Take a photo of a barcode or cover
Chaff (1993)
The newest front of the drug war is a drug that alters the user's neurological function to where arbitrary stimulus can create any effect on sensory experience. A DEA agent who believes that consciousness is irrelevant and instinctual drives control everything is tasked with retrieving a biochemist, a traitor, from a massive bioengineered rain forest in the Amazon Lowlands.
Enjoyable
Mitochondrial Eve (1995)
A man in love with a woman reluctantly visited the local establishment of The Children of Eve, a genealogy obsessed ancestor worship cult of Mitochondrial Eve. Eventually he's tasked with scientifically proving that all humans descended from a single woman. I was rather amused by the politics of the story.
Enjoyable
Luminous (1995)
I'd describe this as a metaphysical mathematics conspiracy thriller. I have no doubt though that I would've enjoyed it more if I had more of a background in mathematics, but even so I enjoyed anyway, mostly in an abstract way. The infodump is the narrative - there's no meaningful difference between the two. The basic idea of the story is that all mathematical theorems must be tested by a physical system to be proven true or false. Mathematical Platonism is ridiculed. By doing so they realize that truth is locally defined and there are competing systems of mathematical logic that are in conflict. Then it gets weirder.
Enjoyable
Mister Volition (1995)
An impoverished man robs a wealthy man of a neural prosthetic, which he discovers is called PANDEMONIUM. Despite the ominous name and his need to sell it for money to pay for rent, he decides to use it for himself. It lives up to its name. Nietzsche, Sartre, and Camus are explicitly mentioned and the narrative is based on their ideas, though the idea being explored is inspired by Minsky and Dennett.
Ok
Cocoon (1994)
A corporation develops a cocoon for fetuses with the stated purpose that harmful actions by the mother or environmental hazards don't affect their development. Their R&D laboratory is bombed and an investigator, seemingly all government services have been privatized, is hired to find the culprit. The primary idea here is the convergence of sexual politics and corporate greed.
Enjoyable
Transition Dreams (1993)
It's unclear how much, if any, of this is unreliable narration. Usually I'm at least indifferent to that, but in this case I didn't like it. If everything is accepted as presented in the story then this is about the dreams a consciousness has while being transferred from a biological body to an artificial body. Strangely, nothing interested me about it.
Meh
Silver Fire (1995)
This story has a lot of problems. Ostensibly it's about an epidemiologist tracking down how a new disease, Silver Fire, is spreading. Considering the effect that COVID has had globally with its infectious though relativity low death rate, the response to a global pandemic disease that kills 90% of those it infects within is rather muted. I don't know that I can suspend my disbelief as well with these sort of stories now. There's various other questionable parts, but the disease isn't what it's really about. Moral panic is common, though this isn't that. Instead, I'd call this scientific panic. The problem is that I don't think it was done well.
Meh
Reasons to be Cheerful (1997)
A story of emotional extremes and choices, both arbitrary and pragmatic. This was difficult and painful for me to read due to its subject matter and for personal reasons. I found it to be very meaningful, which may be why I was so emotionally affected. It's the kind of work that I would never recommend reading, but also wouldn't discourage. How applicable is any of the above to anyone else? I don't know. Based on the responses I saw from various people on multiple websites it seems to entirely depend on your personal experiences and outlook on life.
Unrated
Our Lady of Chernobyl (1994)
An investigator searches for a stolen religious icon. The courier had been murdered. His employer was irrationally desperate to have it retrieved. No one has any idea why the icon mattered and the employer refused to explain. It's a fine investigation story, though nothing about it was notable to me. The ending is somewhat melodramatic about religion.
Ok
The Planck Dive (1998)
A group of posthumans create copies of themselves to enter a black hole to examine the properties of spacetime at planck scale. It doesn't matter that the copies will die without being able to retrieve any information. All that matters is to have known. Also, Prospero and Cordelia, posthumans as well, arrive from Athens to ignore all the science and compose an epic. Most of the story is infodump discussion.
