Fans pick 100 books like The History of the Future

While the term the “Metaverse” usually makes people think of a fully digital, immersive world, my own feeling is that technologies that bring digital information and entertainment into our physical world is a much more powerful and important arena. This leads us to the transformative and still-developing world of Augmented Reality.

David Rose of the MIT Media Lab has been working with Augmented Reality for more than a decade, and Supersight is an overview of what he's seen and what he’s learned in this time. 

What I love about Supersight is that while David is clearly as excited about this topic as I am, he’s also a realist, and openly discusses issues and challenges with Augmented Reality. Perhaps most valuable are the 14 Augmented Reality Design Principles that he outlines – super realistic, super useful.

After reading this, you’ll have a very grounded idea of the capabilities and potential of… show more.

Of all the books out there about the immersive technologies of virtual and augmented reality, Jeremy’s take on the subject is the one that looks the most closely at the security issues involved, especially when it comes to enterprise deployments. 

If you’re thinking about leveraging the awesome power of these technologies in your workplace, Jeremy’s hands-on discussion of to what to look for and what to avoid is an invaluable guide.

Stepping away from the topic of immersive technology, The Ransomware Hunting Team instead looks at the realities of cybercrime in the US, and why especially our government infrastructure has such a hard time fighting it effectively. 

Like all the other books on my list, it’s an examination of what happens when the rubber meets the road with a new technology, and how we humans often just aren’t very good at adapting to change.  

Part of the key problem is that hackers – including the white hat hackers that you want on your side to bring down the bad guys – tend not to be social animals, and our official organizations are far happier hiring a smiling guy in a suit than a scowling nerd who would rather work from his dark bedroom at home.  (Apologies for the stereotypes, but – this really is a problem!) 

This book is an absorbing… show more.

Adrian Hon is the founder of the truly fabulous fitness app Zombies, Run, in which you listen to a story in which you are a character as you run or walk to work out. 

Yes, there was a zombie apocalypse in this story, and every so often, the zombies appear – and you have to run!! (I didn’t know about Zombies, Run before I read this book, but I have since started using it, and I love it!)  

Adrian has been in the gaming world for a long time, and he is highly aware of how gaming can become coercive. He built Zombies, Run specifically to avoid coercion of any kind, but is deeply infuriated by all of the games out there that shamelessly continue to rely on coercion to generate usage and, of course, cash. 

In You’ve Been Played, Adrian outlines just how nasty some techniques can be,… show more.

This story is set in an Arabic cyberpunk future in which the rest of the world has splintered into warring factions. Where you traditionally find the cityscapes of Gibson, here you have the Budayeen, with its narrow streets and souks, its bars and strip clubs abutting mosques, and the daily calls to prayer cutting through the cries of hawkers, gangsters, and unfortunate tourists.

Audran is the classic flawed detective: drug-addled and morally grey but with a cynicism that I can’t help but love. He is cowardly at times, brave at others, self-serving, and selfless—a character to get your teeth into! However, like many books written forty years ago, many female characters are unalived, and it’s gory in places, so be warned if that isn’t your taste.

This story imagines a human colony on an alien world that is both terrifying and surreal. 

One by one the colonists meet strange fates or murder each other, until they all wake up to discover the entire sequence of events was a virtual reality—a diversion designed to occupy them while awaiting an unlikely rescue from otherwise certain doom. However, elements from the virtual reality escape into the waking world, leading to salvation for at least one of the voyagers.

This book will keep you guessing right up to the end, and beyond, making the reader consider what is real, what is religion, and what do we want most out of life.

I first read this book back in 2004 when I was spending way too much time with MMO games. This YA novel is certainly a product of a time where the tech of today was within sight but social media and smartphones didn't exist as we know them now. But the story more than makes up for this unfortunate timing with its witty characters, a structure reminiscent of the old Choose Your Own Adventure books and a fantasy game setting that leads this book to cross genres. I’m a big fan of sci-fi stories that follow the “Groundhog Day” structure like Returnal and Edge of Tomorrow. Do-overs are a crucial part of gaming and this novel builds that idea into its core premise while adding a unique twist.

Awaken Online: Catharsis was actually the very first LitRPG/GameLit book I ever read, and from the opening chapters, I was hooked.

It follows the story of Jason, a player in the VRMMO Awaken Online who becomes a powerful necromancer and is positioned as the game’s villain. I think what drew me in the most was how Jason explored his various abilities, always seeking new ways he might be able to modify or use them to his advantage.

He’s also not afraid to push back against what seems to be the established order within the system, utilizing his powers in a variety of awesome and surprising ways. I definitely drew inspiration from how the magic is described here for my own story, even though my story features less overt game elements.

It’s hard to describe Lavie Tidhar’s Central Station, except to say that it is a fascinating study of various humans and non-humans residing—some permanently, some temporarily—in a hot, dusty spaceport/city that has sprung up between Tel Aviv and Jaffa sometime in our future. They confront questions and answers about family, memory, reality, and what is human—and occasionally come up with answers. A wonderfully written, almost hypnotic book.

The Land by Aleron Kong is the third litRPG on this list, and probably the most famous. Every litRPG uses a few ways to denote progression, but this book has an almost unending series of charts, numbers, rules, and powers for everything. And I do mean everything.

Character growth. Weapon quality. Town building. To career building. Even dungeon building.

Everything progresses. Everything has level-ups. The world is huge, and the events feel extremely epic. This is also the longest series on the list, with books so massive, you could knock a fool out with one.

Definitely worth the time, though. Don’t miss out.