opportunity and risk to the protagonists who perilously move between the real world and the online one.
For a small (and fun!) taste of the future, we invite you to get (and give) book recommendations by visiting NYPL's first virtual branch created with augmented reality technology and accessible via Instagram Reels.
Neuromancer
by William Gibson
Case was the sharpest data-thief in the matrix—until he crossed the wrong people and they crippled his nervous system, banishing him from cyberspace. Now a mysterious new employer has recruited him for a last-chance run at an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence. With a dead man riding shotgun and Molly, a mirror-eyed street-samurai, to watch his back, Case is ready for the adventure that upped the ante on an entire genre of fiction.
Snow Crash
by Neal Stephenson
In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo’s CosoNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse he’s a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus that’s striking down hackers everywhere, he races along the neon-lit streets on a search-and-destroy mission for the shadowy virtual villain threatening to bring about infocalypse.
The Candy House
by Jennifer Egan
Told through lives of multiple characters, this electrifying, deeply moving novel, spanning 10 years, follows “Own Your Unconscious,” a new technology that allows access to every memory you’ve ever had, and to share every memory in exchange for success to the memories of others.
Unplugged
by Donna Freitas
Years after being sent by her family to the extravagant virtual App World to live a life of wealth and privilege, Skylar relinquishes the glamour and prestige of her expensive downloads in favor of spending time with her family in the Real World, an effort that is dashed when the borders between worlds suddenly close
Into the Real
by John Ringo & Lydia Sherrer
Lynn Raven may be the online master of WarMonger 2050 but when the CEO of Tsunami Entertainment asks her to beta test a new augmented reality game, she has to face her greatest fear: going outside and dealing with...well, people. As she becomes immersed in the game, the stakes rise and so do the obstacles. She has to face a new fear: is she willing to step into the real to win the future she’s always wanted?
The Imago Stage
by Karoline Georges; translated from the French by Rhonda Mullins
Growing up with a menacing drunk for a father and a grief-stricken mother, a girl spends her 1980s childhood staring at the television to escape. After leaving home to work as a model and retiring, she buys a studio in Montreal and retreats from the world, cultivating her existence through her virtual reality avatar. But when her mother develops cancer and nears the end of her life, she is forced to leave her cocoon and interact with the world and her parents without the mask of her perfect, virtual self.
Green Valley
by Louis Greenberg
When Lucie's niece is abducted, she knows it won't be easy to find answers in Green Valley, where the inhabitants have retreated into the comfort of full-time virtual reality—personae non gratae to the outside world. And it's inside Green Valley, beyond the ideal virtual world it presents, that Lucie will have to go to find her missing niece.
Several People Are Typing
by Calvin Kasulke
When his consciousness is uploaded into his company’s internal Slack channels, boosting his productivity, Gerald, who works for a PR firm, as his reality becomes more absurd, enlists the help of a co-worker to help him escape—and to find out what happened to his body.
88 Names
by Matt Ruff
A romantic cyberthriller set in a world of fluid identities follows the experiences of a paid guide to online role-playing games who comes to believe that an anonymous wealthy new client is actually a violent dictator.
The Nirvana Effect
by Brian Pinkerton
No one goes out anymore. Society is sheltered indoors. The economy is in ruins. People spend their lives addicted to a breakthrough virtual reality technology. Aaron and Clarissa are members of a subculture who resist the lure of a fake utopia. They watch in horror as the technology spreads across the country with willing participants who forgo their freedoms for false pleasures. When they discover a plot to enforce compliance for mind control, the battle for free will begins.
Deep Dive
by Ron Walters
Coming off a failed project, a video game developer needs a win to save his struggling company and accidentally gets trapped in an eerily familiar world where his children no longer exist while testing a new virtual reality headset.
Young Adult
Ready Player One
by Ernest Cline
Immersing himself in a mid-21st-century technological virtual utopia to escape an ugly real world of famine, poverty and disease, Wade Watts joins an increasingly violent effort to solve a series of puzzles by the virtual world's super-wealthy creator, who has promised that the winner will be his heir.
Walking in Two Worlds
by Wab Kinew
When Bugz, who is caught between the worlds of life on the Rez and the virtual world, meets Feng, they form an instant bond as outsiders and gamers and must both grapple with the impact of family challenges and community trauma.
Rainbow in the Dark
by Sean McGinty
High school senior Rainbow is trapped with three other teens in a game-like world that may or may not be real. Together, they must complete quests and gain experience in order to access their own forgotten memories, decode what has happened to them, and find a portal home.
Otherworld
by Jason Segel and Kirsten Miller
That’s how Otherworld traps you—it introduces you to sensations you’d never be able to feel in real life. There are no screens. There are no controls. You don’t just see and hear it—you taste, smell, and touch it too. This is Otherworld—a virtual reality game so addictive you’ll never want it to end. And Simon has just discovered that for some, it might not.
Eve (Graphic Novel)
by Victor LaValle
When the ice caps melted, most of humanity was lost to the hidden disease that was released. Now, a mysterious girl named Eve has awoken in secret and must deal with a world that’s nothing like the virtual reality she was raised in. In order to save her father, Eve must embark on a deadly quest across the country. Along the way, she will have to contend not only with the threats of a very real world, but the lies we tell our children in the name of protecting them.
Warcross
by Marie Wu
A teen hacker and competitive bounty hunter who tracks down rule breakers of a wildly popular alternate-reality game accidentally glitches herself into a championship tournament, where she becomes an overnight sensation before being recruited as a spy for the game's billionaire developer.
Strange Exit
by Parker Peevyhouse
Trapped on an orbiting spaceship after a nuclear event destroys life on a forgotten Earth, a 17-year-old girl is challenged to convince her in-stasis fellow passengers to leave their virtual-reality world, before a new friend begins making murderous decisions.
Summaries provided via NYPL’s catalog, which draws from multiple sources. Click through to each book’s title for more.