Ok
The newest front of the drug war is a drug that alters the user's neurological function to where arbitrary stimulus can create any effect on sensory experience. A DEA agent who believes that consciousness is irrelevant and instinctual drives control everything is tasked with retrieving a biochemist, a traitor, from a massive bioengineered rain forest in the Amazon Lowlands.
Enjoyable
Mitochondrial Eve (1995)
A man in love with a woman reluctantly visited the local establishment of The Children of Eve, a genealogy obsessed ancestor worship cult of Mitochondrial Eve. Eventually he's tasked with scientifically proving that all humans descended from a single woman. I was rather amused by the politics of the story.
Enjoyable
Luminous (1995)
I'd describe this as a metaphysical mathematics conspiracy thriller. I have no doubt though that I would've enjoyed it more if I had more of a background in mathematics, but even so I enjoyed anyway, mostly in an abstract way. The infodump is the narrative - there's no meaningful difference between the two. The basic idea of the story is that all mathematical theorems must be tested by a physical system to be proven true or false. Mathematical Platonism is ridiculed. By doing so they realize that truth is locally defined and there are competing systems of mathematical logic that are in conflict. Then it gets weirder.
Enjoyable
Mister Volition (1995)
An impoverished man robs a wealthy man of a neural prosthetic, which he discovers is called PANDEMONIUM. Despite the ominous name and his need to sell it for money to pay for rent, he decides to use it for himself. It lives up to its name. Nietzsche, Sartre, and Camus are explicitly mentioned and the narrative is based on their ideas, though the idea being explored is inspired by Minsky and Dennett.
Ok
Cocoon (1994)
A corporation develops a cocoon for fetuses with the stated purpose that harmful actions by the mother or environmental hazards don't affect their development. Their R&D laboratory is bombed and an investigator, seemingly all government services have been privatized, is hired to find the culprit. The primary idea here is the convergence of sexual politics and corporate greed.
Enjoyable
Transition Dreams (1993)
It's unclear how much, if any, of this is unreliable narration. Usually I'm at least indifferent to that, but in this case I didn't like it. If everything is accepted as presented in the story then this is about the dreams a consciousness has while being transferred from a biological body to an artificial body. Strangely, nothing interested me about it.
Meh
Silver Fire (1995)
This story has a lot of problems. Ostensibly it's about an epidemiologist tracking down how a new disease, Silver Fire, is spreading. Considering the effect that COVID has had globally with its infectious though relativity low death rate, the response to a global pandemic disease that kills 90% of those it infects within is rather muted. I don't know that I can suspend my disbelief as well with these sort of stories now. There's various other questionable parts, but the disease isn't what it's really about. Moral panic is common, though this isn't that. Instead, I'd call this scientific panic. The problem is that I don't think it was done well.
Meh
Reasons to be Cheerful (1997)
A story of emotional extremes and choices, both arbitrary and pragmatic. This was difficult and painful for me to read due to its subject matter and for personal reasons. I found it to be very meaningful, which may be why I was so emotionally affected. It's the kind of work that I would never recommend reading, but also wouldn't discourage. How applicable is any of the above to anyone else? I don't know. Based on the responses I saw from various people on multiple websites it seems to entirely depend on your personal experiences and outlook on life.
Unrated
Our Lady of Chernobyl (1994)
An investigator searches for a stolen religious icon. The courier had been murdered. His employer was irrationally desperate to have it retrieved. No one has any idea why the icon mattered and the employer refused to explain. It's a fine investigation story, though nothing about it was notable to me. The ending is somewhat melodramatic about religion.
Ok
The Planck Dive (1998)
A group of posthumans create copies of themselves to enter a black hole to examine the properties of spacetime at planck scale. It doesn't matter that the copies will die without being able to retrieve any information. All that matters is to have known. Also, Prospero and Cordelia, posthumans as well, arrive from Athens to ignore all the science and compose an epic. Most of the story is infodump discussion.
Ok