The Starship and the Canoe by Kenneth Brower
A father is an astrophysicist who has great ideas for how to create a nuclear powered spaceship to rocket across the universe. The son lives in a treehouse in British Columbia. This book ties their two lives together. Which one is the more practical?
Snow Crash takes place primarily in the "metaverse". However, it was written long before the current Meta company ever existed. (Zuckerberg would have been in elementary school!) There are software engineers, pizza delivery guys and mafiosos. Religion can be spread by a virus. Ancient Sumerian culture appears frequently. The novel feels surprisingly contemporary, despite being three decades old.
Anathem is a long philosophical novel. The world is just different enough from ours to make it difficult to understand what is going on. Most of the book involves conversations with "math monks". They discuss math, philosophy, theoretical physics and their interaction with the secular world. Interspersed with this philosophical discussion is a "mission" and the appearance of alien visitors. They discover that they are similar but different from the humans of their planet. Eventually people from both meet up and explore possible outcomes. In structure and length, the novel feels like a fantasy work. On content, however, it is science fiction write with clear modern day mores. There are plenty of ideas to keep for a long "geek" conversation.
