Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash is one of the most popular sci-fi books of all time, and together with William Gibson's Neuromancer it stands as a foundational text of the cyberpunk movement. Science fiction author Anthony Ha was blown away by Snow Crash when he first read it back in the late '90s. "This was a period when there were some clunky representations of virtual reality in movies and TV," Ha says in Episode 487 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. "So it wasn't that Snow Crash was the first time I encountered that kind of iconography, but it was the first time it actually seemed cool." Snow Crash tells the story of Hiro Protagonist, a katana-wielding hacker who jumps back and forth between dystopian Los Angeles and a virtual world called the Metaverse.

Before the anime adaptations of Ghost in the Shell, there was the original manga by Masamune Shirow and it changed the world of cyberpunk fiction forever. When this manga first appeared at the end of the late 80's, it was during the final part of Japan's boom years. Many thought the good times would go on forever and in many ways, this manga was an example of that. It took the then fledgling science of its era and imparted Japan's industrial drive into a unique take on cyberpunk, the result was probably one of Shirow's best works and it's telling that it has gone on to create such a long running saga in the time since. This original manga then is where Ghost in the Shell started. It introduces us to Motoko Kusanagi, also known as the Major, who is a full-blown cyborg.